The roads were nearly empty at that hour, bathed in the pale yellow glow of streetlights. His car cut through the silence of the night as his mind raced faster than the engine.
When he finally stopped in front of the house, their house, the one that had been filled with her warmth, her laughter, her presence… everything felt too still. The lights were off. For a moment, he stood there, staring at the dark windows.
"Maybe she's asleep," he whispered to himself.
But something in his chest tightened. He unlocked the door and stepped inside. The living room greeted him with emptiness. No scent of her favorite candle, no soft hum of music she used to play while reading, no open book on the couch. Just stillness.
He flicked on the light, and the room came alive only to mock him with its silence. The walls, once echoing with her laughter, now felt like they were holding their breath.
He took one slow step forward. Then another. Tap. Something brushed against his shoe. He looked down. A diary. A brown, slightly worn-out diary with a ribbon tied around it. The corners were soft, used, loved, lived in. He bent down and picked it up and turned it in his hand. It was hers.
He didn't even need to check the name. He could feel it. That familiar energy, the one that made every ordinary thing around her seem like it held a heartbeat. He didn't open it. Not yet. His hands were trembling too much. Instead, he moved toward her door, the one she always left slightly open when she was home.
Tonight, it was closed. A sticky note was pasted neatly on the door. His eyes read it once.
Then again. And again, as if reading it again and again, it might disappear
"I won't be around. – Alina."
That was all. No explanation. No reason. No goodbye. Just those six words were quiet, final, and enough to shatter him. Kai stood there in silence, the note still fluttering faintly under the fan's weak breeze. The diary in his hand felt heavier than ever.
For the first time in years, Kai Arden, the man the world saw as unshakable, felt completely, utterly lost. Kai stood there in silence, staring at the note that trembled slightly beneath the fan's weak breeze. The sound of its soft rustle filled the emptiness of the room, a sound too small to carry the weight it held in his heart.
The diary in his hand felt impossibly heavy, like it carried every unsaid word between them. And in his other hand, her gift, the mirror glimmered faintly under the pale light.
She was gone. Just like that. She had flipped his world upside down, made him feel things he had never allowed himself to feel, and then vanished as if she had never existed at all. Like she had been a fleeting dream he had mistaken for reality.
He walked numbly into his room. Every step echoed in the silent house. The air smelled faintly of her perfume, soft and warm, and it made something deep inside him twist painfully.
He placed her diary on the bed, the pages whispering against the blanket. Then he sank beside it, exhausted not in body, but in soul. His eyes drifted toward the mirror she had given him. For a long moment, he just looked at it.
His reflection stared back at the famous Kai Arden, the man people saw as flawless, invincible, untouchable. But tonight… he could see what no camera ever captured.
His eyes. They looked hollow. And eyes never lie; they always speak the truth. He leaned closer, his breath fogging the surface of the mirror. And the truth stared back at him: he wasn't missing her presence. He was missing her essence. The laughter. The warmth. The calm. The home she had become.
He missed her. But it wasn't the kind of missing that came and went; it was the kind that lingered, quietly, painfully, like a ghost that refused to leave.
Everywhere he looked, she was there. In the empty cup on the counter. In the quiet hum of the refrigerator. In the faint trace of her perfume that still clung to the air. He missed her voice the way it softened his days without even trying. He missed her presence, how she filled the silence without saying a word. He missed her laughter, the sound that made even his coldest mornings feel like spring.
He missed her not as someone who used to live with him, but as someone who had unknowingly become his calm, his comfort, his home.
It was the day after Alina vanished, the night that had quietly stolen her away without warning. The city was awake as usual, the noise, the lights, the same rhythm of life, but for Kai Arden, everything had shifted. The world was still spinning, but he wasn't a part of its motion anymore.
He went to the same café, the one where he used to see her behind the counter, her sleeves slightly rolled up, her hair tied in that effortless way, a few strands always falling loose around her face. He could almost see her there again, making coffee, sometimes spilling it with a flustered laugh, sometimes getting it so perfect that even the customers couldn't help but praise her.
He could almost hear her voice, soft and polite, as she greeted people with that smile, the kind that could make anyone's day a little lighter. But today… the café was different.
Quiet. Empty in a way that felt wrong.
The space where she used to stand looked lifeless. The warmth she brought was gone, like it had never existed. The laughter, the soft hum of her voice, the way she used to smile at the regulars, all of it had simply vanished, leaving behind an ache he couldn't name.
He stood there for a long moment, his hands shoved into his pockets, the smell of roasted beans mixing with a strange hollowness in his chest. He asked the barista casually, though his voice betrayed the desperation he tried to hide."Alina Carter… does she still come here?"
The man blinked, shook his head. "Haven't seen her for days, sir."
Kai nodded, forcing a polite smile. "Alright. Thanks."
Kai just nodded, his lips pressing into a thin line. The answer shouldn't have hurt him, but somehow, it did. He thought maybe Maya would know. She always seemed to know, as they are both friends. After a few inquiries, he found out she had flown abroad to her parents. No one knew for how long.
He looked around once more, the coffee machine, the tables, the chair by the window she used to wipe every morning, and for a brief moment, he almost expected her to appear from behind the counter, smiling, but she didn't. And that hurt more than he thought it would.
No one knew a thing about Alina. It was as if the world had conspired to erase her, the woman who had once filled his home, his routine, his thoughts.
That night, like every night since, Kai sat alone in his room. The house was painfully silent, the kind of silence that hums in your ears. On his bedside table lay Alina's diary, the same one he had found near the door. Its brown cover looked old, slightly worn at the edges, yet it felt like it held the weight of the world.
The night lamp cast a soft amber glow across the room. He would sit there for hours, just staring at the diary, lost in a storm of thoughts. His hand often reached for it, fingertips brushing the edge of the cover, but he could never bring himself to open it.
It wasn't that he didn't want to know what was inside. He wanted to desperately. Every word, every secret, every untold feeling she might have left behind. And maybe by reading it, he could find out where she is, but he couldn't.
Kai Arden had rules, unspoken ones, but sacred to him. Privacy was one of them. He had always said that no matter how close you are to someone, their thoughts belong to them alone. Their silence deserves respect.
And now, faced with her diary, the most private part of her, he couldn't bring himself to break his own words. He sighed softly and leaned back, eyes fixed on the lamp. The light flickered for a moment, then steadied.
He reached out and turned it off. Darkness filled the room. A moment later, he turned it back on. And then off again.
It was a habit he had fallen into these four nights, turning the lamp on and off, like his heart couldn't decide whether it wanted to hold on or let go.
Sometimes he wondered if she'd written about him in that diary. If somewhere in those pages, his name existed even once. If she had ever felt the same pull he did, and sometimes he wonders what is written in it, as a diary contains the deepest secret of a person. She had one? If yes, then what's that?
But he wouldn't open it. Not yet. Because the moment he did, it would mean accepting that she was truly gone. And that… he wasn't ready for.