The morning sun was already warm on my shoulders when I pressed send. Just a few words, simple, but heavy with meaning: Meet me in the bamboo forest, behind the house.

For a while, nothing happened. I set my phone down, tried to breathe, tried to keep my hands from trembling as though I hadn’t just invited danger and desire into my quiet sanctuary. The forest had always been a place of solitude for me — a tangle of green walls where the outside world couldn’t reach. Today it would become something else entirely.

By midday, the wild birds had begun their steady hum. The light was sharp, spilling between tall stalks, turning the bamboo into a cathedral of green and gold. I walked the narrow path slowly, every step measured, my heart already running ahead.

He was there with me. I saw him first as a figure in the dappled light, his shirt catching the sun in flashes. He stood with his hands in his pockets, shoulders set, but I could sense the same nerves that twisted in me. Married. Bound. Yet here.

When our eyes met, the air thickened. For a moment we just looked at each other, neither moving, as if acknowledging that this was the point of no return. The forest was bright and open, but it felt like the most hidden place in the world.

I stopped just a few paces from him, sunlight slipping between us like thin threads.

“You came,” I said softly.

“I had to,” he answered, his voice low, almost strained.

A bird startled from the branches overhead, and both our eyes flicked upward, breaking the moment before it could swallow us whole. But then, as if by some unspoken agreement, the space between us closed. His hand brushed mine — a touch so fleeting, yet it burned like fire.

Around us, the bamboo creaked in the breeze, swaying like guardians who would never betray what they saw. Every detail of daylight — the bright sky, the earthy scent of the forest floor, the chorus of wild birds — became sharper, etched into memory. Because this was not just a meeting. It was a crossing.

We stood close enough that I could hear the unsteady rhythm of his breath, close enough that words became unnecessary. Daylight did not soften the pull between us; it only made it more dangerous, more undeniable.

And in that moment, with the sun high above and the world oblivious beyond the trees, I knew: the forest would remember us....