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Grim gave me a half-smile, already scooping jasmine rice onto a floral-patterned plate. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“This is kind of odd,” I said, taking the plate from him, “but also... sweet?” I carried it to the table, where he’d already set out two glasses and a bottle of wine.

“Odd isn’t exactly what I was going for.”

The air shifted. He wasn’t just being polite. There was something buried in his tone, some thread of honesty that didn’t usually make it out into the open.

“What… what were you going for, then?” I asked. The question felt fragile in my mouth.

He set his plate down slowly, as if even the movement needed thought. His fingers curled around the edge of the counter, knuckles white against the marble. His jaw tensed, that same tension I’d come to recognize. It wasn't anger, but restraint. He was always holding something back.

And for once, I wanted to see what would happen if he didn’t.

“I don’t know.” His voice was rough, quiet.

“I don’t know what I’m doing when I’m around you.

I’ve spent eternity mastering patience, keeping balance, maintaining distance.

But with you... I lose track of time. I forget what I'm supposed to be.” He looked down and I thought he might keep going—but then his gaze lifted, and the weight of it pinned me in place.

“I’ve spent a very long time being exactly what I’m meant to be,” he said finally. “I don’t usually second-guess it.”

“But you are now.”

He didn’t answer right away, just stared at the wall for a beat, then back at me.

“You make it hard to keep my lines straight.”

There was something honest about it, raw in a way he usually avoided.

“You say you’re ancient. Immutable. That you’ve seen everything.”

“I have.”

“Then why this?” I nodded toward the table. “The food, the wine, the records, the… Elvis?”

His mouth twitched. “Pieces of something I don’t really get to have.”

“But you keep them.”

He exhaled slowly. “I’ve told myself for centuries that I don’t feel the way mortals do. That I don’t need what they need. But then you showed up.”

My fingers curled around the edge of my plate. “And?”

“And now I’m not sure I believe myself anymore.”

That settled between us, quiet and real.

“You know,” I said, “I’ve had more time than anyone should. And I’ve done nothing remarkable with it.”

He gave me a sharp look. “Is that what you think?”

“Sometimes. Most of the time. I think I just... existed. I didn’t build anything. I didn’t matter. ”

He didn’t try to correct me, didn’t offer some grand comfort. Just watched me.

“Maybe surviving it was enough,” he said finally, stepping up to join me at the table. His fingers grazed the bare skin of my arm, light as breath, tracing down from shoulder to elbow in a line that made it hard to think. A question in the shape of a touch. “Maybe that was the point.”

I swallowed, my voice shaking as I finally spoke the truth that had been buried deep inside me, too afraid to acknowledge until now. "What kind of love story is this..." Uncertainty crept in as my eyes flickered to his.

Grim’s expression softened, his lips curving into something that felt almost…

apologetic. But it didn’t last. "The kind where the villain remembers he's still just a villain.

" His voice was thick, as he brushed his lips against my cheek in a tender, fleeting kiss.

Just as quickly as it began, the moment unraveled.

Grim’s arms loosened from where they hovered around me, slipping away with practiced ease as he straightened up. The tension remained, but his usual stoic air was already slipping back into place, like armor being reapplied.

I stood there, frozen.

“I’ll be right back,” I murmured, already stepping away.

Excusing myself to the restroom, I shut the door, locked it behind me, and slid down to sit with my back pressed against the heavy wood.

The air still felt charged, the remnants of his touch seeping into my skin.

I closed my eyes and tried to breathe, but it came out in shaky bursts.

My fingers brushed the spots where he’d been, where the warmth of him lingered, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this was what falling felt like—the sensation of weightlessness, of losing control.

I thought of the movies where people fell into endless holes, at first screaming, terrified of the inevitable.

But then, at some point, the screaming stopped, and they simply fell .

They never knew when the end would come, only that it would, but the uncertainty stretched out, just out of reach, suffocating in its ambiguity.

I pitied them.

To fall from such a height—knowing what was to come, but not knowing when. I was falling now, and the terror had faded, leaving only the quiet ache of knowing the crash was inevitable, but when?

The door rattled slightly, and Grim’s voice broke through the silence.

“Tempest? Are you ready to eat?”

The soft hum of music drifted in from the dining room—a melody so haunting and bittersweet, it dripped of honey-sweet memory. It curled around me, a veil of fog, velvety and suffocating, each note laced with a sorrow that didn’t belong to this moment.

My heart thudded against my ribs, too full and too fragile, as if it might slip out of me entirely.

This song… I knew it.

The same one the orchestra had played in 1945, when I’d danced beneath crystal chandeliers in a black ball gown that shimmered with the ruinous beauty of spilled ink. When the air smelled of perfume and snowfall, and I spun in the arms of a stranger wearing a mask crafted of raven feathers.

That night, the world had paused.

And between the flicker of candlelight and the hush of winter, I had given Death a name. And he had almost kissed me beneath the soft fall of snow.