I actually liked Izuna's friends.

I liked them a lot.

Whether it was the alcohol or their colourful personalities, they were not intimidated by my name.

One of them even grabbed me by the collar as me and Izuna were putting our coats on to leave.

"You better not fuck him up!" she threatened.

I smiled and gently peeled her hands off my shirt. She was only slightly taller than Izuna, making her reach my upper chest. 

"I will make sure he comes home safely", I said, softly peeling her hands off of me.

Me and Izuna went down the elevator ourselves, standing next to each other in a comfortable silence as we watched the view; the elevator had glass walls so you could see the rapid descent. It made me quite uneasy, but Izuna stood calmly next to me, and I tried to absorb some of that calm.

I glanced at him. I was curious about the man. He was a student, but he was frightfully elegant, standing next to me in his black coat. We were a great contrast, I thought, as my coat was white, matching my hair just as his coat matched his.

The elevator doors opened, and as we walked out into the lobby to leave the skyscraper, I wondered if I should offer him my arm or not.

But Izuna solved that problem by just grabbing my arm himself. I swallowed. I hadn't had such intimate contact with anyone since...

Stop it. Not now. You can't do that now.

For once, my soul listened to my brain.

We walked out into the chilly autumn cold.

"It's been sunny out today", I chit-chatted. "I'm surprised it's so cold now."

"It's because at night, the warmth evaporates from earth", Izuna explained calmly. I looked at him. "If there are no clouds to stop it, the warmth will evaporate much more effectively. That's why sunny mornings are more chilly than cloudy ones."

"I have never thought about that", I said with a smile. "But it makes sense."

Izuna didn't say anything, and I wondered if he was shy.

We walked down one of the avenues among other Friday night strollers out to grab a drink or to party. Izuna seemed to have an aura about him that made me feel as if we were both encapsulated in a bubble of calm. I liked and appreciated that a lot. He didn't seem to need to fill in the silence, either, which I knew took great confidence.

"Wait", he suddenly said and stopped. "I need to go in here." I looked up and saw we were outside a falafel place. "You want one?"

Before I'd had time to say anything, he'd walked in, and when I had recovered and gone after him, he'd already ordered two falafel rolls.

"I'm starving!" he said. "Also, I need something to mop up the alcohol..."

"You shouldn't have", I said as he handed me a roll. "I have had dinner. You should have let me buy you one."

Izuna waved it away.

"Those pathetic excuses of dishes?" he said. "Bet you're already hungry."

He wasn't wrong.

It was delicious. We walked next to one another along the avenue like before, but this time with a falafel roll in our respective hands. I wasn't used to being treated to anything. People I met always expected me to pay since I was always the more wealthy part. But Izuna didn't seemed to care about that. He just seemed to have wanted to buy me a falafel roll and done that.

"God, I needed that", he sighed as we stood next to a rubbish can, throwing away the paper. "Thank you."

"I enjoyed it, too", I said.

Suddenly, Izuna looked taken aback.

"I didn't think about that, but you're probably used to fancy things. Like... I don't know, caviar? Sashimi? What do rich people eat, scallops? I'm sorry, I-"

I stopped him by grabbing him softly underneath his chin once more. I liked that. A lot.

"Izuna, that was great", I said. It had been; it had been oily, salty and sticky in my mouth, and satisfied me more than anything I'd eaten the past month. "Thank you so much."

He looked at me, his lips adorably parted, now free of lipgloss as he'd eaten that away. I was suddenly struck by an urge to eat off that lipgloss myself.

Izuna came to his senses and turned round to start walking again. I offered my arm this time, and he happily took it.

"It's the best falafel in the city. Or, maybe I just think so because I always eat it after I've drunk. Everything is delicious then. The only better falafel I've eaten is the one I make myself. With homemade pita bread, cherry tomatoes, tsatsiki and salsa." He was on a roll now. I smiled to myself, enjoying his energy.

We kept walking, chatting amicably about this and that sometimes, falling silent at other times, no time being better than the other.

"Well..." Izuna finally said. "I live here."

I smiled at him.

"May I ask you something?" Izuna looked terrified I was going to ask him to come up. "Don't worry. I need to go to bed soon, so you can relax."

Izuna looked ashamed.

"Sorry, I didn't mean..."

"It's okay", I said. "But could you, like..." I scratched my neck, not used to being this insecure. "Could you show me how to cook falafel?" He looked up to me with a face that told me that whatever he had expected I was going to ask him, this wasn't it. "I want to invite you over. I have this fancy kitchen I hardly know how to use. I've always had people to cook for me so I have more time to make more money so I can hire more people to do things for me." Izuna snorted. "But it would be nice to have something to show for myself."

Izuna thought for a while, and I was suddenly afraid I'd crossed a line.

But then, he nodded, and the cutest smile was playing on his lips.

"Okay", he said. "I'd love that."

I watched him go into his apartment complex, and waited until I saw the light being turned on in what must have been his apartment before I left.

I had a smile on my face the entire time I waited.

I sighed.

"This is the first time I'm here not crying, isn't it?" I asked mildly with a sad smile. "You think I can make it all the way through?"

I looked up into the sky to speak as her gravestone was silent before me; maybe the sky would provide me with a more clear answer.

"Have you seen that meme?" I continued. "About a girl coming back to haunt her boyfriend after she had died because people had told him she would have wanted him to move on? It struck me right here..." I put my hand on my heart. "I mean, both of us know I'm too cool for memes, but this one struck me. Because truth is, I believe you would like what is best for me even after your death, because that was what you always wanted for me in life. But how can I know, you know?"

I was quiet for a while. I had been here last week, watering the autumn flowers after a couple of weeks without rain. They were still thriving.

"I don't know if it's a date, even. I just want to be close to him. I won't say you would like him. That feels disrespectful. But, well... You would like him."

I smiled, remembering my late wife's warm smile, her ability to befriend everyone she met, how she interrogated every stranger about their lives and genuinely at that, because she loved people, whereas I usually even forgot to ask people about their names. She had been the light of my life, an autumn sun in the night sky.

"I will see where this takes me", I said. "Because we never stop being afraid by avoiding the things we're afraid of. We stop being afraid by meeting our fears, dead-on."

I walked slowly back to my home, craving falafel.