Kian kissed her like he was hiding something.
Maya didn't notice it at first—not in the early days when love was loud and uncomplicated, when his lips tasted like stolen mango chapstick and late-night laughter. But now, with autumn creeping into the corners of their apartment and the silence between them thickening like smoke, she could feel it.
There was a hesitation in him. A softness that didn't feel tender—it felt careful. Measured. Like he was tiptoeing through his own heart.
That Sunday morning, the city moved slowly outside their window. Buses coughed down cracked roads, distant voices drifted up from the street, and the smell of burnt toast lingered in the air. Inside, the apartment was dim and quiet. The kind of quiet that had stopped being peaceful.
Kian stood barefoot in the kitchen, scrolling through his phone with one hand while his other stirred eggs in a pan. Maya watched from the couch, her knees pulled to her chest, a blanket wrapped around her like armor. He looked good. He always did. Hair still damp from the shower, black tee hanging loose over his frame, silver ring catching the light as he adjusted his grip on the spatula.
Then he smiled at his phone.
Just a flicker. Small. Faint. But Maya saw it.
She didn't ask. She never did.
Instead, she stood, walked over, and wrapped her arms around his waist from behind. He leaned back into her automatically, out of habit more than anything, and kissed her forehead.
"Morning," he murmured.
"It's noon."
"Still counts."
They ate breakfast on the floor. The table had been broken since September, but neither of them had fixed it. They called it a "minimalist lifestyle." In truth, it was just another thing left undone.
Maya talked about her internship. He nodded, added jokes, pretended to listen. But his mind kept drifting. His fingers lingered on his phone. And his smile never quite reached his eyes.
When he dozed off on the couch an hour later, Maya picked up the dishes. She wasn't looking for anything—not really. But when his phone lit up again, her eyes flicked to it on instinct.
One name. One message.
Ivan: "You up?"
Her chest tightened.
She placed the plate in the sink, quietly, carefully, like any loud sound might crack the moment wide open.
She didn't touch the phone. Didn't wake him. Didn't say a word.
But in the back of her mind, a question began to bloom.
Not about who Ivan was.
But about how long Kian had been kissing her like he was saying goo-bye.
She tried to push the thought away.
Maybe it was nothing. A coworker. A friend. Maybe Ivan was short for Ivanna, or just someone who needed help with a late assignment, or—
The excuses were too thin. Too practiced. And she hated that her brain knew how to make them so easily.
Kian stirred on the couch, his arm draping over the side. His breathing was steady, lips parted slightly in sleep, one foot dangling off the edge like a boy who didn't carry any weight in the world. Maya studied his face for a long time. The curve of his lashes. The softness of his jaw. The way he always looked peaceful when unconscious—like whatever haunted him paused when he drifted off.
She wanted to believe this was still the same boy who used to write her poetry on napkins, who learned to braid her hair from YouTube just so he could help on mornings she ran late. But something had shifted, subtly and slowly, like sand slipping under a closed door.
That message wasn't a fluke. It felt… intimate.
And Ivan—that name sounded familiar in a way Maya couldn't explain.
She stood there in the living room, her hands still damp from the dishes, heart pounding in her ears. The clock ticked like a metronome—steady, cruel. Outside, sirens wailed faintly in the distance, swallowed by city noise. The world didn't care about her unraveling.
The kettle started to scream, pulling her out of her thoughts. She moved fast, maybe too fast, shutting it off like it had said something unforgivable.
When Kian finally stirred awake, rubbing his eyes and mumbling something about dreams, Maya pretended to be fine. She smiled. She handed him a mug of tea. She let his fingers brush against hers without flinching.
Because the worst kind of heartbreak is the one that hasn't happened yet.
The kind that lingers in the air, unspoken and invisible, but already felt.
That night, Maya couldn't sleep.
She lay on her side, back to him, listening to the soft rhythm of his breathing and wondering what secrets he was keeping tucked beneath his ribs. Kian reached out in his sleep, his hand grazing her hip like instinct, and she didn't move.
She closed her eyes. She counted backward from fifty.
But the silence kept whispering one name:
Ivan.