A week passed since the café.
The world, unaffected by the weight of two almost-lovers, moved on. School deadlines returned. Morning alarms screamed. Friends stopped asking about "what happened with Yuan" and "are you okay now?" as if healing had an expiration date.
Cean, though, found herself caught in the afterglow of that night—not quite hurt, not quite healed. Just… suspended.
It wasn't closure. It wasn't a beginning either.
It was that grey place where love lingers, long after the words have run out.
She told herself she was fine. She laughed more loudly, surrounded herself with friends, picked up journaling again. But every so often, she'd reach for her necklace and touch the ring—just to remind herself it had been real.
Even if it didn't last.
-
Yuan changed.
Not drastically. But Neo noticed. Prudence said he smiled more, but quieter. Sky told Liam, "He's trying to move on, I think. But something still ties him back."
And Yuan?
He didn't really know what to do with all the love he still carried. It didn't vanish after that night. It just settled differently in his chest— not as hope, but as memory.
He found himself walking slower when passing bookshops, wondering if Cean had read anything new.
He'd see a gift shop and remember her love language. Wonder if she still picked little trinkets with someone else in mind.
He had wanted to tell her, "I was falling for you even before you noticed me during immersion. Even before I knew I was falling."
But the moment had passed.
Now, all he had was time. And time, while unforgiving, teaches you how to live with silence.
-
It was late October when Cean bumped into Sky again— this time at a cultural exhibit in Cotabato City.
They sat together under the fading sky, sipping cold coffee, watching performers in traditional attire dance to the sound of kulintang.
"He still wears the ring," Sky said suddenly.
Cean didn't respond.
"But he's scared. You know him."
"I do," Cean whispered. "That's why I let him go."
Sky sighed. "He's still figuring out how to hold love and fear in the same hand."
Cean looked ahead. "I'm done waiting for someone to choose me after they figure themselves out."
Sky nodded, proud but sad. "That's brave."
Cean smiled softly. "That's healing."
-
Meanwhile, back in Davao, Yuan opened his journal for the first time in months.
He wrote:
"You were a fire I didn't know how to hold.
I brought water when you needed warmth.
I listened too late.
But I carry you still, not as pain—
but as proof I once loved enough to burn."
-
A few days later, Cean got a message.
From: Yuan
"I hope you're smiling more these days.
I hope blue still feels like home.
I won't ask you to wait.
But if someday, somehow, we find ourselves at the same place,
I'll be better.
I'll be ready."
She read it in silence.
Then whispered to herself, "I already was."
But she didn't cry.
Not this time.
-
That night, she took off the ring from her necklace.
She didn't throw it away.
She placed it in a box with other keepsakes—dried flowers, old letters, a photo of her friends from immersion.
She kept it not because she was holding on…
…but because some memories deserve to be remembered without pain.
'_'