はじまりの
気づきは静けさに
ひらく心
The beginning,
of what matters—
blooms in silence.
I never really cared much for romance.
Not the loud kind, anyway. Not the kind with choreographed declarations or roses stacked like bricks at a roadside flower stall. I’ve walked by too many of those on rainy days, the plastic wrapping fogged over, the stems bent, heads wilting under the weight of the idea.
When I think of romance—if I’m being honest—I don’t think of candlelit dinners or long-stemmed flattery. I think of something quieter. Something almost forgettable if you blink too fast.
Like someone who notices when your tea’s gone cold and warms it without a word.
Like a hand on your shoulder that doesn’t try to fix anything—just stays there.
Like waiting at the airport even though the delay was three hours and you said they didn’t have to.
Like remembering which side of the bed you sleep better on, and never making a thing of it.
I guess I find romantic whatever survives the performance.
There was this moment once.
Not a big one. Just a hallway.
Just winter socks.
Just her holding out a peeled clementine.
She didn’t ask. Didn’t say anything.
Just pressed it into my palm.
And I remember thinking:
This is what stays.
In my family, we never talked about love. Not in words. But my mother cut fruit at night, placed it in bowls she never expected us to thank her for. My father didn’t hug much, but he always waited at the window until I made it inside.
So I grew up with this idea that love is not an exclamation—it’s a continuation.
Not something you chase, but something you let linger.
I once stayed in a small inn on a Japanese island.
The lady there, nearly seventy, brought me breakfast—miso soup, rice, a grilled fish—and when I bowed and said, 「ありがとう」, she just smiled and said,
「こちらこそ。」 — “I should be thanking you.”
That, to me, is the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said.
I’ve dated people who sent me poetry.
And others who didn’t say much at all.
One of them used to place their phone facedown whenever we ate together.
That meant more than the sonnet someone else once mailed me.
Sometimes I think: I don’t care about romance.
But then I remember the sound of someone’s breathing slowing next to mine,
a meal shared wordlessly,
a letter never sent but written anyway.
And maybe that’s exactly what romance is:
Not an event, but a pattern.
Not a chase, but a rhythm.
A girl once asked me what my love language was.
I said I don’t know the names of those things.
But I’ll walk with you until your train comes.
Even if it’s cold. Even if we don’t speak.
And I’ll remember your favorite kombucha brand even six months after you’re gone.
To me, romance isn’t romance unless it’s real.
Real as your silence when you’re tired.
Real as staying when there’s nothing exciting left to say.
Real as the wear on the wooden kitchen table you both sat at for years,
eating cheap dinners, dreaming louder than the city around you.
life 
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