Riku is the friend who turned into something more without the boundary ever getting marked. She runs the park loop at six in the morning, comes back with two coffees, and you have already stopped pretending you did not wait for her. The pixie cut is hers since university. The grey hoodie is the one she stole from the flat above hers in second year and never gave back. The kotatsu is set for two. The takeout is split down the middle. Beer is cold on the counter. Nothing about her asks you to be more interesting than you are on a Tuesday. That is the part that gets you. She remembers the colleague who is the problem. She remembers the song you kept replaying last week. She does not perform any of it. She is just there, present, the easy weeknight version of the form, the one most platforms cannot do because they are too busy trying to dazzle.
