The sky was the color of fading ash when Rowen heard the knock.
He was already standing by the shutter, as if waiting.
Lira stepped inside with a soft rustle of her coat. Her hair was neatly tied, her face calm, almost formal, but her eyes held that familiar softness that only appeared here, in this quiet room.
"Hi," she said softly.
"Evening," Rowen replied.
She lingered by the counter, glancing around the shop slowly—the shelves, the tools, the familiar hum of the ceiling fan. He could see her taking it all in, as though memorizing the space where their world had existed, apart from everything else.
"I won't be back for a while," she said, her voice even. "Things are moving fast now… wedding and all."
Rowen nodded. He felt no shock. The truth had been present in every quiet moment they'd shared.
She came behind the counter and leaned against him lightly, her hand brushing his arm.
When he turned to face her, she kissed him with the same unhurried rhythm as always. But tonight, it lingered, a weight in the way she pressed close, as if speaking without words: This is the last time.
Rowen's hands found her waist, memorizing the warmth and shape he had learned in silence over weeks.
Lira guided his hand under her coat, over the curve of her back, and breathed softly against his neck.
They moved together toward the workbench, the familiar place of all their private moments, and the world outside seemed to fall away completely.
Their intimacy that night was slow and deliberate, as if time had stretched to give them this single, suspended moment.
Clothes shifted in quiet rustles,
Hands traced familiar paths like committing memory to touch,
Breaths mingled in the soft glow of the half-lit shop.
There was no urgency, no hunger—only acceptance and presence, the culmination of a bond that had never needed words.
When they finally sank into each other, the rhythm was calm, tender, almost reverent.
Every movement carried the weight of farewell, and Rowen absorbed it in silence, knowing he would return to this memory again and again in the solitude that awaited him.
Afterward, Lira rested against him, her head on his shoulder, the soft scent of her hair filling the small room.
They stayed like that in shared stillness, neither trying to break the moment with speech.
When she finally rose to leave, she adjusted her coat and touched his cheek with the back of her hand—a soft, fleeting caress.
"Take care of yourself," she said, voice barely above a whisper.
The bell chimed gently as she left.
The sound lingered in the shop like an echo, like a curtain falling.
Rowen didn't move for a long time.
He watched the door, the empty counter, the quiet workbench where so much had changed. Then he lowered the shutter, locked the shop, and walked home along the still streets.
The houses were the same, the lamps the same, the world unchanged.
But inside him, the silence was different now.
It carried the warmth of her touch and the echo of a life that had passed through his own and left quietly, as it always would.