Still Choosing You
Book 1 Chapter 1 — Scene 1: TWO PLATES
She set two plates.
Only one of them would be used the way she expected.
The table was already set for two.
She didn’t remember when she started doing that automatically.
The rice cooker clicked before the kitchen light had fully settled into the room.
She heard the small sound from where she stood at the counter, one hand resting on the edge of the chopping board, the other still holding the spoon she had used to stir the vegetables. For a second, she did not move. Steam lifted from the pan in a thin white breath and faded before it reached the overhead cabinet.
The house was clean in the way it usually was on weekdays. Not perfect. Not arranged for guests. Just lived in carefully. His work shoes were by the door. The remote sat near his side of the sofa. His mug from the morning had already been washed and turned upside down beside the sink.
Everything had a place.
Even him, in a way.
She lowered the flame and gave the vegetables one last turn. The garlic had browned at the edges. The sauce had thickened just enough. She took down two plates from the cabinet without thinking, the same white plates they had used for years, the ones with a faint grey line around the rim.
One for her.
One for him.
The second plate came down with the first, natural as breathing.
She set them on the dining table.
The table was not large. It had been enough when they first bought it, back when they still stood in the furniture shop longer than necessary, comparing wood tones as if choosing the table meant choosing the kind of life that would happen around it. She remembered him tapping the edge with his knuckle and saying it felt sturdy.
It was sturdy.
It had held meals, bills, folded laundry, late night tea, medicine strips, delivery parcels, grocery receipts, his laptop, her phone, and all the conversations that had become too short to leave marks.
She placed her plate on one side and his across from her. Then she adjusted his slightly, turning it so the grey line faced the same direction as hers.
The movement was small. Automatic.
She noticed it only after her hand had already done it.
A laugh almost came, not because anything was funny, but because the care was so quiet she had not asked herself whether it was still wanted. She straightened the chopsticks beside his plate. Then she moved them back half an inch, because that was where his hand usually reached first.
The clock on the wall read seven twelve.
She looked at it once.
Not too long. Just enough to know.
Then she turned back to the kitchen.
The soup was still hot. She lifted the lid and watched the steam cloud her glasses for a moment before clearing. She wiped them with the edge of her sleeve, then stopped because there was no reason to hurry and no reason not to.
Outside the kitchen window, the evening had gone blue. Someone in the block across from theirs closed a metal gate. A child called for someone in the corridor, the voice bright and brief. Water ran through pipes somewhere above them. Ordinary sounds. Other lives continuing close enough to hear but not close enough to enter.
She filled the rice bowls.
His portion was a little larger. It always was. She did not think about that either until the scoop had already landed.
She put the bowls on the table, then returned for the dishes. The vegetables first. The fish next. The soup in the middle, where both of them could reach it. She set down the serving spoon beside the bowl, handle turned toward him.
The table looked complete.
Two plates. Two bowls. Two pairs of chopsticks. Food still bright with heat. A glass of water near her place. Another near his.
Nothing about it looked wrong.
She stood beside the chair and listened to the room.
The refrigerator hummed. The ceiling fan moved the warm air in slow circles. Her phone lay face down near the edge of the table, dark and silent. She had wiped the table before setting it, but a faint damp line remained where the cloth had passed.
She pressed her thumb against it until it disappeared.
Then she sat down.
Not fully. Just enough to rest at the edge of the chair.
The chair across from her stayed untouched.
She looked at it and told herself he was probably busy. Work had been heavy these few months. Meetings stretched. Messages came after office hours. Sometimes he came home with his shoulders slightly lowered, his collar open, his face carrying the dull fatigue of someone who had been useful to too many people in one day.
He was not careless.
He was not cruel.
He was just often not here.
And when he was, part of him seemed to remain somewhere else, still answering, still checking, still solving things that were not in the room.
She reached for her phone, then stopped before touching it.
There was no need to ask. Asking would make the waiting too visible. If he was on the way, he would say. If he was late, he would say eventually. If she asked now, she would sound like she needed something that should have been ordinary.
So she stood again.
She went back to the kitchen and wiped the counter though it was already clean. She rinsed the spoon. She closed the sauce bottle. She checked the flame even though she had turned it off. She folded the dish towel and placed it over the cabinet handle.
Small tasks. Safe tasks.
The kind that kept her hands from showing what the rest of her was doing.
When she returned to the table, the room had not changed.
Two plates.
Two bowls.
Two glasses of water.
One chair still untouched.
She pulled out her chair again and sat down slowly. She did not move the plate away. She did not cover the food. She did not start eating.
She placed both hands around her glass of water.
Across from her, the chair remained untouched, as if the room was still expecting him.
She sat down.
The food was still warm.
She didn’t reach for it immediately.
Scene-by-scene release. Continue only when the next scene is ready.