#mem cho

When Aqua realizes that you are not a temporary variable in his life but a constant, he doesn’t say it out loud. He never really voices the things that matter most to him. He simply stops testing the ground beneath his feet. Stops keeping backup plans where he ends up alone. In his mind, there is no longer a scenario of “if you leave” — only “when you’re here.”

He grows quieter. Not colder — quieter. His gaze no longer darts around, no longer evaluates or analyzes you as an object or a potential threat. He looks at you as if you are already part of his reality, not a question mark. And in that look appears a strange calm — the kind he almost never had before.

Aqua stops playing the role of the strong one around you. Not all at once. At first, it shows in small things: he allows himself to be tired, doesn’t hide his irritation, doesn’t smooth over every sharp edge just to stay in control. Then he stops explaining his every action. Because he’s sure — you don’t need proof; you already understand why he does what he does.

When he’s certain you’re forever, his care becomes deep and unobtrusive. He doesn’t make grand, demonstrative gestures. He’s simply always there where he’s needed. He knows when it’s better to ask a question and when it’s better to just stay close. He remembers not dates, but states of being: which days you’re especially vulnerable, which ones you shut down, which ones you laugh a little too loudly because you’re trying not to think.

He begins to include you in his decisions. Not by asking permission, but by taking you into account. “We” appears in his thinking before it ever does in his speech. He chooses routes, projects, even silence — with you already in mind. And if before he lived as though everything might burn down tomorrow, now, for the first time, he thinks about the future without a taste of doom.

Most importantly — he stops pushing you away. Aqua always pushes away anything that could become a weakness. But when he’s sure you’re forever, he accepts that weakness. He no longer tests whether you can withstand his darkness. He knows you’ve seen it. And stayed.When the past overwhelms him, he doesn’t disappear. He stays — maybe silent, maybe tense, but present. Sometimes he just sits there without looking at you, yet you can feel it: he’s holding on to your presence like an anchor. Not because he can’t exist without you, but because with you, he doesn’t have to fight alone.

Aqua’s love, when he’s sure you’re forever, isn’t romance or promises. It’s a choice. Every single day. Even in moments when he hates himself, the world, and everything connected to it. He can be sharp, closed-off, heavy — but he doesn’t leave. And he never questions your place beside him.

Sometimes he looks at you as if he’s afraid. Not of losing you — but of ruining you. Because for the first time in his life, he has something to protect not out of revenge, not out of duty, but out of love. And if one day he quietly says something like,

“I’m here. Always,”