The theater doors clicked shut behind us, leaving the projector's hum sealed somewhere deep inside. Out here, the night was soft, not quite awake but not yet asleep either.

A single streetlamp buzzed over the sidewalk, spilling its yellow light across the damp pavement. The rain had ended hours ago, but the street still smelled faintly of wet stone and old leaves. Cars slid past in slow streams, headlights cutting pale ribbons into the dark.

It wasn't a big theater. Just a narrow place tucked between an izakaya and a bookstore that had already closed. Half the bulbs on the marquee were dead. The posters in the glass case curled at the edges, their colors fading like old bruises. The kind of place you'd walk by without ever stopping, unless you knew to look for it.

I pulled the ticket stub from my pocket. A thin square, bent where my fingers had folded it. Title, seat number, the time printed in black ink. Nothing more. I pressed the crease down absently, then folded it again.

Beside me, Merry hadn't moved. She was still holding hers up to the light, turning it slowly, as if the paper itself might whisper something if she looked long enough. The stub glowed faintly in her fingers, the edges thin enough to let the lamp bleed through.

I leaned back against the wall. The air carried the smell of grilled chicken drifting from the izakaya, mixed with cigarette smoke and the faintest touch of rain. A bicycle rattled past, its chain squealing with each turn. A puddle near the curb caught the lamp's glow, trembling with every passing car.

Merry's voice broke the silence.

"Pieces of paper that prove we were here," she murmured. "And yet they'll be gone tomorrow."

I glanced at her. She wasn't looking at me — her eyes were on the stub, her face softened by the glow.

"It's just a stub," I said. "You could keep it, if you want."

She shook her head slowly. "That's not it."

"Huh?"

"What will remember us, when we're gone?"

Her words lingered between us, gentle but heavy enough that I felt their weight. I looked down at the folded scrap in my hand. For me it was nothing — paper, ink, a mark of entry. But the way she said it, the way she turned it in her fingers, made it feel like more than it had any right to be.

I tried to laugh it off, but the sound caught before it left my throat. Instead, I slipped the stub back into my pocket. The fold pressed against my palm, a small, brittle proof that we'd sat in those old seats, that we'd shared those two hours in the dark together.

Across the street, a man in a loose tie ducked into the izakaya. The door opened, spilling warm chatter onto the road, then shut again, leaving only the hum of the streetlamp and the faint buzz of the theater marquee. One bulb flickered, then steadied, though it looked like it wouldn't last much longer.

I thought about Merry's words. About how even the brightest things fade, about how the city only holds us for as long as it takes to pass through its windows. Maybe that's what the stub really was — not proof of the film, not proof of the theater, but proof of us. That we stood here. That we breathed this air, once.

I exhaled slowly, the night air cool in my chest.

"What will remember us?" I repeated under my breath.

The words didn't ache. They just settled, like a stone dropped into a river, rippling outward until they dissolved into the flow. Gentle, inevitable.

Merry tucked her stub carefully into her  pocket, like she'd found her answer.

I followed her as she stepped off the curb. Our footsteps tapped softly on the damp pavement, in rhythm with the city's pulse.

Behind us, the marquee buzzed again, one faint light still clinging on.

For now.