Falling in love, Liyana would later decide, was less like tumbling off a cliff and more like slowly realizing you had been walking downhill for miles without noticing.
Nothing dramatic happened at first. No grand confessions. No stolen kisses in the rain. Just a series of small, unreasonable adjustments that neither of them acknowledged out loud.
Arman began carrying painkillers because Liyana forgot to.
Liyana started buying fruit she didn't like because he claimed it helped him think.
They stopped making plans and started assuming each other's presence.
It should have been obvious.
It wasn't.
They met most evenings by the river, where Arman complained about his work repairing instruments that would never play music he respected, and Liyana talked about her students—how they wrote about love like it was a mythological creature that appeared only to special people.
"Love is overrated," Arman said one night, throwing pebbles into the water. "People expect it to fix things. It doesn't."
Liyana watched the ripples fade. "Neither does denial."
He glanced at her. "Is that directed at me?"
"Is that a guilty question?"
He laughed, a little too loudly. "We're friends. Friends are allowed to disagree."
She nodded. Friends. A word that had begun to feel increasingly inaccurate.
Sometimes they fought—not seriously, but sharply enough to matter.
Once, when Arman canceled plans at the last minute, Liyana snapped, "You don't get to disappear whenever you feel uncomfortable."
He stared at her, surprised. "I didn't know I needed permission."
"I didn't say permission," she said. "I said explanation."
Silence fell between them, thick and awkward.
"Since when do you care so much?" he asked.
She hesitated. That hesitation mattered.
"Since always," she said finally, and walked away before he could ask what she meant.
Arman stood there long after she left, heart racing, replaying the conversation like a badly edited song.
Since always.
The words terrified him.
He told himself she was just intense. Emotional. Overthinking. He told himself he was imagining things. He told himself many things, all of them untrue.
The night everything almost changed, they were drunk on cheap wine and poor decisions.
The power had gone out in half the neighborhood. The river reflected candlelight instead of streetlamps. They sat on the floor of Liyana's apartment, backs against the wall, laughing at nothing.
"You know what your problem is?" Arman said, squinting at her.
"Only one?" she asked.
"You care too much," he said. "You take things seriously. It's dangerous."
She turned to him slowly. "And you know what your problem is?"
He raised an eyebrow. "I'm irresistible?"
"You're a coward," she said gently.
The word landed between them.
"I'm realistic," he protested.
"No," she said. "You're afraid that if you admit you want something, you'll lose it."
He opened his mouth to argue.
Then stopped.
Because the way she was looking at him—soft, frustrated, painfully familiar—made lying impossible.
They were very close. Close enough for him to smell the wine on her breath, close enough for her to notice the slight tremor in his hands.
For one suspended moment, neither of them breathed.
This is it, Arman thought. This is where things either begin or end.
Then Liyana leaned back first.
"Forget it," she said, standing abruptly. "We're tired. You should go."
He did.
He walked home angry—with her, with himself, with the universe for placing him in a moment that demanded courage he didn't trust himself to have.
That night, Liyana lay awake, staring at the ceiling, furious at herself for wanting something so obviously doomed.
They met again the next day.
They joked.
They pretended.
They did everything except admit the truth.
Love didn't arrive like a storm.
It arrived like denial stretched thin.
And both of them were already too deep to turn back—though neither yet understood how much damage pretending could do.