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"Is Japanese culture really that reserved?" Audrey asked, eyes curious as ever.

Henry thought for a moment. "It's not just Japan. Most of Asia, influenced by older traditions, treats certain words differently. They do have a word for love, but they don't use it the way we do in the West."

Audrey tilted her head. "Out of modesty?"

"More out of weight," Henry said. "Think of emotions as a scale from one to ten. In the West, people start throwing around 'love' around a three or four. We love our partners, our pets, our morning coffee. The word's flexible, casual, everywhere.

"But in the East, it was traditionally reserved for something closer to eight or nine—deep, lifelong attachment. And it was almost never said in public. That's changing now, of course. These days people say it as easily as ordering dessert."

Audrey grinned. "So how did couples manage back then? Stare longingly until the heavens intervened? Or maybe they had telepathy—look across the room and instantly know, 'Oh yes, that's the one.'"

Henry laughed. "Not quite. They relied on metaphor. They'd wrap feelings in poetry or image. Something like:

'If I have him, even the smallest corner of the world is enough.'

'My eyes rain for him, but my heart holds up the umbrella.'

'You live quietly in my heart, the way the moon lives in the night sky.'"

Audrey's smile deepened. "Ah. Tagore."

"Exactly. Raised in Indian tradition, but able to reach across cultures. His words still travel."

She tilted her head playfully. "Tagore's considered one of the greatest poets in the world. But when you say it, it sounds like he's just… decent."

Henry smirked but didn't answer. He thought, privately, that the "world" had always been defined on Western terms. Others only counted when they played by those rules.

Audrey leaned forward on her elbows. "Then tell me, Henry—your favorite way of expressing love. Without ever saying the word. And make it strong. Nine or ten on your little scale." She raised both hands with all ten fingers, pouting like a schoolgirl daring him.

He fetched a notebook, flipped it open, and with his fountain pen wrote carefully:

"Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds."

Audrey's eyes lit up instantly. "Shakespeare."

"Sonnet 116," Henry confirmed. "Even the stars may fade, even time itself may end—but love, true love, doesn't bend. Not ever."

She read it again under her breath, and a soft smile bloomed across her face. "So beautiful… and without once saying 'I love you.'"

Henry chuckled. "That's the trick. Sometimes the absence of the word makes it stronger."

Audrey tapped the page. "Tell me the whole sonnet."

And Henry did. Slowly, deliberately, pausing to explain the old phrasing when necessary, weaving in other verses and comparisons—sometimes Shakespeare, sometimes Yeats, sometimes a line from Keats or Browning. Audrey wouldn't accept flat translation or paraphrase. She wanted the beauty intact. She wanted the music of it.

It took days, three filled notebooks, countless sketches and analogies to make it all land in ways she found satisfying. Rob would sometimes wander in, listening, occasionally offering a word or two, and then quietly leave them to their strange little workshop of poetry.

By the end, Henry found himself marveling at how a few verses, centuries old, could bridge so much—East and West, art and life, him and her.

And Audrey, radiant with delight, closed the last notebook as though it were a treasure chest.

"Not bad, Henry," she said softly. "Not bad at all."

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