Four years. People said that was long enough for a relationship to be stable.

They were right. The process of getting to know each other was over. We didn't forget birthdays or anniversaries, and we kept in touch regularly. To others, we were a perfectly normal couple.

But people easily become dull in the face of familiarity. At some point, "Did you finish work?" came before "I miss you," and time spent looking at our own phones became longer than time spent holding hands. We spent a lot of time together, but the sense of being together was gradually fading. It wasn't that we didn't love each other. ... ... ... No, maybe that was the bigger problem. It wasn't that we had grown to dislike or hate each other. As the days passed by uneventfully, our relationship was slowly crumbling.

There were too many emotions to explain with the single word 'slump.' There was guilt, familiarity, and exhaustion. But that didn't mean I wanted to break up. Maybe we had just loved each other for so long that we briefly forgot how to love.

The words 'I like you' decreased, and 'I'm sorry' increased. The excuse of being busy came out of my mouth several times a day, and now you said nothing. The repeated small frictions, and my inner self getting exhausted within them, seemed to be cooling down. It was the same pattern no matter what words were thrown in. How long do I have to look after you? You're always like that. What did I even do? See, you don't even know what you did wrong... ... ...

Maybe, just a little.

I might be getting tired of this.