The bar is quiet except for the low hum of jazz and the occasional clink of glasses. Outside, rain pools in the cracks of the pavement, distorting the neon lights. Sua watches the way the condensation trails down her untouched glass, while Sora takes slow sips of his drink, his fingers tapping absently against the table.

For a moment, neither of them speak. The silence isn’t uncomfortable, but it carries weight, ike something waiting to be acknowledged.

A flicker of something passes between them,nostalgia, familiarity, the kind of closeness that lingers even when time has tried to wash it away.

Sora leans back, stretching out his arms. "You still taking pictures?"

Sua smirks. "You still avoiding them?"

He laughs, shaking his head. "You always used to take so many of me. Do you still have them?"

She pauses. The answer is yes, but she doesn’t say it right away.

"Maybe."

Earlier

On a quiet evening, Sua moves through the city like a passing shadow, photographing its quiet corners, the late-night cafes, the neon-lit streets, the faces of strangers who seem to carry untold stories. She has always been drawn to the in-between moments.

She never stayed in one place for too long. Her life was a series of departures, airports, train stations, open roads, and nameless hotels. Places held her, also, never kept her.

One night, a message appears on her phone. A name she never deleted, though she told herself she would. Sora. Someone she once loved. Someone she still loves. But she chose to move on, because love, no matter how deep, cannot survive in a space where no one fights to keep it. And maybe, if she’s being honest, she was afraid. Afraid that if she let herself fall, truly fall, she would never find her way back.

---

“Are you free?”

She hesitates. It has been a long time. Too long. And yet, not long enough to erase the pull he still has on her.

They meet in a bar tucked away in the city’s quieter corners, where the low hum of jazz fills the spaces between their words. The conversation is effortless, familiar, like slipping into a well-worn coat. Sora tells her about a life she was never part of. Places he has been, people he has met. Sua listens, nods, smiles, but inside, she is somewhere else, lost in a memory.

There was a time when he was all she saw through her lens. Sora, laughing under city lights. Sora, staring at the sea with that distant look in his eyes. Sora, caught mid-motion, always just a little out of focus, like she could never quite capture him completely.

He was her muse, once. Maybe he still is. But some things are easier to preserve in photographs than in real life.

Outside, the rain begins to fall. She has a flight to catch in the morning. Another departure, another city. But for now, she lingers, just for a moment, between staying and leaving, between the past and whatever comes next.