***
In another life — or perhaps the same life, folded upon itself — they lived in a narrow apartment with cracked plaster walls and windows that trembled in the wind.
Outside, the city wore its autumn coat: ochre leaves gathering on stone steps, air sharp with the scent of rain and woodsmoke.
Inside, the small rooms held echoes of quiet laughter and the scratch of pencil on paper.
Ciel's hair had grown silver at the temples, threads of frost marking the years. His hands weren't as steady as they once were; charcoal smudges blurred where his fingers slipped.
Yet each morning, he still rose before dawn, sketchbook balanced on his knee, drawing the shape of Elara's face as she slept beside him.
Elara would wake to find him watching, pencil paused mid-line.
"You'll wear the paper thin," she teased, voice softened by the years.
"If I don't draw you," he whispered, "I'm afraid you'll slip away."
The words weren't just habit; they were truth. Some mornings, he woke unable to recall her name for a breath, a heartbeat — until it returned, heavy and precious.
Other days, it was she who blinked at him in the pale morning light, confusion clouding her gaze before memory softened her smile.
They hid it from each other at first, these small fractures. But love made them brave enough to confess.
On an evening painted with late autumn gold, Elara admitted, voice shaking:
"Sometimes I forget why I walked into a room… or what day it is."
Ciel held her hand, thumb brushing the fine bones.
"Then I'll remember for you," he whispered.
In the hush of that promise, they made small rituals to hold on to each other:
Sketches pinned along the walls.
Notes folded into books:
Tuesday. Tea at the river.
The fig tree pressed into a page, drawn again and again.
At night, the kettle hissed, fogging the window with breath they shared.
"Did we finally win, this time?" she asked once, voice fragile, eyes bright.
"Maybe," he said. But there was an ache in his voice — a knowing that even this soft autumn could be borrowed.
One evening, twilight bruised the sky purple and gray. Elara drifted to sleep against his shoulder, warmth sinking into his bones.
Ciel lifted his pencil, hand trembling, and traced the curve of her closed eyes.
But the line broke halfway. His vision blurred; the paper swam before him.
"Please," he whispered, voice cracking. "Not yet."
He pressed the unfinished sketch to his chest, heart pounding with fear.
"What if tomorrow… neither of us remembers?"
In the half-dark, the apartment felt too large, too quiet.
Yet even then, even in that fear, the soft rise and fall of her breath beside him steadied him.
A reminder that for now, they were still here — together, in this autumn that felt both endless and heartbreakingly brief.
***