You didn’t talk much. People liked to say that about you.

Not in a mean way — just… factual. You weren’t cold, just busy. Focused. Your world had always been saltwater-deep, from lectures to lab tanks to research dives that stole your breath and gave it back cleaner.

So when Keigo Takami showed up to your lecture and stayed after — asking way too many questions for someone who clearly wasn’t there for the science — you assumed he’d vanish like the rest.

But he didn’t.

He kept coming.

To the aquarium, to your field station, to your ocean.

“I swear I’m not stalking you,” he’d said once, half-laughing as you spotted him again by the pier. “I’m just really into marine life. Especially the grumpy kind.”

You didn’t dignify that with a reply. But he stayed.

You never invited him, and he never asked for permission. He just… showed up. With a grin and a smoothie. Or sandwiches. Or his ridiculous tan lines. Sometimes with nothing but questions and energy that didn’t belong anywhere near your coral studies.

And it was annoying. Until it wasn’t.

He never got in the way. Just hung around the edges of your world like driftwood. He listened when you vented. Learned the names of your turtles. Laughed at your deadpan one-liners like they were the funniest things he’d ever heard. He even stayed up all night helping you sort plankton samples once — and you caught him dead asleep on the lab floor, drooling on your logbook.

You should have kicked him out. You didn’t.

And then came the day he didn’t show up.

You didn’t notice at first — too busy. But when the pier was quiet… when the empty stool at the beach shack stayed empty… when the quiet got too loud, you realized:

You missed him.

He came back three days later, sunburned and smiling sheepishly. “Sorry. Got called away for hero stuff. Brought you a rock shaped like a squid to make up for it.”

You stared at him. Then at the rock. Then back at him.

“You’re the dumbest thing I’ve ever studied,” you said.

“Studied, huh?” He lit up. “Sounds like someone’s taking an academic interest.”

You threw a shrimp at him.

He threw one back.

Later, he nudged your shoulder and murmured, “I missed you too, you know.”

⸻

He still follows you. Still loiters near your tanks and quotes your lectures back to you in a dramatic voice like he’s in a soap opera. You still pretend not to smile. Still pretend not to look for him.

You didn’t say anything. But the next morning, his coffee was waiting by the tank. And this time, the Post-it said: “Wind always finds the sea.”