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Link (Chapter 4) - Chapter 4: Close Enough to Notice
The tea went untouched.
Mira set the mug down on the table, steam curling upward like it was trying to escape the room. Arin noticed it only because his hands were suddenly very still in his lap. The apartment felt smaller than it had an hour ago not cramped, just intimate in a way that made every sound feel louder.
“You’re quiet,” Mira said, sitting beside him again.
“So are you,” he replied.
She smiled faintly. “That’s because I’m deciding whether I should ruin the mood.”
His heart skipped, just once. “That depends on how you define ruin.”
She turned her body toward him fully now, knees drawn up, expression thoughtful rather than playful. The teasing edge she wore so easily was gone.
“Arin,” she said slowly, “what are you hoping this becomes?”
The question landed softly, but it stayed.
He didn’t answer right away. He stared at the table, at the notebook, at anything except her eyes. Not because he didn’t know but because saying it out loud felt like crossing a line he couldn’t uncross.
“I wasn’t planning on hoping,” he said finally. “It just… happened.”
Mira nodded, like she’d expected that.
“That’s usually how the dangerous ones start.”
She reached for her notebook, flipping through pages without really reading them. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter.
“I’m bad at things that don’t have an ending,” she admitted. “Stories end. Chapters end. Even messy ones eventually resolve.”
“And people?” he asked.
She looked up at him. “People don’t come with structure.”
The honesty in her voice made his chest tighten.
“I don’t want this to be a moment,” she continued. “Something we look back on and say, ‘That was nice.’ I also don’t want it to be something that asks more than either of us can give.”
Arin turned toward her. “What are you afraid of?”
She laughed once softly, without humor.
“That you’ll disappear when things stop being poetic.”
He shook his head. “And you?”
“That I’ll want more than you meant to offer.”
The space between them filled with everything they weren’t touching.
Arin inhaled slowly. “Mira… I don’t flirt like this. I don’t invite myself into someone’s world unless I mean it.”
Her gaze softened. “I noticed.”
He hesitated, then added, “But I’m also not great at promises I can’t define yet.”
She smiled, not disappointed, not relieved. Just real.
“Then maybe we don’t define it,” she said. “Maybe we just agree not to lie.”
Something in him settled.
She leaned back slightly, her shoulder brushing his arm. The contact was accidental in name only. He didn’t move away. Neither did she.
“You know,” she murmured, “I didn’t expect you to feel this… steady.”
“And I didn’t expect you to feel this… deliberate,” he replied.
Her lips curved. “Careful. Compliments like that make me reckless.”
They shared a quiet laugh, the tension easing just enough to breathe again.
Mira stood, pacing once across the room, then turned back to him.
“Stay a little longer,” she said. Not an invitation, not a command just a request.
He nodded. “Okay.”
She sat beside him again, closer this time. Close enough that warmth mattered. She rested her head briefly against his shoulder not lingering, just long enough to say something without words.
Arin exhaled.
This wasn’t the moment where everything happened.
It was the moment where they both understood
that something could.
And that understanding changed everything.
... Chapter 6
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