They returned to London on a Sunday evening, the kind that felt like the end of something.

  The train rumbled gently beneath them, the sky outside streaked with violet and amber. Aki rested her head against the window, watching fields give way to suburbs, suburbs to city.

  Evan sat beside her, quiet — one arm draped across her shoulders, his thumb brushing soft, absent circles over her sleeve.

  Neither of them said it.

  But they both felt it.

  The shift.

  The re-entry into real life.

  The ticking clock.

  Back in the flat, everything looked the same, but felt slightly different — like returning to a room after someone has moved the furniture just enough to notice.

  Aki placed her sketchbook on the table and stared at the calendar pinned beside the kitchen.

  Three weeks.

  That’s how long her visa had left.

  Twenty-one days.

  She felt it like a weight in her chest — not sharp, not loud, just… present. Like a clock sitting quietly in the corner of every conversation.

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  The next morning, Evan kissed her goodbye at the door, the way he always did — but this time, he lingered a little longer, like he was imprinting the moment.

  “I’ll be back by six,” he said. “We’ll go somewhere nice tonight.”

  Aki nodded, forcing a smile. “I’ll find a dress that says ‘chic but not panicking.’”

  He grinned, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  Left alone, Aki wandered through the neighborhood.

  She stopped at the bakery. The owner remembered her now.

  She strolled through the bookstore two blocks down, tracing her fingers along spines she couldn’t afford to buy and titles she didn’t know how to carry home.

  She ended up in a small park near the river, sitting on a bench with pigeons cooing at her feet.

  She pulled out her phone and opened her notes app — the one where she kept little fragments of thought, half-formed sketches, and sentences that hadn’t found a story yet.

  And she typed:

  How do you know when it’s love and not just a beautiful intermission between lives?

  Then she deleted it.

  Then typed again:

  Or maybe love is the life. And everything else — the job, the city, the timing — is just furniture we rearrange to make space for it.

  That night, Evan took her to a small rooftop restaurant overlooking the Thames.

  It wasn’t flashy. Just quiet string lights, the scent of basil and charred lemon, and a view of the water catching every bit of city light like memory.

  They ordered wine and too many starters. Talked about their favorite books growing up. Laughed about the time Evan accidentally called a pub landlord “mum” on his first day back in London.

  It was easy. Perfect, even.

  And beneath it all, the question waited — unsaid.

  What happens next?

  Later, as they walked home under a sky full of low clouds and leftover moonlight, Aki slid her fingers between his.

  “Do you ever think about… what this looks like six months from now?” she asked.

  Evan didn’t flinch.

  He just squeezed her hand gently.

  “All the time,” he said.

  A beat passed.

  “And?”

  “I think I’d rather make messy plans than live a perfect life without you in it.”

  Aki stopped walking.

  “Say that again.”

  Evan turned, confused. “What?”

  “That last part. About the perfect life.”

  He stepped closer, his hands finding her waist.

  “I’d rather figure out how to do life with you — even if it’s complicated. Even if we make mistakes. I just… don’t want a version of the future where we’re strangers who once shared something good.”

  Her eyes burned, but she smiled through it.

  “I don’t either.”

  They stood there on a quiet street, city lights humming around them, and kissed like a promise. Like something had been decided.

  Not every detail.

  Not the how or the when.

  But the who.

  And that was enough.