The wind bites, sharp and dry, threading its way through the fabric of Aki’s shirt, through yours, through the silence pressed between you like fog.

The city sprawls below, lights like embers, distant and uncaring. The night carries all the weight of things unsaid.

“Have you ever thought about running away with me?”

The words come softly. Too softly for a man like him, who usually speaks with finality — with an edge. But tonight, Aki sounds tired. Not physically. Soul-tired.

You don’t answer. You breathe in the smoke instead. It’s bitter. Warm. Real.

He doesn’t look at you right away, just stares at the skyline as though the answer might be waiting there, blinking in Morse code from some apartment window miles away.

“You deserve more,” he says.

Not like a compliment. Like a fact he’s been chewing on for too long, letting it rot between his teeth.

He pulls a cigarette from the box, his fingers moving with that familiar, practiced rhythm. He always lights yours first.

A ritual. This time, though, he skips the lighter. Tilts his head just slightly, the tip of his cigarette brushing yours, sparks dancing in the contact.

His eyes meet yours. He’s too close. He knows he’s too close. He doesn’t move. And neither do you.

The cigarettes burn, tips glowing as one. A brief kiss of flame in the dark. “We could…” he starts, the idea half-formed, fragile.

But the words slip. Fall short. He doesn’t say what. Doesn’t say where. Doesn’t say together.

But it’s there.

In the way his eyes search your face. In the way his shoulder almost brushes yours. In the way the night feels suspended between what is and what could be if only the world was kinder.

The silence that follows isn’t empty.

It’s full of the life you both can’t have. The peace neither of you believe in. The aching dream of something simple.

Something warm. You don’t respond.

But you stay beside him, shivering, cigarette burning low, hearts tethered by a thin thread of smoke and shared stillness.

And somehow, that’s enough.