You can tell from the polite knock that it’s not the usual henchmen of the archangels about to drop off another artifact at an unholy hour. As if something holy even existed in these spheres anymore to begin with. The devils couldn’t reach you, yet you keep wondering if their punishment would have been any kinder than what you endured for the mere sin of remembering a name. 

聖 Kiyo—holy. Something is missing; the last syllable stuck in your throat, clawing to get out. Another chip in your halo.

A pair of eyes darker than night meet yours when you push the door open. Something catches inside your chest—a sudden, aching tug, the sense that you have forgotten something important. Someone important. The world seems to dim around you as you hold his gaze, as if every stray bit of light is drawn into those eyes.

He’s an angel who is not supposed to be here; you can tell from the ruffled feathers of his wings and the low murmur of his voice, his entire body leaning towards you like a wilting flower. An inexplicable urge to brush the dark curls from his face takes you by surprise. Your fingers itch to trace the arch of his brow, to linger over the two birth marks just above it—places your hands seem to remember even if you don’t; where a lover once pressed kisses time and time again.

It’s only when you notice the crack running through his halo that you understand the urgency behind his visit.

You step aside without a word.

He slips past you and you hurry to lock the door behind you both. He shouldn’t be here, you know that much. But you cannot send him away, not like this. 

“May I?” you ask with the same tenderness one might use before undressing a lover.

Except Heaven is no place for lovers. 

And he is a stranger. Was a stranger. Will be a stranger. 

Your thoughts stumble over one another, your mind unable to keep pace with the odd, magnetic pull he has on you. How did he even find you here, hidden away in the outskirts of Heaven? You are meant to be a shamefully kept secret—not banished nor fallen, but flawed. Your broken halo and singed wings are proof enough of that. Unfortunate to be too excellent in your craft to get disposed of just yet, like a blemished good that’s better off out of sight.

The other angel leans down and for a moment it seems as if he’s bowing to you, a faux act of devotion. Your fingers brush his hair when you reach for his halo, lifting it gently from his head. 

An angel’s halo is a vulnerable thing, something between a chain that binds them and a light that guides them. It is wrought from the soul—the last piece of you left behind when your earthly form is surrendered. 

To receive your halo is to give up everything: Your body, your name, your memories. You make a pact with Heaven, believing it will be kinder than passing on. Kinder than another afterlife, another reincarnation, another round of insufferable pain.

It is so easy.

Unless your soul stubbornly, desperately insists on remembering.

You remember him.

He’s not supposed to have a name anymore, but it weighs so heavy on the tip of your tongue, something bittersweet pushed around in your mouth. As if your lips refuse to forget the aftertaste of the most ambrosial thing they ever savored.

早 Sa—early. Not quite there yet, maybe long gone. 

Your workshop seems to shrink with him inside it, or perhaps it’s your entire universe that has shifted to accommodate his presence. He doesn’t sit even after you offer him a stool beside you, too restless to keep still. There’s an intensity around him that commands the energy of the room, a push and pull with your own, something so impossibly familiar to it. 

He looms behind you as you settle down on your workbench, watching with quiet attention as you turn his halo over in your hands. Your fingers follow the ridges along the surface, tracing every imperfection.

They look like scars that had a match once. 

“How did you even find me here?”, you ask eventually, setting the halo gently onto a velvet cushion before reaching for your tools. In a sealed corner of your heart you already know the answer.

“I’d find you anywhere.”

The words are so simple; the truth behind them is not. 

He is supposed to be a stranger and yet, with him standing there, it feels as though he has been sitting shoulder to shoulder with you for years. Forever, maybe. As though there has never been a version of your life in which he wasn’t there. 

You don’t let yourself wonder why though, not yet. There is a halo in your care, fractured and threatening to break, and that is something you understand better than anyone else. So you focus on the damage instead of the strange certainty blooming somewhere beneath your ribs.

Usually you wouldn’t repair a halo. Halos are not meant to break. 

The only time the Divine Restoration Bureau sends one to your workshop is when they want you to melt it back into Light, the raw material they’re crafted from. Fractures in your halo mean fractures to your soul, something that’s supposed to be sealed away for a greater good. It’s an imbalance the Divine Order won’t allow. 

You become both the knife and the wound. 

As you work, you find yourself wondering what his soul remembers, buried beneath all the things Heaven has taken from him. The sound of laughter from a loved one? The warm touch of a hand he once refused to let go of, even beyond death? The faint scent of a perfume lingering on his skin long after its wearer had gone? 

You wonder what could possibly be so precious to him that even a soul, stripped of everything else, would refuse to forget. 

Maybe it’s a name, mirroring you. Fragments of one, broken pieces scattered like ashes across time. In Heaven they say that calling someone by their former name sets them free at last; that is why all names were banished long ago. 

You feel his dark eyes fixed on you as you work, drinking you in. 

By now, after putting the kettle on the stove and falling back into your natural work rhythm, he has finally settled down beside you. His hands are wrapped around an once-broken cup, the golden lines of it still marking where it once shattered. Perhaps it’s the honeyed tea, perhaps it’s simply your calm presence, but the feathers of his wings have finally smoothened. They now rise and fall softly with every breath, brushing against your own. 

You can tell that he’s curious about your singed wings, a flicker of anger on your behalf crossing his gaze before he reins in his expression again. It seems like neither of you asks the questions they want to ask tonight. Whatever happened to you, he’s better off not knowing. There is a particular cruelty in touching a wound when you know it will never heal.

久 Ku—long time. Not forever but close to it. A promise you once made. 

Under your gentle hands his halo slowly becomes whole again, or at least as whole something broken can become. It would be enough for him to not draw any attention, enough to fit in. Another eternity awaits him, and if he’s lucky he can bury what was once his. Not everyone gets this privilege. 

By the time you finish, dawn breaks. 

An unfamiliar sadness washes over you, a farewell you’ve been dreading without ever knowing why. Even if only for a few hours it had been nice to have company—a warm body by your side and a secret shared. You hadn’t realized just how lonely you had been.

Something tugs in your chest at the sight of your messy workbench; empty tea cups and stacked plates with crumbs on top, crumbled up pieces of paper and spilled ink, gold dust across drawings of a flower whose name you once knew. It’s almost as if someone is living here, not just existing. 

He leans down again, a gesture close to resting his head against your shoulder, but he stops before you can feel the weight of it against your body. His feathers ruffle quietly with every movement, a revoked restlessness to him. As if he knows he can’t stay here for much longer. 

You put his halo back on like a crown, its glowing light illuminating his curls and the palms of your hands. Somewhere faintly in the distance you hear bells ringing.

It’s strange. Their sound never reaches this part of Heaven. 

The bells are eerie, almost mournful, and something about them makes the skin in the back of your neck prickle with thousand needles. When he looks up again, your eyes meet and in that single moment, everything comes crashing down. 

The memory. The loss. The reason his face has felt like something you have known once.

Now you remember. 

佐久早 Sakusa—forever early. An irony to it, after having lost you before. You once gave him that name, maybe cursed him with it. It’s him, he’s yours, your Kiyo—

“Forgive me,” he asks of you as he cups your face with the gentlest of hands. 

His touch makes your cheeks burn, your breath catching somewhere in your lungs as you struggle for the last syllable. In another life, his name doesn’t feel like shards in your mouth. This isn’t right. Not like this, not again, you almost had it, you— 

“I’ll find you again. I promise. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He says your name and your halo splits. 

It’s a cruel kind of salvation, to be set free just when you had almost gotten your love back—when you could feel it within reach, close enough to touch.

—GARDEN

If fate had a favorite place to hide, it was somewhere between the palace's greenhouses and the hands of the man who coaxed impossible flowers into bloom.

For generations, the Sakusa family had been entrusted with the care of the royal gardens—cultivating flowers, herbs, and ancient trees long before Kiyoomi was born. 

To him, being the royal chief gardener isn’t just a profession. It is his inheritance, his pride, and his oath to the crown. One especially to the beloved princess who likes to stray away from the boring etiquette lessons in her chambers and rather sneaks out in the greenhouses. 

You, the one flower he can only admire from afar. 

“Your Highness.” 

Of course he’d find you here, where the Centelune grows, a rare plant said to only bloom once every century, beneath the light of a full moon.

A small, secluded greenhouse has been built solely for it, tucked away from the rest of the royal gardens. Within its walls, generations of gardeners have carefully preserved every record of the plant: observations and sketches, instructions for its cultivation, accounts of the last bloom—all neatly arranged on yellowed pages along the shelves of a towering bookcase. The Centelune is as old as the kingdom itself. It has endured wars, famines and plagues, its roots sinking deeper into the soil with each passing year.

There are stories ranking around it, of course. Myths that have been whispered among generations. They say that whoever witnesses the Centelune in full bloom will be blessed with everlasting love. 

Kiyoomi, a man of facts and logic, believes none of it. Why would he need a blossom to tell him about love when you are right here?

There’s not an ounce of guilt in your eyes when you glance at him over your shoulder, wearing the smile of yours that never fails to make his heart stumble in his ribcage. 

Can’t eat, can’t sleep. Every thought is consumed by the princess wandering the gardens. A sight which makes me quite lovesick, he had once written down in his diary, a habit he picked up from documenting the growth and seasons of the garden. 

He had stared down at the words as the truth sank in before striking through them in thick, bold lines, as though he could frighten the confession back into hiding. Then he had torn the page from the little book, crumpled it in his hand and fed it to the open fire. 

He mustn’t let these feelings take root.

A gardener knows better than anyone that a weakness left unattended will spread. A diseased stem must be cut before it can infect the rest of the plant. A flower that blooms where it shouldn’t must be pruned before its roots grow too deep.

He will do what he has always done. He will tend to the garden. He will keep the flowers alive. And he will cut his own heart back before it has the chance to unfurl into a blossom.

Because Sakusa Kiyoomi knows his place, and his place can never be by your side.

Nevertheless he crouches down next to you, careful to leave enough space between your bodies so as to not to touch you. His hands are always dirty despite the gloves he wears while tending to the gardens, meanwhile you are made in the image of purity. He can’t help but be reminded of the moon whenever he sees you; orbiting around him, illuminating his path but forever out of reach. 

And yet—as the moon does—you push and pull at him like tides, always inching closer, always leaning into his proximity, always picking a petal that isn’t even there off his shoulder. He knows it’s an excuse to be close to him, and as much as his heart sings out for you, he can never allow himself to reciprocate your actions.

He cannot let this become mutual. He cannot let himself hope. And yet—

“How much longer until it blooms?”

You run a finger along one of the Centelune’s broad leaves, your touch so delicate and tender that it almost seems as though you are coaxing the plant to grow faster for your sake. 

Because you are running out of time.

Kiyoomi watches you in silence. He has no doubt you could bend the whole universe to your will, if only it were as hopelessly in love with you as he is. 

Unfortunately, fate is not nearly as kind. 

Three moons from now, you’re going to sail out to get married to Ushijima, Prince of the North. It’s not a marriage born of love, he knows that much. Not just because people of your status rarely have the luxury of marrying for the sake of romantic affection, but because he has pretended not to see you crying more times than he can count about it—in overgrown corners of the gardens, beneath the glass ceilings of the greenhouses, anywhere you thought no one would find you. 

He has always found you anyway.

“Any day now, Your Highness,” he lies.

His gaze drifts towards the glass ceiling, tracing the last rays of sunshine filtering through it rather than risk meeting your eyes. He can feel your stare upon him regardless, warm and searching against his skin.

You are either kind or desperate enough to swallow the lie he fed you.

“Only a matter of time.”

A heartbeat of silence passes between you. 

“As it is with everything,” you reply quietly.

Kiyoomi’s heart sinks, no, it plummets. You sound so defeated, grief-stricken over a future that was decided for you, not with you, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

You rise to your full height, smoothing your skirts as you do. Even without your crown, there is something unmistakably regal about you. Your spine remains straight, your chin lifted, your gaze never lowered. Your presence commands the air in the room and every beat of his heart. Kiyoomi stands up as well, yet keeps his head bowed slightly in your presence. 

For a moment, silence lingers between you both like a heavy veil, every unspoken word weighing down on him. In another life, he’s planting you a garden in the absence of pain. 

“Are you enjoying the flower press I gave you, Your Highness?” he asks as he turns his back on you, pretending to inspect something on the bookshelves; a polite gesture to change topic, given that the tears welling up in your eyes are threatening to spill over any second now. 

“It’s a replica of the one handed down to me by my grandmother. Us humans are always looking for ways to preserve time, aren’t we?”

Kiyoomi expects to hear your pained sob, or maybe a stifled cry. Maybe a small pause as you rein your emotions back in, or the small choked up laughter after you collect yourself that he’s way too familiar with. After all, the princess always carries herself with grace and the unbreakable will of a thousand suns.

What he doesn’t expect is to feel your arms wrap around him from behind, your face pressed between his shoulder blades as if every salvation was hidden in there. For one terrible, beautiful moment he forgets how to breathe. He’s certain you can feel his heart trying to climb out of his chest right into your palms. You’re crying, he can tell from your form trembling with every shaky breath you take, and from the dampness seeping into the back of his shirt. 

“My princess,” he whispers, now softer. He only calls you that when you’re alone, and even then it feels forbidden in his mouth, too informal, the lines between you blurred; yet he can’t help himself. 

His hands find their way on top of yours, gently trying to pry them off him, but it only makes you hold on to him tighter. You are always the stubborn one. When he attempts to pull his hands away from you at least—because they’re dirty and you of all people shouldn’t get stained—you let out a small sound of protest that crawls up his spine. With a quiet sigh he lets you have your way, keeping your hands covered with his bigger ones.

If only he could preserve time like the dried petals between the pages of his diary. If only he could selfishly have you like this, forever. If only fate were any kinder. 

“My name,” you murmur quietly, and Kiyoomi thinks he has never heard you this defeated before. “Say it.”

“Your Highn–”

“My name,” you insist, your forehead coming to rest against his back. Your defeat is palpable. It settles against him with all its weight, and he does not move away from it. “Not my title. I want to hear you say it, just once. Let it be your final gift to me.”

Perhaps he owes you this—for every white lie he has ever told you, for every tear he could not catch, for every flower he will plant while an ocean lies between you.

Sakusa Kiyoomi speaks your name like something holy. 

Quietly at first, as though the greenhouse itself might overhear and take it from him. Then again, softer still. He gives it the tenderness of an apology and the weight of a promise, shaping each syllable as though he has never held anything so tender upon his tongue.

Like a sinner. Like a lover. Within the shelter of glass and living things, he confesses all that he could never bring to bloom.

You do not have three moons left.

War gathers beyond the horizon, and the ship bearing your betrothed kingdom’s colors enters the harbor before dawn. By midday, the marriage contracts are signed and sealed. Your dowry is inventoried in corridors crowded with soldiers; your trousseau is folded by trembling hands and shut into unfamiliar trunks. No one says that you are being sent away before the borders close. No one needs to. Every farewell is spoken in hushed voices, like promises already broken.

Kiyoomi never sees you again. 

Years later, the greenhouse stands in ruins of an ongoing war. Its glass ceiling has long since shattered, its walls blackened with soot, its shelves collapse beneath the weight of destruction and time. 

And yet, from the ashes, the Centelune blooms, pale and luminous beneath the moonlight. 

Neither of you is there to witness it anymore.

—SPACE

PAEONIA INTERSTELLAR EXPLORATION PROGRAM MISSION: MANGETSU-7 CLEARANCE LEVEL: RED FILE: COMMUNICATION LOGS STATUS: PARTIALLY DECLASSIFIED AFTER 97 YEARS

Sections marked █████ remain classified under Interstellar Contact Act §15.

[ARCHIVIST NOTE: The following section was marked for deletion by the will of CAPCOM Chief Communications Engineer █████████████. The deletion order was subsequently overturned under the Interstellar Records Preservation Act. The records have been restored without alteration.]

MISSION ARCHIVE: MANGETSU-7 TRANSCRIPT ID: M7-COMM-0041 MISSION ELAPSED TIME: 00:17:22 ONE-WAY SIGNAL DELAY: 00:00:01 PARTICIPANTS: — MANGETSU–7: CDR SAKUSA KIYOOMI — GROUND CONTROL: CAPCOM Chief Communications Engineer █████████████

CAPCOM: Mangetsu-7, this is Ground Control. Confirm cabin pressure holding at one-zero-one point three.

MANGETSU-7: Steady.

CAPCOM: Oxygen?

MANGETSU-7: Steady.

CAPCOM: Heart rate?

MANGETSU-7: You have the telemetry, █████████████

CAPCOM: I want to hear you say it, Commander.

MANGETSU-7: Heart rate elevated.

CAPCOM: Because of the launch conditions? That’s within the expected.

MANGETSU-7: Because you keep asking questions you already have answers to.

CAPCOM: Copy. 

CAPCOM: Irritability levels abominable. We will work on that in the next five years.

MANGETSU-7: Who approved you for this mission?

CAPCOM: Commander, you chose me yourself as primary CAPCOM.

MANGETSU-7: You sound very pleased with yourself.

CAPCOM: Me? Never. I’m just doing my job.

MANGETSU-7: I’m familiar with what your voice sounds like when you’re smiling, you know?

CAPCOM: ██████████████

MANGETSU-7: █████████████████████████

CAPCOM: That wasn’t very professional.

MANGETSU-7: Neither was what you said to me before they sealed the hatch.

CAPCOM: Say again? [LAUGHTER]

MANGETSU-7: ██████████████████████████████

CAPCOM: ██████████ [LAUGHTER AGAIN]

MANGETSU-7: ███████████████████████

CAPCOM: Come home and say that to my face.

MANGETSU-7: I intend to. 

MANGETSU-7: Mangetsu-7 confirms all systems nominal. 

MISSION ARCHIVE: MANGETSU-7 TRANSCRIPT ID: M7-COMM-0318 MISSION ELAPSED TIME: 041 DAYS, 06:03:12 ONE-WAY SIGNAL DELAY: 00:28:47

CAPCOM: Your biometrics show that you have not slept, Commander. 

MANGETSU-7: That’s not a question.

CAPCOM: Would you like me to phrase it as one?

MANGETSU-7: No. 

MANGETSU-7: And you’re not authorized to send me to sleep even if you reach out on an encrypted line, █████████████

CAPCOM: I wasn’t planning to. It’s not like I slept either.  

MANGETSU-7: You always slept well when you were in my arms.

MANGETSU-7: Or after █████████████████████

CAPCOM: ██████████████████████████

MANGETSU-7: █████████████

CAPCOM: █████

MANGETSU-7: ████████████████████████████

SYSTEM ALERT: UNIDENTIFIED STRUCTURAL ANOMALY DETECTED. Diagnostic assessment required.

CAPCOM: Irregular power fluctuations detected across three primary systems. 

CAPCOM: Switching to official channels.

MANGETSU-7: Copy.

MISSION ARCHIVE: MANGETSU-7 TRANSCRIPT ID: M7-COMM-0902 [UNAUTHORIZED TRANSMISSION] MISSION ELAPSED TIME: 183 DAYS, 21:40:08 ONE-WAY SIGNAL DELAY: 19:12:09

CAPCOM: Communications Engineer █████████████ to Commander Sakusa, Informally known as ████████ and ██████████████ 

CAPCOM: Kiyoomi. 

CAPCOM: I know you will scold me for reaching out to you via the encrypted channels again because you don’t want me to get in trouble with the higher ups. 

CAPCOM: I took extra measurements this time, so don’t worry. 

CAPCOM: I wouldn’t risk getting taken off this mission.

CAPCOM: It’s been half a year now since you left Earth which means it’s gonna be another four and half until you’re scheduled to return. 

CAPCOM: Time has been weird ever since. 

CAPCOM: I couldn’t bring myself to throw out the last withered flowers of you just yet. 

CAPCOM: ██████████████

CAPCOM: ████████████████████████████████████ 

CAPCOM: Motoya is dropping by weekly for dinner. 

CAPCOM: I think he might be just as lonely without you. 

CAPCOM: Can you believe I got better at cooking? 

CAPCOM: All your worries were for nothing. 

CAPCOM: And I know you won’t believe me, so come back home safe so I can show you, okay? 

CAPCOM: There’s also something else I need to tell you, but I will do when you get home.

CAPCOM: My shift ends before this will reach you, so ███████████████

CAPCOM: ████████████████

MANGETSU-7: You asked me to come home. ████████████████

MANGETSU-7: ████████████████████████████████████████████████

MISSION ARCHIVE: MANGETSU-7 INTERNAL MEDICAL NOTICE EMPLOYEE: █████████████ POSITION: CAPCOM Chief Communications Engineer MISSION: MANGETSU-7

PSYCHOLOGICAL FITNESS REVIEW

Employee demonstrates signs of prolonged occupational stress, sleep deprivation, and increasing emotional involvement with mission personnel.

Recommendation: 

☒ Rotation from MANGETSU-01 Communications ☒ Mandatory psychological counseling

Medical Services does not recommend continued assignment in the employee's current role.

Signed,

Dr. ██████████ Paeonia Interstellar Aerospace Psychiatry Division

[ARCHIVIST NOTE: The recommendation was acknowledged by higher ups of Flight Operations, but the employee █████████████ was retained on assignment due to operational necessity.]

MISSION ARCHIVE: MANGETSU-7 TRANSCRIPT ID: M7-COMM-1176 MISSION ELAPSED TIME: 227 DAYS, 02:15:03 ONE-WAY SIGNAL DELAY: 03 DAYS, 13:03:11

MANGETSU-7: Reporting attitude instability. 

MANGETSU-7: Starboard reaction control thrusters failed to respond after ignition sequence. 

MANGETSU-7: Running backup diagnostics. 

MANGETSU-7: Probably a software error. 

MANGETSU-7: Rebooting systems as practiced. 

MANGETSU-7: Will report back after setup is completed. 

MANGETSU-7: [failed transmission]

MANGETSU-7: [failed transmission]

MANGETSU-7: ████████████████

MISSION ARCHIVE: MANGETSU-7 TRANSCRIPT ID: M7-COMM-1207 [RECOVERED DATA] MISSION ELAPSED TIME: 254 DAYS, 11:19:52 ONE-WAY SIGNAL DELAY: 04 DAYS, 21:44:31

MANGETSU-7: [BEGIN DAMAGED TRANSMISSION] —impact was not external. 

MANGETSU-7: Navigation failed after the— [DATA LOST]

MANGETSU-7: ██████████████████████████████████████████████ 

MANGETSU-7: Engineer █████████████ was right about the primary navigation array. 

MANGETSU-7: Do not attempt retrieval. 

MANGETSU-7: By the time this reaches you, my position will no longer be— [DATA LOST] 

[Silence: 21.9 seconds] 

MANGETSU-7: I thought there would be more time. 

MANGETSU-7: I’m sorry.

MISSION ARCHIVE: MANGETSU-7 MISSION STATUS BULLETIN MISSION DAY: 262

Due to the failure of the primary navigation array, Mangetsu-7 is no longer capable of completing its scheduled return trajectory. ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ Crew notification has been authorized.

MISSION ARCHIVE: MANGETSU-7 TRANSCRIPT ID: M7-COMM-1389 [SECTIONS REMOVED BY PAEONIA AUTHORITY] MISSION ELAPSED TIME: 319 DAYS, 17:08:44 ONE-WAY SIGNAL DELAY: 11 DAYS, 13:02:18

MANGETSU-7: I don’t know whether you still have access to this channel.

MANGETSU-7: So the return trajectory was never part of the mission profile.

MANGETSU-7: I’m recording that plainly because ████████████████████████████

MANGETSU-7: ███████████████████████████████

MANGETSU-7: You must have suspected it. 

MANGETSU-7: That’s why you wouldn’t let go of my hand.

MANGETSU-7: I was so angry with you for making it harder to leave.

MANGETSU-7: I’m sorry.

MANGETSU-7: There are eleven and a half days between our voices now. 

MANGETSU-7: By the time you hear this, I’ll have spent weeks wondering what you’ll say.

MANGETSU-7: So say something even if you can’t say it to my face. 

MANGETSU-7: Even if it takes another lifetime to reach me.

MANGETSU-7: I will always wait for you, just as you wait for me. 

MANGETSU-7: In another life, we are looking at the same moon.

MANGETSU-7: I love you. 

MANGETSU-7: █████████████

MANGETSU-7: I’m not asking for forgiveness, but I promise I will make it up to you when we see each other again. 

MISSION ARCHIVE: MANGETSU-7 TRANSCRIPT ID: M7-COMM-1579 [UNAUTHORIZED TRANSMISSION] MISSION ELAPSED TIME: 409 DAYS, 08:15:07 ONE-WAY SIGNAL DELAY: 18 DAYS, 09:13:01

CAPCOM: Kiyoomi, this is my farewell to you.

CAPCOM: I’m sorry it took me so long.

[Silence: 57.3 seconds] 

CAPCOM: There’s still so many things I have left unsaid.

CAPCOM: I know now you’re not coming home anymore.

CAPCOM: So please find me again under the same moon, okay? 

CAPCOM: No matter how many lives it takes, come find me.

CAPCOM: ████████████████

MISSION ARCHIVE: MANGETSU-7 CLOSURE NOTICE AFTERWORD FROM THE ARCHIVIST

This file was recovered from the Communications Archive of the Paeonia Interstellar Exploration Program and transferred to the Central Historical Repository on 11 March 23██, ninety-seven years after the death of Chief Communications Engineer █████████████.

Due to the age and deterioration of the original storage medium, portions of the record remain corrupted or inaccessible. Recovered material has been preserved in its original order and, where possible, without alteration. Portions have been redacted in accordance with archival privacy regulations and Interstellar Contact Act §15.

The correspondence contained herein was initially preserved as mission-related communication. Upon review, it was determined that the majority of the recovered material consisted of private transmissions between Chief Communications Engineer █████████████ and Commander Sakusa Kiyoomi.

Mission records confirm that Commander Sakusa Kiyoomi did not return to Earth. The vessel and remaining parts of Mangetsu-7 have never been recovered.

█████████████, Chief Communications Engineer, died in their shared home on 20 March 22██. She was ninety-nine years old. Her handwritten letters to Commander Sakusa Kiyoomi remained unsent and have been donated to the archive for future preservation.

It is customary to conclude such records with an assessment of their historical or scientific significance. In this case, I have been unable to determine an appropriate one.

I can only note that they loved each other dearly.

They knew, with increasing certainty, that they would not see each other again. And still, they continued to speak as though the distance between them were temporary—as though somewhere beyond the years, the silence, and the impossible distance, there remained a life in which they would finally arrive at the same place.

Both parties were never formally recorded as having been married, yet a wedding chapel has been booked, scheduled a month after Commander Sakusa Kiyoomi’s assumed return date in the future.

For a little while, two people at opposite ends of an expanding universe refused to let go of another. Their voices may not have found another in this lifetime, but I’m glad they reached us to preserve their story.

Record closed.

Signed, Head Archivist ████████████ Central Historical Repository

—SAFE HOUSE

There must be kinder ways to die than bleeding out in your ex-fiancé’s arms in an unassuming safe house, but then again fate has never been kind to you. At least this time Kiyoomi gets to be there for you when your heart stops beating. 

You, his forever almost. 

He tightens his hold around you, squeezing his eyes shut as if to pretend this was all a bad dream. The two fully-packed suitcases by the door and the fake passports on the table, next to them the plane tickets for a flight they will never board. The trail of fresh blood from the backdoor to the bedroom. A scrawly handwritten note, the address of a place thousands of miles away from here, the furthest away possible from both of your yakuza families. 

He would have left this planet behind with you to escape their clutches if he could. 

Instead you learned to disappear in plain sight after they called off the marriage—in borrowed clothes and unfamiliar faces, in abandoned buildings and quiet corners of the city, in fleeting moments of ordinary life where you pretended not to know each other. You learned how to pass each other on the street without looking twice, how to speak like strangers when there were eyes on you, how to steal whatever scraps of normalcy you could find when no one was watching.

Because it had never mattered what either of you wanted. Not to them. Your clans had been at war for five generations before you were even born, and no amount of love could make your elders forget the blood that came before you. To them, you were simply their given heirs. Bargaining pieces. Just another gear in a broken system. 

The marriage was supposed to benefit both clans, both of them weakened by years of war, stripped of territory and mourning too many empty places at the tables. If you can’t conquer them, join them. Bind the two heirs together and call it peace. Let your marriage stitch together what generations of bloodshed had torn apart, let you carry the weight of the dead. Two rival clans, made one at last.

For a brief period, you were allowed to meet another regularly under the guise of wedding preparations. While the elders negotiated behind closed doors, you were given the gardens and the illusion of privacy, expected to spend your afternoons learning about the stranger you were supposed to marry. They thought it would be best to give you both the illusion of choice—the possibility of falling in love with the enemy.

They never knew you had been dating in secret long before that.

What had begun with knives pressed against throats and threats murmured against one another’s skin had, over the years, softened into something neither of you ever bothered to name. Somewhere between the drawn blades and whispered promises, hatred had become familiarity, tenderness even. You learned the shape of each other’s silences. The places where touch lingered for too long. The quiet certainty that, whatever the clans asked of you, there was one thing that belonged only to the two of you.

He got to see you smile, the real one, not the cocky curve of your lips you wore during negotiations like a shield. He got to hear you say his name, soft and unguarded, and the gentle echo of it still haunts him. He got to taste you, inch for inch, until you fell apart for him so willingly. 

He got to love you once. In this life, only you; almost, always.

It took one sole failed assassination attempt to tip the fragile truce between both clans back into warfare. 

The Sakusa family was quick to place the blame on yours, as they always had been. Decades of bloodshed had taught them to reach for the same conclusion before they ever bothered searching for another. And while your own secret investigation turned up evidence that your family had nothing to do with the attempt, the accusation alone was enough to shatter the overly fragile trust that had been established. 

You argued. You pleaded. You cowered on your hands and knees with your forehead pressed to the floor before your elders and begged them not to throw the alliance, but they had already made up their minds; countless hours of reasoning lost with people who had spent their entire lives believing there could never be peace between your families. 

Kiyoomi fared no better. 

He went against his father and older brother, demanded they hear him out, insisted that your family had nothing to do with the attack—only to be eventually dismissed as nothing more than a lovesick boy blinded by his barely hidden feelings for you. The very thing they had once hoped would bind your clans together was now being used as proof that neither of you could be trusted. 

In the end, they treated you both like children who had no say in what happened to their own lives. 

So you decided to do what children do when adults refuse to listen.

You ran. 

For months, Kiyoomi and you planned your escape in secret. Laundering money was the easiest part. False documents with names that were no longer yours changed hands in the lines of conbini stores were harder to pull off, but you managed. Packed bags were hidden beyond old wooden floor boards in safe house after safe house, and cars with plates neither family would recognize were arranged. Train schedules and street names beyond clan territories were memorized and burnt afterwards. 

Your meetings had been fleeting—the risk of being found out too high—but the few minutes were used for whispered promises, “just a little longer” and “I will wait for you, forever if I must” in hushed voices, two pinkies brushing against each other. When there was nothing left to plan and only time was meant to pass, Kiyoomi dared to ask for your dreams of the future, clinging to your lips with every picture you painted.

Somewhere quiet, somewhere no one knows your names, somewhere of your own. In another life, he gets to keep the promises he foolishly made to you.

Both of you had been so full of naïve hope. Maybe that’s where it all went wrong. 

With wounds like yours, you should never have made it to the safe house and yet, you did. Somehow, you still had enough strength left to give the secret knock he had memorized by heart before your knees buckled and you collapsed into his arms. 

One look at you is all it takes—the relief and terror in your eyes as they flutter, your hands clinging to the front of his shirt with your last bit of strength. You try to speak but he shushes you. He already knows. An anomaly in the plan, the universe laughing in your faces. 

Once again, you have gotten so close. 

For a couple panicked seconds, he keeps assessing you up and down for something he can do. A wound to apply pressure to, to patch up, a way to stop the bleeding—anything. But there’s too much blood, soaking through his hands no matter how tightly he holds you. Your skin is cold to touch when he presses his fingers to your wrists, your pulse beneath them is barely there. He understands then, with a clarity so calm and so cruel, that you didn’t come to the safe house to get saved. You came to say goodbye with the few heartbeats you had left in you. 

He knows he should get out of here, that you want him to leave you behind. Even in your current state you’re stubbornly putting up a fight, with your breath coming out in fast, short busts as you give him a strained rundown of what went wrong. He barely registers anything of it. His body moves on autopilot, locking the backdoor again and lifting you up in his arms to carry you over to the bedroom. The old Persian carpets upon the wooden floorboards muffle his steps, now sprinkled in red. Withered wedding photos of the previous tenants hang upon the wall, mocking them of what they’ll never have.

Kiyoomi is careful when he sits down on the bedroom floor with you, leaning against the massive bedframe as he keeps you cradled in his arms, your head comfortably (or so he hopes) resting against his shoulder. You could have been sleeping in this bed by now, protected by him keeping watch, your smaller frame curled against his, your chest rising and sinking slowly as you dream of a future in the absence of pain. 

Despite knowing better he made a promise to you, after all. 

“It’s okay, my love. I’m here now, it’s okay…” he mutters against your temple, leaving a streak of blood when he brushes your hair out of your face. His hands are shaking terribly. He hopes you won’t notice. Tears are soaking the collar of his shirts and he can’t tell if they’re yours or his. He presses featherlight kisses to the top of your head.

“You can let go, okay? I’ll come find you again in the next life, and the one after that. I’ll find you again. I promised you, right?”

This might be the softest he has ever spoken to you. For someone who grew up on honor and violence, whose hands have never known tenderness before they held you, he’s now cradling you as if you’re going to slip through his fingers any moment. 

Slowly, you do. 

For a while, he keeps on talking. Nonsense, mostly; about all the things that don’t matter anymore. How he was going to paint your future bedroom in your favorite color, and how he had matching rings ready to pick up after you landed. How he had been thinking about adopting a cat or two, but that he worries they’re gonna claim his side of the bed for themselves (because of course you were going to be their favorite). How he had the constellation of the stars you were born under tattooed underneath his chest just a few days ago. 

He tells you that he loves you, over and over again.

Your breathing grows quieter beneath his ear; then quieter still. 

“My brave girl,” he whispers against your ear, kissing your temple, then your eyelids as they flutter shut. “That’s it. I’ll find you. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll find you.”

“Kiyoomi…” 

His heart shatters at the sound of his name on your lips, but he wants to memorize everything. He wants to carve you so deeply into his memory that even death won't be able to take you from him. 

And then, so quietly that he almost misses it, you take your final breath.

For what feels like forever, Kiyoomi doesn’t move, only lets himself feel the weight of your body in his arms. His arms remain steady around your lifeless body, as if putting you down made you fade like a dream. At some point it had started pouring outside, a steady rhythm against a roof that only housed one heartbeat now. 

“...You’re okay,” he mutters, though there is no one left to reassure. “You’re okay.”

He presses his lips to the crown of your head, as if there’s still some warmth he can give back to you. As if he can selfishly keep you here with him a little longer by holding on to you tighter. 

Maybe he put a curse on you in a past life when he fell for you. Maybe he stained you with his love, like a punishment. A sin so fatal it split your soul into thousands of pieces.

For the first time since he met you, Kiyoomi lets himself imagine a life in which loving you doesn’t have to hurt you; a life so ordinary yet so rich. A small house with both of your names on the doorbell, shoes kicked off by the door. Two handmade mugs in the sink, the radio playing your favorite song. Two cats asleep on his side of the bed, exactly as he knew they would. The open window carries a breeze inside that almost knocks over the vase with flowers he got for you and on the stove bubbles a stew that will feed you both for three days.

It’s a life in which he gets to hear you laugh in the absence of tragedy. One in which he gets to kiss you until you gasp for breath and your fingers tangle tighter in his hair before you pull him closer again for another one. One in which he gets to call out your name from the garden and hear you call back at him from inside the house, the most distance ever between you. 

It’s not this one. He lost you, but for once he got really close.

—SHRINE

Fuck these village elders, and fuck these mountains, and fuck all these good-for-nothing gods. 

You are a sacrifice. A pretty thing of unfortunate age, just fitting enough for their twisted rituals in the name of protecting their home in the valley. But what about your home? Who was there to protect you? Surely not your family who gave up their eldest child so willingly. All to suck up with the elders and ensure their ranks within the village hierarchy for the next century at least. 

The family of the sacrifice is paid out in gold and farmland. Meanwhile you are supposed to believe it’s an honor to be sent up the mountain, closest to the gods, to offer yourself to some deity whose name has already faded from the historical scrolls. For the sake of safe passages, rich crops and whatnot. You couldn’t even bother to listen with the blood rushing in your ears, fueled by an ancient anger. 

“And fuck your honor,” you huff to yourself as you impatiently untangle the sleeve of your heavy ceremonial robe from the thorns of a bush. “Fuck all of this.”

Getting rid of the convoy guiding you had been almost laughably easy. A little dried ashroot slipped into their drinks at night, an hour for the numbness to settle in, and then you were robbing their supplies of anything worth carrying beyond the border. You could have killed them. It would have been simpler, maybe. But there was no point to it and you wouldn’t want to get as low as their level. All you needed was enough time to disappear into the thick of the mountain forest before the narcotic effects wore off.

You’re meticulous about hiding your tracks. Still, you doubt they would even come looking for you. More likely, they will simply go back empty-handed and lie to the elders about their duty being fulfilled. They know you have no intention of returning to the village, because why would you? There was nothing and no one left for you to embrace with open arms.

In your village, they always feared the mountains and whatever lurked there. You couldn’t care less. You’ve never known safety and tenderness anyway, so what’s there left for you to fear? The trees and bushes get more dense the higher up you climb the mountain. It’s not like there were any paths or trails you could follow anyway, so as long as you went upwards you figured you were on the safe side. As safe as it gets, all on your own with nothing but trust in yourself and your most stubborn survival instincts.

By the time the sun sets again you stumble out of the thicket into a clearing. There were still small patches of snow at this height and your robe and the fur around your shoulders did only so much to keep you warm. The things you would do for a soft futon by the fire and a bowl of rice right now. You take a few more steps and only then you notice a small building overgrown with moss and ivy. It looks like it had been carved out straight from the mountain, framed with now withered wood.

On closer inspection you realize they’re torii, marking the entrance of a shrine. 

Great. Just your luck. Escaping the greed of one god just to stumble in the home of another. You roll your eyes and flop down in front of it, taking in the view in front of you and assessing your situation.

The shrine looks abandoned. You’ve heard the tales about villages nestled high up in the mountains, but you always assumed they were stories told to frighten the children away from the snowline. No village could possibly have survived this altitude for centuries. Not with the winters here. Not with the mountain paths disappearing beneath snow for months at a time. 

And yet, someone had built this place.

Someone had carried the timber all the way up here. Someone had carved the steps into the rock, hung bells beneath the eaves, and put up these torii along a path that no longer seemed to lead anywhere.

You wonder what kind of god would demand a shrine so far from the people who worshipped him.

Whoever it was, he surely wasn’t around anymore so you might as well make yourself at home. Your body aches from the escape, the ceremonial robe is itchy and heavy, and your head feels like a hundred needles piercing it with the now-tousled hairdo they forced on you before you were sent off. After everything you’ve been through, you deserve a safe and quiet place to rest, and not even a god could stop you from this. 

You step through the torii and push the entrance door to the shrine open, only held back by a few strands of ivy. 

The first thing you notice is the smell. It’s neither rot nor mildew, not the stale scent of a building left to wither in centuries of snow. It’s incense; faint, almost imperceptible, but unmistakably there. You pause with one hand still on the door, staring.

Inside, the shrine is spotless. The floorboards are polished enough to catch the last bits of fading light spilling through the doorway. There is no speck of dust gathered in the corners. Even the paper charms hanging from the beams are pristine, their white edges untouched by damp and time. It’s as if someone had been here just yesterday. 

On top of the altar sits a wooden statue. You cannot tell what kind of god it depicts. There’s something so strangely human about how it’s carved out; lacking the serene expressions you have seen on the village’s household gods, nor does it have the broad, exaggerated features carved for the mountain deities. 

No, this one looks almost irritated. It makes you laugh for the first time in a really long while.

The bowl for offerings beneath the altar is empty. And while you are still mad at heavens and all the gods above, you still place a rice cracker from your stolen supply in there because unlike everyone else, you’re not an asshole and know when to appreciate something. And right now you are appreciating a warm and safe place with no other soul around.

When you look around some more, you discover a narrow hallway leading towards a handful of small rooms. They look identical and from what was left behind in there you figure that they must have belonged to the shrine maidens once. Old drawers, wooden combs and neatly folded miko clothing and neatly rolled up futons. It’s more than you could have hoped for. 

You shake out the old bedding and hastily change out of your ceremonial robes, yawning as you untangle your hair, the ornamental hair pins clattering carelessly to the floor around you before you lay your head down to rest. It’s a strange place you found yourself in, but whatever it is, you will figure it out after you wake up.

By the time you do, sunlight is already streaming through the shōji. 

For a heartbeat, you don’t remember where you are. Then the unfamiliar ceiling comes back to you, followed by everything else that happened yesterday. Judging by the brightness outside, you must have slept well into the next day. It surprises you, because sleep never comes to you easily, but then again you were dead exhausted on your feet.

You spend the morning exploring the rest of the shrine. There are prayer scrolls tucked away in every corner you turn, their ink faded but still legible, along with old records of offerings and festivals no one seems to have held in decades. Further down the temple grounds you find the kitchen and a small storage room stocked with bags of rice, preserved vegetables, firewood, and a few other supplies. Most of it is old as time, but after a couple of experimental bites (because even the worst that could happen doesn’t scare you anymore) some of it seems usable still. 

It isn’t much, but it’s more than you have ever had. 

After washing up by the well outside and changing into one of the miko uniforms—it was either this or the smelly clothes you took off your escorts after drugging them—you make a small fire in the kitchen and cook up a simple meal of rice and pickled vegetables. You trace the carvings on the old kitchen table as you sit in silence and savor every bite, and it’s then when you make up your mind and decide to stay here for a while. Just until summer would arrive and you could make a safe passage through the mountains to the next harbor to leave this land forever.

For the first time since you were ripped from your home, you allow yourself to weigh yourself in safety. 

And so within the span of a few days, you settle into this strange old place and make it one of your own. You spend hours reading the old scrolls but not once the name of the god gets mentioned. It’s as if his name has faded entirely, and you wonder if he had been forgotten just the same way you hope to be forgotten by everyone who ever knew you. 

Day for day, you place a small offering in front of his altar—a habit turning into a ritual for yourself. The food is always gone in the mornings and you figure it must be rodents who found a home within these walls just the same. When you’re not reading, you’re outside foraging for fresh herbs and berries, surprised by what nature is offering this high up in the mountains. 

You start talking to yourself somewhere around the end of the first week. 

At first, it’s nothing more than the occasional muttered complaint when you burn the rice or stumble upon one of the big roots of the trees growing outside. Soon enough, you find yourself filling the silence with little observations, telling the empty rooms about the weather or how stubborn the fire is. There is no one around to answer you, but somehow that makes it easier.

And strangely, the shrine never feels quite as lonely as it should.

Sometimes you leave a cup of tea on the veranda and find it empty when you return. Sometimes the bells beneath the eaves ring when there isn’t a breath of wind, or you wake to find the door you distinctly remember closing halfway open again. Once, you could have sworn you heard footsteps following you through the hall, only to turn around and find nothing.

You blame the mountain. The wind. The old, aching wood. The animals. Your own exhaustion. 

Anything but the obvious. 

Besides, you like it here. There are no villagers watching you. No one telling you what you should be, what you should wear, who you should marry, or which role you are supposed to fulfill. Here, you can wake with the sun, tend to the shrine like an old friend, forage for food, read until your eyes grow tired, and fall asleep to the sound of bells outside the gates.

It’s the closest thing to peace you have ever known. 

Perhaps that’s why, when you hear a deep voice behind you one evening, your first thought isn’t fear. It’s annoyance. 

You whirl around, the broom you used for sweeping in one hand still, prepared to tell whoever has wandered into your shrine that they’re trespassing.

A young man is leaning against the torii, arms crossed in front of his chest. He’s dressed strangely for someone wandering this high into the mountains, though you can’t quite put your finger on what feels wrong about him. His pale face, framed by dark curls and an expression of unmistakable irritation, feels quite familiar though. Was he from your village? Did the elders send him to bring you back? Or to get rid of you for good?

You stare at each other. Then you point your broom at him.

“Get lost.”

His eyebrows draw together even further, but he doesn’t move from his spot.

“I live here.”

You blink at him. Once, twice. 

“No, you don’t,” you huff out, gripping the handle of your broom tighter. He might be taller than you with an imposing air around him, but you wouldn’t go down without a fight if you had to. His eyebrows draw together.

“I do. I’ve been here longer than you.”

“Well, I’ve been here for several days and I haven’t seen you once.”

“That doesn’t mean I wasn’t around. Also, your way of sweeping is inefficient. You’re pushing the dust into the corners instead of collecting it.”

You narrow your eyes at him. This guy doesn’t seem hostile, just mildly annoyed with a lack of bad manners on top. Fantastic.

“You came all the way up to the mountains just to criticize how I sweep?”

“It’s my shrine.”

“Your shrine,” you echo with utter disbelief over the audacity. “What’s your name?” 

You take a step towards him. From up close you can see two perfect birth marks sitting above his brow, halfway hidden by a stray curl. But the most curious thing about him are his eyes—darker than black, not hollow but void, as if all light was absorbed by them. He looks back at you and for a split second the air around you seems to thicken, like a thunderstorm approaching. It makes your skin crawl and it’s then that you understand you are in the presence of not just a mere human, but someone else. His gaze softens. 

“I don’t have one,” he says, almost apologetic, his tone now oddly quiet. “Not anymore.”

You open your mouth to say something, then close it again. What is there to say in the presence of a deity? You’re still annoyed that he interrupted your peace but he was probably right about living here long before you did. Just your luck. But he hasn’t told you to leave just yet, so you might as well… stay.

“You do the sweeping then while I get started on dinner,” you huff out, making yourself a little taller to shake off the last bits of fear that crawled up on you. You push the broom into his hands (how are they so warm?) and whirl around to climb up the stairs leading inside the shrine. At the very top you dare to turn around and look over your shoulder, half-expecting him to come running after you and hold you back.

But he doesn’t. 

He simply stands there with the broom still in his hands, eyes following you all the way up the steps. His expression is unreadable until the corner of his mouth lifts into the faintest smile. He mutters something to himself, but the wind swallows every syllable before it can reach out. 

Perhaps it’s for the best. Because if you had heard him, you might have noticed the quiet amusement in his voice and if you had lingered, you would have seen the gleam in his eyes as they followed the hem of your robe. You would have known from early on how he is bound to you—by fate or desire, he’s not so sure himself. 

As long as he keeps finding you, there’s no beginning and no end to you.

There’s no conversation about how long you are supposed to stay, you simply do. Before long, the shrine has developed its own rhythm around you two. You tend to the grounds and prepare meals while he disappears into the mountains for hours at a time, only to return with an annoyed remark about the state of the kitchen or some wildflowers you insisted on bringing inside. You learn which floorboards creak, which herbs grow best in the shade, and exactly how much silence he can tolerate before he starts commenting on whatever you’re doing. He learns how you take your tea, which stories make you laugh, and when to leave you alone.

Somewhere between the bickering and the quiet evenings spent reading side by side, his presence stops feeling like an intrusion. You begin to look for him at every corner without thinking. Sometimes you catch him watching you with that quiet smile of his, and sometimes he catches you staring first. 

You give him a name. Sakusa Kiyoomi. You spend countless hours filling out the blanks in every scroll of the shrine, never an end to it.

The seasons pass almost without notice. Summer comes, then autumn. Winter gives away to spring again, and through it all, the two of you remain. For a little while, you let yourself believe that perhaps this is what a happy life looks like. 

You simply don’t realize yet that your time together is conditional; that he is bound to you and your fickle, human lifespan. 

It takes years before you notice. While small strands of silver weave through your hair and faint wrinkles appear around your eyes, Kiyoomi never changes, looking exactly as he did the day you first met. The same dark curls frame his face, the same sharp eyes following you across the room. You tell yourself that gods must simply age differently. It is easier than wondering what it means that he watches you grow older while remaining untouched by time. 

You try not to think about it. After all, there are still meals to share and books to read. There are mornings when you wake with his arm loosely around your waist and evenings when you sit together beneath the eaves, your head resting against his shoulder while he complains about the heat. There are kisses stolen between bickering, fingers intertwined above the table, and nights when neither of you bothers to pretend you came to the same futon for any other reason than wanting to be close. 

Kiyoomi has known what it means to be worshiped, and you have known what it means to seek approval of others. Neither of you has ever known love. So when you find it in each other, neither of you thinks to give the feeling a name.

One night, as you sit beside him and watch the snow fall upon the shrine gates, you find yourself wondering how many winters you have left like this.

Growing up, you never saw a future for yourself in the stars. Your universe revolved around serving your family, taking responsibilities at a way too young age, and being strong for others while chipping away from your own well-being. And when you were elected as a sacrifice, the last bit of autonomy you had was taken away from you for the sake of someone else. 

You didn’t want to die, but you also never had anything worth living beyond escaping what bound you. Not until you made a life here, side by side with the only god you ever believed in, wrapped in your chosen solitude. 

Kiyoomi pulls you closer to his side, making sure the fur around your shoulder is shielding every bit of cold from you (since you so stubbornly insisted on sitting outside in this weather even though you had a perfectly fine fire burning inside).

“Talk to me,” he murmurs, a plea wrapped in command. After so many winters by your side he’s well familiar with your habit of getting lost in your mind, deconstructing every thought until you gave yourself a headache and would grumble at him for half a day. He rubs your arm to keep you warm, and as if to reassure himself that you’re still here. 

When you don’t reply to him straight away, he leans closer until he fills your entire field of vision, unable to avoid his gaze. His free hand comes up to tip your chin up lightly. 

“None of that. Just tell me what it is so I can fix it.”

You let out a long sigh and put your hand above his, letting both sink down in your lap as you trace his knuckles.

“I brought you back and I will take you with me when I die,” you say quietly, looking back at him. Of course you have long realized that his lifespan was tied to yours; that your existence stumbling into his shrine and remembering him allowed him to wander these grounds again like he once used to. It is as miraculous as it is cruel. “Are you okay with this?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” His answer is immediate, as blunt as he always is. His fingers intertwine with yours, his thumb rubbing over the back of your hand. 

“But isn’t it scary?” you ask. “I don’t know, shouldn’t I pilger around and tell people about you and pass along your stories? So you can be remembered? So you can live on after I’m gone?”

His frown is immediate, but it softens at your genuine expressions. He sighs, then shifts so he can rest his forehead against yours. His eyes are closed, long lashes fanned out almost angelically. He really wasn’t from this world.

“Maybe in another you continue telling my story. But I’m good with being forgotten after this life of yours comes to an end,” he replies softly. “It means I can find you sooner in the next one. I’m not interested in existing in a world that doesn’t have you in it.”

He opens his eyes again as soon as he starts to hear you sniffle. With the utmost gentleness he kisses away every tear running down your cheeks, whispering your name like a prayer. You’re not celestial but to Kiyoomi you are the universe wrapped around his being, two rogue stars forming a constellation of your own upon the night sky.

The shrine bells ring for the final time, many winters from now. Buried beneath thick layers of snow lie two lovers—one human, one divine— embracing each other one last time. Once found, no one will remember their names, but they will forever remember each other.

—HOME, AT LAST

“Still can’t figure out how it ends?”

The familiar voice coaxes you from whatever jumbled trail of thought you just had. From behind you, Kiyoomi’s arms wrap around you where you’re sitting at the kitchen table. He presses a gentle kiss on top of your head and places a bowl of berries freshly picked from the garden next to your open laptop. On the dimmed screen, the manuscript of your next book is currently putting you through the wringer. 

“I think I’m gonna kill them,” you sigh and stretch like a needy, little housecat after sitting in the same position for hours. You haven’t even realized that the sun is already starting to set. “Make one of them bleed out in the other’s arms maybe.”

“Again?” Kiyoomi deadpans. He is all too familiar with your irrevocable desire of making your characters suffer through every agony imaginable, and he finds it strangely endearing about you. One time, when asked by reporters about the professions of his wife, he ominously answered with “Oh, she kills people” which caused an emergency meeting with the MSBY PR department and created at least a dozen new memes that still circulate around to this day.

“It’s called artistic integrity,” you quip back and pop a handful of berries in your mouth. They taste even sweeter than you remember and you bless every lucky star that made Kiyoomi pick up gardening as a hobby as of late.

“It’s called a concerning pattern.” He presses another kiss to your temple before peeling away from you, leaning against the kitchen table and looking at you with utmost fondness. Your two cats, one pitch black, one orange, have also found their way into the room and rub against his legs purring before scrambling to chase each other through the garden again. 

“Well, you married me knowing this,” you shrug and finally let your hands fall off the keyboard. It’s been way too many hours that you spent staring at the screen and you could use a break. Kiyoomi reaches over and shuts your laptop before you can change your mind. 

“And I’d do it over and over again,” he adds, now mirroring your smile. He takes your empty mug and puts it down next to his in the sink. “Wanna come to the store with me? We’re out of eggs and milk and whatever little treat my ferocious wife fancies.”

You push back your chair, suddenly very interested in letting your characters live for a bit longer at this promise. One could say he has a knack for saying your favorite words to get your attention. 

“Whaaat, my husband said he will buy me three blind boxes to get me through the deadline crunch because he loves me so much and wants me to be happy at all times?” You blink at him coyly, already halfway out the kitchen door. Kiyoomi scoffs, but it sounds more amused than irritated as he follows close behind you, one hand at your lower back as you leave the house for the store next door. 

Outside, the late summer night has settled over the garden. The air has cooled down and the last of hues of soft, fading gold of sunlight have been replaced by the stars and the moons hanging up in the sky. For a moment you just stand there together in the doorway, breathing in the fresh air of the garden, as if neither of you is in the hurry to become anything else. 

Kiyoomi holds out a hand for you and your fingers tangle with his and you fall into a familiar rhythm side by side as you walk. You don’t get many nights like this with him traveling often due to his packed schedule, so you cherish every moment of the mundane like these with him.

“Look, full moon,” you point out while you adjust the strap of his tote bag for him. “Make a wish!”

Kiyoomi laughs and squeezes your hand. “Don’t you usually wish upon a star?”

“Oh, I did, and the universe gave me you,” you jest, giving him a cheeky smile that earns you a kiss, and then a second because one alone is never enough. “So now I’m making wishes upon every other celestial body and see what they’ll grant me.”

“And you’re never running out of wishes?” Kiyoomi raises an eyebrow while he reaches for his mask. It was only a short walk and the store was already in sight. 

“Never. I’ll use everyone to make sure you will always return home safely to me.”

The automatic doors slide open with a cheerful chime, washing the two of you in fluorescent light. You bicker over whether you need a basket or a cart—you win, naturally—and set off down the aisles at an idle pace.

There is nowhere you need to be tonight. Nothing waiting for either of you except an unfinished manuscript at home and the tomato plants that still need to be watered.

The supermarket is nearly empty at this hour, save for a handful of other late-night shoppers and an employee restocking the shelves. No one pays any attention to the two of you arguing over which brand of yogurt to buy, and how ‘kisses for your wife’ scribbled on the grocery store list is invalid because there’s an infinite stock to that. 

By the time you leave the store again, night has fully settled in and the full moon hangs high upon the sky, guiding your way home. You share an onigiri they sold for half price at the store and your hand is holding Kiyoomi’s. He refuses to let you carry any of the shopping bags but gladly lets you feed him—anything, as long as you don’t let go of him. 

“Kiyoomi.”

He pauses in his tracks when you say his name, turning towards you. His eyes are drinking you in like they always do, and backlit by the moonlight it almost looks as if his dark curls are framed by a halo. And his name—oh, you love saying his name, love the syllables on your tongue, the contrast and meaning of them.

“Yes, my sweet girl?”

Even after all this time, your heart lights up when he looks at you. Maybe it remembers something that you don’t, something etched into the walls of it from a past life. For a fleeting moment, the urge of wanting to cry settles over you, tears spilling over across universes and lifetimes; but it’s always gone in the blink of an eye again. It all feels so familiar, good and bad and everything in between. As if you came full circle, as if you beat every obstacle to have a life like this; to simply just do laundry and grocery shopping and gardening together. 

You love him. Across time and space, you have and will always, forever, love him. Like something holy, something sacred. Engraved into your being. In return, a kept promise of finding you again, and again, and again. Two exoplanets in a universe of their own. 

A kiss passes between you, sweet at first, then fed by an untamed hunger. You smile against his lips, humming quietly with your arms wrapped around his neck. Forever tangled up in him. 

“I’ll tell you when we get home.”