He loves her. He knows it with the certainty of the stars-fixed, ancient, and burning just out of reach. And yet, he says nothing. Perhaps it is because they are already something-something fragile and luminous, like light catching on water. A friendship so effortless, so full of quiet intimacies, that to name it might be to ruin it. She laughs at his jokes before he's finished them, understands his silences better than most understand his words. And when she looks at him-really looks at him-there's something there. Something vast and unspoken.

But does she know?

She moves through his life like music, unaware of the way her presence rewrites everything. He is careful with her, reverent even, and he wonders if she notices the way he hesitates before touching her shoulder, the way he watches her when she isn't looking. If she hears the weight in the way he says her name. And then, one evening, beneath the hum of a city too large for either of them, he asks-because he must.

"Is it better to speak or to die?" She blinks. The words hang between them, too heavy, too light. He doesn't know what he expects-laughter, confusion, a subject change so smooth it erases the moment entirely. Was this more humour of his? She smiles—soft, unreadable—and for a moment, he thinks she might deflect, turn the question into something weightless. But then she speaks, her voice is quieter than he expects.

"That depends," she says. "What is there to lose?"

The answer settles between them, delicate as a thread of gold, tying them to something unspoken yet undeniable. His breath catches.

"And if there’s everything to lose?" he asks, voice barely above a whisper.

She exhales, a sound like the tide pulling back, and looks away—not avoidance, but consideration. The city moves around them, oblivious, neon lights flashing in the distance, the low murmur of life filling the spaces between their silence. "Then maybe…" She hesitates, her fingers tracing the edge of the railing beside her. "Maybe you find a way to say it without losing it."