Yuma did not change overnight.
He still left for work at the same time each morning, boarded the same train, sat at the same desk. His days remained filled with numbers, projections, patterns that made sense precisely because they asked nothing of him in return.
Yet something had shifted.
It wasn’t obvious — not to others, not even to himself at first. It surfaced in small, inconvenient moments. When his phone buzzed and he checked it without thinking. When he paused in the kitchen aisle longer than necessary, comparing items he didn’t need. When silence felt less like refuge and more like something hollow.
The snow globes sat on his desk at home.
He hadn’t placed them prominently. They weren’t meant to be displayed. Still, his eyes drifted to them often — the way the artificial snow never quite settled, the way the worlds inside remained untouched by time.
Someone had noticed that about him.
That thought lingered longer than he expected.
At the next family gathering, Himari greeted him the same way she always did — with a nod, a small smile, nothing intrusive. She didn’t mention the gift. She didn’t ask if he liked it. She didn’t corner him with questions or force conversation where it didn’t belong.
She simply left space.
Yuma found himself filling it.
Not deliberately. Not bravely.
Just… naturally.
When she stood beside him during dinner preparations, he stayed instead of stepping away. When she asked simple questions — about work, about his commute — he answered without rehearsing his responses in his head first. Sometimes, their conversations ended quietly, without a clear conclusion.
And that was fine.
What unsettled him most was not her presence, but her absence.
When Himari spoke with others, when her attention shifted elsewhere, Yuma noticed the quiet more sharply than before. He told himself it was coincidence. Habit. Nothing more.
Still, his gaze found her more often.
He noticed how she listened — really listened — tilting her head slightly, eyes steady. How she laughed without covering her mouth. How she paused before speaking, as if weighing her words carefully, even in casual moments.
None of it was extraordinary.
That was what made it dangerous.
At work, Yuma’s world remained unchanged. His tasks required precision, independence, minimal collaboration. Emails replaced conversations. Meetings were brief and impersonal. His competence was acknowledged through numbers, not names.
Invisible, but effective.
It suited him.
Or at least, it always had.
But now, when he returned home, the silence pressed in differently. He found himself replaying moments he hadn’t meant to remember — the way Himari had tugged at his sleeve, the way she had stood beside him without expectation.
She didn’t ask him to be anything.
She simply noticed that he was there.
Yuma told himself not to mistake it for more.
Attention was not affection. Kindness was not intention. Curiosity did not mean closeness.
He had lived long enough knowing what happened when people’s focus shifted away from him.
This was temporary.
He would not reach for it.
Still, late at night, when the room was dark and the city lights blurred beyond the window, his gaze drifted to the snow globes once more.
And for the first time, the thought crossed his mind — quiet, unwelcome, impossible to ignore.
What if she kept seeing him?
Not saving.
Not fixing.
Just… staying aware.
Yuma turned away before the thought could take root.
It was too early to name the crack.
But it was there.
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