In the sacred pond at the center of the world, where the water ran so deep it touched the roots of heaven, two koi had been circling each other since the beginning of time — never quite touching, never quite separating, their orange and white forms weaving together in an eternal dance that the universe had composed specifically for them. They spoke no language that words could carry — only the language of proximity, of the particular way one body moves through water knowing another body is near, of the small adjustments and responses that accumulate over centuries into something indistinguishable from devotion. The monks who tended the pond said that the pattern they traced together, if you could see it from above and all at once, formed a single character in an ancient script that meant simply: this is what love looks like when it has had enough time to become completely itself. Other fish came and went through the seasons, each one drawn briefly into the orbit of their endless circling before moving on, carrying with them something they couldn't name — a warmth, a steadiness, the memory of having briefly been close to something eternal. And the two koi swam on, orange fire and cool white light through endless blue, writing the same beautiful word over and over in the water, patient and complete and endlessly, perfectly in love.