The Future
The house is quiet.
Aika watches their daughter — a chubby-cheeked toddler — tumble into her father's arms, giggling with the kind of joy only children can manage without trying. Ren catches her like it's second nature, like he was made to hold the things he once thought he wasn't good enough to have.
The sun filters in through the paper-thin curtains. On the low table beside her, a worn leather journal sits open — her high school diary. The pages are yellowing, but the ink still bleeds like fresh memories.
"I don't believe in love at first sight." she once wrote, "But I believe in the kind that shows up every day, even when it's tired. Even when it's scared."
She closes the book and smiles.
"Ren," she calls softly, "She looks just like you when you laugh."
He looks up, eyes crinkling. "Then she's beautiful."
This is where we ended up.
But it started on a rooftop…
In the middle of a forgotten afternoon, when they didn't yet know they were writing forever.