Chapter 10
Lumi
The side of his lips twitched up, just barely. Gone almost as fast as it ca.
He walked in and asked how I was doing. I said I was fine. Neither of us ntioned the song.
When he stepped further into the hallway his eyes caught the dining table and his feet slowed. Just a fraction.
His brow lifted once. A single, quiet movent but I caught it because I wanted to catch all his reactions.
He looked at the table. Then he looked at .
I watched his throat move.
He didn’t say anything. Just nodded once, slow and deliberate, then walked to the table like the decision had already been made sowhere before the nod.
He pulled out the chair carefully. Sat down. Opened the al with the kind of unhurried attention he seed to give to most things, like there was no version of the world where rushing made sense.
I stood by the kitchen doorway and tried not to look like I was watching him. But I was watching him.
He picked up the spoon and brought it to his mouth and I stood very still, barely breathing. He chewed once. I searched his face for sothing, anything at all — a shift in his jaw, a flicker behind his eyes, the small involuntary things a face does when it doesn’t know it’s being read.
Nothing.
His expression stayed exactly as it was. Calm. Unreadable. Like the food was sothing he was simply processing and not sothing I had spent the better part of the afternoon standing over.
I exhaled quietly and looked at the wall. I’d intentionally made his best food, not sure if it still was his best food though.
He didn’t know this but last night had done sothing to .
The song. The quiet of the guest room. The way sleep had co without a fight for the first ti since I left London.
It had settled sothing in that I had been circling for days without knowing how to land.
It gave clarity. I had never been more certain of anything.
"If you co tomorrow," I said, keeping my voice even, "you won’t et ho."
The spoon stopped halfway to his mouth.
He looked at . Held it there for a mont, suspended. Then he set the spoon down slowly, then pushed back his chair.
I blinked. "Where are you going?"
He paused mid-rise. Turned to look at and there was sothing in his face that was steady and direct but not unkind.
"You need to be plain about what you want, Lumi." My lips parted slightly but I closed them again.
"I understand you want to stop checking up on you, that you’re not a child. But you don’t have to go this far to make that clear." He glanced briefly at the table, then back at . "It’s better I leave now."
I stared at him.
He had arrived at a conclusion. I could see it sitting in the straight line of his shoulders.
He had taken my words and built sothing out of them that made complete sense from where he was standing and was entirely wrong.
I lifted both hands and waved them quickly between us. "That’s not what I ant."
He stopped. Turned back fully. His head tilted a fraction and his eyes moved to my face, unhurried, waiting without impatience.
"I’m going back to the UK tomorrow." I steadied my voice. "There are things I need to handle. People I need to face. I said it because I didn’t want you arriving here and not finding ." I paused and looked at him directly. "That’s all I ant."
He looked at for a long mont.
Sothing moved through his face slowly, working its way through his expression. His brows pulled together.
The silence stretched.
"Have you forgiven him?" My eyes went wide before I could stop them.
The question landed before I had any defense ready, before I could arrange my face into sothing neutral.
"What?" My voice ca out sharper than I intended. "No." I shook my head. "No. Never."
Sothing left his shoulders. A barely visible release, like pressure that had been sitting just below the surface finally finding sowhere to go. He drew a long breath and let it out quietly.
Then he looked away from for the first ti since he had turned back around. Just for a mont. Just long enough for to see that the answer had mattered to him more than he would have said out loud.
I know it did because even though we’ve had this backa and forth, he wouldn’t want to make that decision.
I’d never make that decision, it’s actually quite the opposite.
"Then why are you going back?" His voice was quiet when he brought his eyes back to . "You’re already becoming Lumi again."
The words hit sowhere I hadn’t thought to guard.
My throat closed before I could stop it. I felt the sting co fast, the kind that starts behind the eyes and works its way forward before you have any say in the matter. I blinked once, hard, and looked just past his shoulder.
He was right.
That was the entire point. That was the reason I had stood in front of the bathroom mirror this morning and felt sothing different looking back at .
That was why I had gone for a run this morning, cleaned the house, cooked a real al and set two plates on the table without deciding to.
I was becoming Lumi again.
And the only way to keep her was to go back and close what I had left open.
I didn’t say any of that. I didn’t know how to yet. The words were there sowhere but they weren’t ready, they were still tangled up in things I hadn’t fully sorted through, and saying them half-ford felt worse than saying nothing at all.
So I said nothing.
He didn’t push. He just looked at for a mont longer and then walked across the room, drew the empty chair close to mine, and sat down in it.
He rested his forearms on his knees and looked at .
"Who am I to you?" I looked at him.
The question sat between us simply, without weight or pressure, which sohow made it heavier.
"Answer truthfully. Please."
I held his gaze. "You’re my best friend’s younger brother."
He nodded. Once. Slow and deliberate.
"That’s okay." A pause. "We can manage that for now." He looked at steadily, not moving.
"But in case you’ve forgotten... I’m Ren." His voice didn’t change, didn’t dip into sentint, just stayed even and certain. "It’s been seven years, Lumi. But I’m still Ren."
Sothing moved in my chest. Quiet and old, the kind of feeling that has been sitting sowhere undisturbed for so long it’s grown roots.
Seven years.
I let the thought sit there for a mont and behind it ca the mory, sudden and clear.
The mories that were preserved sowhere careful.
The night before I left, my apartnt was a ss and I was almost getting frustrated because I hadn’t finished packing my stuff.
He had co with Neve. He was so much younger then and still preserved.
Then he doesn’t smile only to his family, I was the only he smiled with that wasn’t family.
He had folded things carefully and carried boxes without being asked and moved through the apartnt with a steadiness that had felt, even then, like soone older than his age.
Halfway through the night I had turned to him and asked why he was helping.
He had looked at the sa way he was looking at now. Direct, unhurried and without apology.
*I’m Ren,* he had said. Like it answered everything. Like it was the only answer that would ever be necessary.
I hadn’t fully understood it that night. I understood it less now, sitting across from him in a house that wasn’t mine with seven years of distance pressed quietly into the space between us.
We used to be so close that even though he was much younger than Neve and I, If I was planning sothing, if I needed sothing, he and Neve were simply the first people I went to.
I didn’t know when that had beco past tense.
I didn’t know how we had let seven years of silence and distance happen so quietly, without either of us aning to, without either of us stopping it.
"I’ll follow you back to the UK." The air in the room shifted.
I couldn’t believe what I heard. I would have said he was joking but Ren is one person that’ll joke about sothing like this.
My eyes moved to his face and found it completely calm, like he had said sothing simple. Like he had said he would take the bins out or close a window.
My mouth opened.
"What?"
"I know what you’re about doing and I know you’ll need a friend. Even though I’m not one, at least I’m Neve’s brother." I stared at him with mouth wide open.
He was right, what I wanted to do was sothing I’d never imagined ever doing.
No woman gets married and thinks of divorcing. And I do need soone but not him.
I won’t let him follow . He doesn’t have to.
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