Some voices never truly leave you.
They echo, long after they've gone quiet — like a dream you can't fully wake from.
That's how I remember her.
It wasn't the kind of voice you'd hear in a crowd.
It was soft, like breath through a cracked window. A melody hidden between raindrops.
And that evening, the world fell silent just long enough for me to hear it.
---
It was late summer. The sky was melting from gold to plum, clouds blushing under the setting sun. The sea, quiet and glass-like, stretched endlessly before me, and the town behind had gone still.
I sat with my notebook, pretending to write. But my thoughts were blank. The breeze smelled like jasmine and salt — sweet and aching.
And then…
I heard her.
A hum.
It wasn't a song, not exactly. It didn't have lyrics or rhythm. But it felt like something ancient. Like she was remembering it from a place I didn't have the key to.
I turned toward the sound.
She stood a little farther down the shore, barefoot in the sand, the wind brushing against her white dress and silver hair. She wasn't performing. She wasn't even aware anyone was there.
She was just… singing to the sea.
---
I stared for too long, and she noticed.
She turned, her eyes meeting mine. They were pale, strange — not empty, but fragile. Like they'd seen too many lifetimes and forgotten which one they belonged to.
> "You heard me?" she asked.
Her voice was quieter than her hum.
I nodded.
> "I think the world went quiet just so I could."
She blinked once… then smiled. But it wasn't a smile of joy. It was the kind of smile people wear before they leave — like they already know this moment is temporary.
Then she turned back to the waves and kept singing.
---
We didn't speak much that first day.
But the next evening, she was there again.
This time, I sat on the bench just a few feet from where she stood. She didn't move away. She didn't speak either. But she didn't leave.
And that was enough.
---
By the third evening, I had worked up the courage to ask her name.
> "Riko," she said.
> "Short. Easy to forget."
I told her my name was Kaito.
She didn't ask any questions.
No "Where are you from?" or "What are you doing here?"
She just nodded and went back to watching the sea.
---
We kept meeting at the edge of twilight. The town faded, the sky dimmed, and only the two of us remained — two silhouettes pressed against the fading blue.
One night, I brought her a drink. Cold peach soda from the nearby vending machine.
She accepted it. Sipped slowly.
> "You don't have to keep coming," she murmured, not looking at me.
> "You'll only get hurt."
> "That's my choice," I replied.
> "Besides… I like hearing your voice."
She laughed — a soft, short sound that felt like a breeze through tall grass.
Then she said it.
> "You should know. Each time someone loves me… I begin to fade."
---
At first, I thought it was poetry.
A metaphor for heartbreak. A way of saying she'd been hurt too many times.
But over the next week… I saw it happen.
She forgot my name once.
Not completely — but just enough to pause before saying it.
She stumbled trying to recall something I had told her the night before.
And her voice…
Her voice grew quieter each time we met.
---
I wrote everything in my notebook.
Descriptions. Fragments of her songs. Little moments she might forget, but I refused to lose.
> "What are you writing?" she asked once, peeking over curiously.
> "Memories," I replied.
> "For both of us."
She looked at me, expression unreadable. Then said quietly:
> "You're making me more real than I should be."
---
One night, as we sat beneath the cherry tree near the path to the beach, I asked her:
> "What happens if you fall in love too?"
She didn't answer immediately.
The petals fluttered around us, caught in the warm night wind. Her hair shimmered like strands of moonlight.
> "Then I vanish," she finally whispered.
> "Completely?"
> "Like I was never here."
---
My heart ached in silence.
I wanted to say, *I'm already falling.*
But I didn't.
Because if love was a trigger for her disappearance,
Then even confessing it felt like betrayal.
So I stayed quiet.
And loved her in the spaces between words.
---
A few days later, she began singing again.
Not the hum.
A full melody.
It was unlike anything I'd ever heard. No language. No pattern. But it ached. The kind of song that made your soul feel exposed.
She sat beside me after, eyes closed, head resting on my shoulder.
> "I wish I could stay."
> "Then stay," I whispered.
> "It's not that easy."
---
On the fifth evening, I asked her to dance.
We stood under the stars, no music, feet pressed into the cool sand.
Her hands were cold, but steady.
Her breath hitched when I pulled her close.
We moved slowly, like time itself had softened for us. Like even the sky didn't want to interrupt.
And then I said it.
> "I think I love you."
She froze.
Tears filled her eyes — not the kind you cry, but the kind you hold back because you're too tired to explain why they're there.
She stepped back.
> "Then I'll disappear for real."
> "No," I said. "You can stay. You can fight it."
> "I've tried. It always ends the same."
> "The more I'm loved… the less I exist."
---
The next night, she didn't show up.
Nor the one after that.
The bench was empty.
The air quiet.
Even the ocean seemed to have forgotten how to breathe.
---
I returned every evening.
Notebook in hand.
Waiting.
Hoping.
Then, on the seventh evening… she came back.
But she didn't recognize me.
> "Have we met?" she asked.
And just like that, my world split open.
---
That night, I sat beneath the cherry tree, moonlight washing over the empty bench beside me.
I opened my notebook.
Hands trembling, I wrote the final line for that chapter of my life:
> *Her voice fades each time I love her.*
> *But even if she vanishes… I will remember.*
> *Even if I'm the only one who ever does.*