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Chapter 23 - The Questions They Fear

It rained again the next Tuesday.

They met at the riverside bookstore — an old place where time smelled of paper and dust, and the windows blurred the outside world into soft shapes.

They settled on the floor between forgotten shelves: knees brushing, shoulders touching lightly, like two pages nearly turning into one.

Elara's breath fogged a hardcover as she traced the letters of a title she wasn't really reading.

"Do you ever wonder," she asked softly, "if this is really love… or if we're just repeating what we've always done?"

Ciel hesitated. The question settled in his chest like wet wool.

"I've wondered," he admitted. "A hundred times."

She turned to him, searching his face.

"Then how can you be so sure?" she whispered. "Sure enough to promise to keep looking — even if I forget again?"

He swallowed, voice rough.

"Because even if it is just the story repeating, I still want it to repeat. And even if we were never meant to meet in this life, I'd choose you anyway. Even if fate wasn't pushing us."

Elara looked away, heart tight, fingers trembling against a dog-eared page.

"Sometimes I envy you," she whispered. "You remembered me before we met. You drew me. You knew something I didn't."

"And sometimes," Ciel said softly, "I envy you. Because forgetting is a kind of mercy. Remembering feels like carrying glass in your chest — beautiful, but it cuts every time I breathe."

Rain drummed gently overhead, the sky outside gray and restless.

"If this is destiny," she said, "then where does choice fit in?"

"Maybe destiny brings us to the same place," he answered. "But choice is what keeps us there."

Elara closed her eyes. In the dark behind her eyelids, she saw flashes:

A train window streaked with rain.

His hand reaching across space.

The same sad, steadfast gaze.

"What if next time neither of us remembers first?" she whispered. "What if fate forgets too?"

Ciel hesitated. His answer felt fragile, trembling like a page caught in wind.

"Then," he said, "I hope the part of us that remembers how to search will still survive. Even if it's only a shadow."

They fell silent, the weight of the question settling between them.

Outside, the river kept moving — slow, patient, never once turning backward.

Inside, two souls wondered if love alone could defy forgetting.

Elara leaned her head on his shoulder, breath warm through fabric.

"Tell me again," she murmured, voice almost lost to the rain.

"Tell you what?" he asked.

"That even if it all fades, you'll keep looking."

"I will," he breathed, tightening his hand around hers. "Even if I don't know your name. Even if all I have is a sketch I don't remember drawing."

"Promise?" she whispered.

"Promise," he answered, though part of him was terrified of a future where neither of them could keep it.

In the soft hush of old paper and falling rain, they sat close — two hearts afraid, but refusing to let fear speak louder than love.

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