Kael's POV
The place in question was a small restaurant on a side street that I used when I needed somewhere close to a gate zone. The reason was simply that it didn't require a reservation or a reason.
The owner had learned over several visits to seat me at the corner table without discussion. The corner table had sightlines to both the entrance and the street window, a requirement so much as a preference I had maintained long enough that it had become one.
Akira sat across from me and looked at the menu with the rapt attention of someone who was using the menu for something other than choosing food.
I allowed him.
The walk over had been quiet in the way our silences had developed across four months of shared space…
Not empty but not comfortable exactly, something more advanced than the word comfortable. The quality of two people who had stopped needing to fill the space between them and had not yet decided what to do with what occupied it instead.
