It started with a voice message.
Takara had just gotten home from his late-night campus shift when his phone buzzed. Kayo's name lit up the screen, and for a brief moment, the weight of the day lifted.
He pressed play, expecting another sleepy update or a half-whispered poem.
Instead, Kayo's voice poured through the speaker, low and raw.
"I had a dream last night. You were in my bed. Wearing that ridiculous yellow hoodie. Your hair smelled like honey. You kissed me and asked if I missed you, and I said something stupid like, 'not as much as I should.' You laughed. I woke up with the taste of your name in my mouth."
Takara sat down slowly, heart pounding.
"I'm sorry," Kayo's voice continued. "I didn't mean to send this. But maybe I did. I think I need to stop pretending this separation hasn't been… hard in ways I'm not used to."
The message ended. Silence filled the apartment.
Takara pressed a hand to his chest.
His entire body buzzed.
He didn't sleep.
He didn't even try.
Instead, he lay in bed listening to the message again. And again.
By the third listen, he'd stopped pretending it didn't affect him.
By the fifth, his fingers trembled.
He grabbed his phone and opened the voice recorder.
"I miss you too," he said. "But not in the casual way. Not in the I-hope-you're-doing-well way. It's worse than that. It's that I walk into rooms and expect you to be in them. I hear your laugh in other people's mouths. I sleep on one side of the bed because I still think the other side belongs to you."
He swallowed hard.
"I want you, Kayo. And not just in the polite, hearts-and-flowers kind of way. I want you like skin on skin. Like breath in my mouth. Like the sound you make when you laugh against my throat."
He didn't listen to it before sending it.
He just hit send.
And then buried his face in the pillow, unsure if he wanted to scream or cry.
Kayo's response came the next afternoon.
A video this time.
The screen was dim, just Kayo's face in profile. His hair was slightly messy, and his expression unreadable.
"I didn't know you felt that way," he said quietly. "I mean—I hoped. But hearing it…"
He looked into the camera.
"I've thought about you every night. In every way. I wake up reaching for you."
He hesitated. Then:
"Come visit me."
Takara's breath hitched.
"I'm serious," Kayo said. "I'll pay for your ticket if I have to. We can split the cost. I don't care. Just… come here. Be with me."
That night, Takara didn't hesitate.
He opened his browser.
Searched flights.
And found one two weeks from now, just before winter break.
Affordable. Non-refundable.
He clicked purchase with shaking hands.
The countdown began again.
But this time, it wasn't just a number ticking down to a reunion.
It was the slow burn of anticipation. Of need. Of emotional gravity pulling them back into the same orbit.
And it terrified Takara.
What if it was too much?
What if the fantasy they built between messages and dreams crumbled the second they shared real space again?
What if this distance was the glue, not the gap?
Still, he couldn't stop himself from packing.
Every day, he added something else to the small suitcase at the foot of his bed. His favorite hoodie. Kayo's old sketchbook. The journal filled with unsent letters and messy drawings.
A single polaroid of them laughing on the rooftop.
A bottle of cologne he hadn't worn since high school—the one Kayo once said reminded him of firewood and memory.
And a secret hope that when he landed, none of this would feel too big.
A week before the flight, a small shift occurred.
Kayo's messages changed.
Not in frequency—they still talked every day.
But the tone grew hungrier. Bolder.
There was one voice note that ended with Kayo's breathing uneven and a whisper of, "I don't want to wait to touch you again."
Takara sat on the floor of his shower that night, head pressed against the tile, every nerve in his body lit like a fuse.
Wanting Kayo had always been there.
But now, it wasn't abstract anymore.
It was tangible. Near.
Days away.
But then came the phone call that shattered the air between them.
Takara was leaving class when Kayo called, and the second he heard his voice, he knew something was wrong.
"Say something," Takara said, stepping away from the crowd.
"I might not be here when you arrive."
The world tilted.
"What are you talking about?"
"The gallery—" Kayo's voice cracked. "They're offering me a longer internship. A full semester. But I'd have to move to Paris. This week. Before you get here."
Takara's legs gave out. He sat on the edge of a planter.
"So… you're saying I shouldn't come?"
"I'm saying I don't know what to do."
Takara's vision blurred. "Then why ask me to come at all?"
"I didn't know it would happen!" Kayo snapped, and instantly, his voice softened. "Takara… this is everything I've worked for. Everything I didn't think I deserved."
"And I'm what?" Takara asked bitterly. "A postcard between chapters?"
"Don't do that," Kayo whispered. "You're not temporary."
"Then prove it," Takara said, voice shaking. "Tell me I still matter more."
Kayo was quiet for a long time.
"I can't choose between you and my future."
Takara's heart split in two.
"I never asked you to."
They didn't talk for three days.
Three.
Agonizing.
Silences.
Takara didn't cancel the flight. But he didn't pack anything else either.
He just sat with the ache.
The not-knowing.
The fear that maybe love wasn't enough when real life barged in.
Then, on the night before his flight, a package arrived.
Inside was Kayo's journal.
The one he never let anyone see.
Taped to the inside cover was a note:
I was wrong. I thought I couldn't choose.
But every sketch I make, every dream I chase—it means nothing without you.
If this internship costs me us… then I'll take the next flight back instead.
Because you're not a detour. You're the destination.
But I had to let you see that for yourself.
I'll be waiting at the terminal tomorrow. Unless you don't get on that plane.
In which case… I'll still find you.
Somehow.
Always.
Takara sat with the journal pressed to his chest.
Then he picked up the suitcase.
And kept packing.