She pressed herself into the space between his shoulderblades, curling against his back in the way she always did. He sighed, and in the dim moonlight his eyes opened, focusing on the familiar white ceiling above their heads in the same way they had hundreds of times before. They did this often - too often, perhaps. "Why?" he asked her, one hand on the doorframe, the other hanging limply by his side. "Why me?"
"Because," she repeated, and curved her body to match his, her arms sliding around his waist, "that's just the way things are."
He had accepted this as truth long ago. Neither of them could explain what had happened between them or why - why, for example, he had invited her to move into this place with him, why he had taken up the habit of sleeping in the same bed with her, why he found himself unable to pass the days unless she was by his side. This was just the way things were. She needed him, and he needed her.
"Aren't you going to say it?"
"Why should I?"
"It's habit, Narumi-san... habit."
Every night was the same. He would only promise to stay with her until she fell asleep, but each and every time he tried to leave, she stopped him. It was always the same. "I don't want Narumi-san to leave," she would say. When he asked why...
"Because Narumi-san is the one that I love."
He sighed again, breaking free of her arms, turning to face her. They stood, as they always did, in the middle of a moonbeam, in the center of the floor, right where the light shined the brightest. "I won't leave," he said, and bent to kiss her forehead. "But this is the last time."
She smiled and said it simply, too simply: "Liar."
She returned to her bed and to the warmth of cotton sheets and strong arms, and for him it was the faint scent of lilacs in her hair, something he had grown to find comforting over the years. They lay together and she fell asleep, as she always did, with her head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. And as always he made no effort to move - he smiled, hugging her small frame tight against his own, and whispered to her sleeping figure.
"Because Hiyono is the one that I love."