***
In another life — softer, older, quieter — there was a tea shop by a lantern-lit street.
Wooden beams darkened by steam and years, a tinkling bell over the door that sang whenever someone entered.
Ciel sat at a corner table, brush in hand, inkstone beside a steaming cup.
His hair was longer in this life, clothes of simple linen dyed deep blue.
Yet his eyes still searched the doorway, always.
Elara arrived as the rain began, shawl damp, cheeks flushed with cold.
She hesitated at the threshold, breath catching — as if her heart remembered him before her mind did.
"You came," he said, voice low and steady.
"I always come," she whispered, sliding into the chair across from him.
They shared tea steeped with jasmine and memory.
The shop smelled of paper, rain, and roasted chestnuts.
Between them lay an old letter, worn soft at the folds.
Its words were simple, written in a hand they both recognized:
If you forget me, come back to the tea shop. I'll wait. Always.
Outside, lanterns swayed in the wind, light reflected in wet cobblestones.
"Do you still remember our promise?" she asked, voice trembling.
"Every life," he whispered. "Every Tuesday. Every tea shop. Every time."
She closed her eyes, breathing in the jasmine steam, letting it anchor her to the moment.
And for that evening, at least, memory held.
Even if tomorrow it might slip again —for now, in the hush of rain and the glow of lanterns, they remembered together.
***