The rain came down in sheets, turning the world silver and soft, like a dream being washed away.

She stood across from him, drenched—hair clinging to her face, clothes heavy with rain, eyes burning with everything she couldn’t say. Sunghoon held the umbrella over himself, the edge barely brushing her shoulder, as if even shelter had to respect the distance between them.

"I should go," she whispered, her voice breaking like the sky above them.

He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just looked at her like he was memorizing every drop sliding down her skin.

"You always say that," he said quietly.

"And one day I’ll mean it."

A breath passed. Maybe two.

Then, with a voice so low it was almost a vow, Sunghoon said, “And so, I will carry you in the quietest corners of my heart, where no one can take you from me. I will love you in unspoken words, in the spaces between my breaths, in every life I will live after this one where you were never mine, but I was always yours.”

She stared at him, rain blurring her vision, or maybe it was the tears. Probably both.

And he didn’t reach for her. Didn’t kiss her like in all the stories they both wished were theirs.

He just stood there, umbrella between them, the ache of forever written in the way he let her go.