There's a way the air changes when something is about to end. It hums with a sadness only hearts can hear — low, steady, undeniable.
Ness didn't know how she first sensed it. Maybe it was in the way he smiled a little less. Maybe it was in the way their little accidental collisions grew fewer, quieter — as if the universe itself was gently preparing her for a heartbreak she hadn't asked for.
One ordinary afternoon, she heard it. A whisper in the hallway.
He was leaving.
Leaving. Such a small word to carry so much ache.
She felt it like a thread pulling loose inside her chest — a tiny unraveling she couldn't stop.
At first, she told herself it didn't matter. That their story — whatever it had been — was already finished, folded and tucked away in the quiet drawers of her heart. But the truth was sharper:
You can't mourn someone twice if you never stopped missing them the first time.
Ness walked the office halls differently after that. Every glimpse of him felt heavier, more precious — even if he never looked her way. Even if she kept pretending not to notice.
There's a strange kind of grief in losing something you never really had. No memories to hold onto. No promises to break. Only the fragile hopes she had built in silence, now crumbling in her hands.
And then, somewhere in that quiet sadness, something stirred. It wasn't a sudden revelation, but something that had always been there, tucked too deep to name.
But now, she said it — softly, tearfully — to herself:
"I love him."
It felt different than she had imagined. Not romantic or poetic, just... real. Raw. Like handing a piece of her soul to the empty air.
A love that had no room to bloom.
A love that had never really been hers to begin with.
She had once bought a necklace.
A simple, beautiful piece from Buscalan — something people wore for protection, for meaning.
She had bought it with a quiet, foolish hope. That maybe someday, she'd give it to him.
To say, "Take care. Stay safe."
To offer something real, even if he never knew what it meant.
But now, with the news of his leaving, she realized that day would never come.
The necklace would stay in its box. A quiet reminder of something that never got the chance to grow.
The realization left her hollow, a weight that pressed down on her chest.
She had wanted so much more, wanted to offer him something tangible — a part of her, something to show how much he had unknowingly meant.
But the silence between them had stretched too long. Too many unspoken words, too many moments that never happened.
And now he was leaving. And with him, all the fragile hopes she'd held onto.
Ness sat at her desk, lost in the hum of the office, eyes on her screen, but her thoughts a thousand miles away. She wasn't crying. She hadn't let herself cry yet.
But there was something even more devastating than tears: this quiet, persistent ache, a love that had no room to grow, no place to call its own.
She didn't come to him because she needed someone or because she was afraid to be alone.
It wasn't about filling a space or chasing a feeling. It was the way everything felt calm when he was around.
Not exciting, not dramatic—just quietly right. She didn't fall for him out of boredom or loneliness. She fell because something in him felt familiar, like home.
Not a place, but a feeling she didn't know she'd been missing until she met him.
He became that space where everything felt safe. Where love didn't have to be loud or complicated to be real.
That's what she found in him—something rare, something true. And maybe she never meant to fall, but she did. Completely.
The words she had never said were starting to fill the air around her. She could feel them — heavy, silent, impossible to ignore. But no matter how loudly they echoed in her mind, they could never reach him.
And so, she let go.
Not out loud, not to his face, but quietly, in her heart.
Because this wasn't about him knowing.
It was about letting go.
Even if it hurt more than she had ever imagined.
Because love, she realized, is often quiet. A stillness that lives inside you, even when the world keeps moving on.
Maybe someday, someone else would hear her words.
Maybe someday, she'd give her heart freely.
But for now, she held onto the necklace.
And the memory of a boy who would never know how much he meant.
Because in her story, he would always be the part that changed everything — even if he never knew.