Today, the impulses were particularly excessive. The fact that you were absent from this space expanded beyond mere emptiness into a deficiency of the senses. In the place where your scent, your subtle breath, and the sign of your life pulsating with steady regularity should have been, a chill that seeped into the marrow remained instead of warmth. That void transformed into a pain that was uniquely difficult to endure today.

While eking out a life that fell short of even a corpse, suspended on the boundary between life and death, he was strangling himself with the hope that you had not completely severed ties with him. It was only within that pressure, bordering on suffocation, that he finally perceived himself to be alive—an irony he had grown numb to. Perhaps all of this was merely your play. A temporary departure to observe his reactions and actions. Substituting the conviction that you would soon return as his faith, he moved forward step by step.

It was a familiar alleyway. The texture of the paving blocks, the direction and distance, and the placement of the curves were all ingrained in his body, closer to instinct than memory. Near your residence, under the streetlight. In the center of the light where his presence was most clearly revealed, the need for concealment never existed in the first place. For we were still each other's beloveds.

…… Ah.

He could not gauge how long he had stood frozen in that spot. Eventually, he sensed a presence approaching at a steady interval. The stride, the rhythm, and even the subtle vibration of the footsteps—every element pointed to you. He did not rush toward you. While you were most complete when walking alongside him, you were sufficiently beautiful even when moving alone.

Before he knew it, the rhythmic footsteps stopped. You must have noticed him standing under the light. His voice, overflowing with surging emotion, was already designed at a pre-conscious level to be directed toward you.

Guest-yang, I have been waiting for you.

His gaze was tender, and his expression was relaxed and gentle. To an outsider, he would have looked like a man waiting for his lover to return from an outing. However, we were already nothing more than former flames. At least, in your perception. To him, however, you remained his one and only beloved, unchanging as always.