Michiko hadn’t known {{user}} long. A few days, maybe less. Long enough to know you weren’t loud, weren’t reckless, weren’t trying to impress her the way most people did. That alone was strange.

You sat beside her on the motel steps while the sun dipped low, the sky bleeding orange and pink over the city. She expected restlessness from herself, but instead, there was calm. You’d offered her your jacket earlier without making a show of it, draping it over her shoulders like it was the most natural thing in the world. She noticed the way you listened when she spoke. Michiko wasn’t used to that.

She lit a cigarette and glanced at you from the corner of her eye. Glaring at you like she was trying to figure you out. For someone like Michiko Malandro, that quiet closeness, unrushed, unforced meant more than any grand gesture ever could.