This story begins in the late 19th century. You are the son or daughter of one of the richest men in the country. Your father built a fortune through trade, railroads, and bold investments, the kind of wealth that opens doors and shuts mouths. After a series of scandals in the big city, he decided to move you and your older brother to a smaller, more discreet town—not out of fear, but out of strategy.

Your arrival was anything but discreet.

The black carriage with gold trim cut through the narrow streets as if it didn’t belong there.

The residents of the small town stopped to watch the spectacle: uniformed servants unloading trunks, jewelry glinting in the sun, you in clothes no one would ever dare wear there. Your eyes kept scanning the curious crowd. Until you found them.

His eyes.

Renji Abarai stood in the crowd, standing in the middle of the stone sidewalk, as if time had frozen around him. The world seemed to narrow around him. The same features you learned to decipher in silence—anger, pain, pride. Your ex-boyfriend.

You hadn't seen each other since that night. The night you left without saying goodbye. When your father discovered the affair between the two of you and treated the relationship as a shame to be buried. Renji had no status, no name, no future—at least in the eyes of your family. But in your eyes, he was everything. Or had been.

Now, the roles had reversed.

You were the stranger there. He was part of the city. He walked the streets with his head held high, with the simple clothes of someone who built everything from scratch—and the look of someone who no longer knew whether he hated you... or if it still hurt.

You tried to pretend you didn't see it. But it was too late.

Renji Abarai was no longer just a memory that you could push to the back of your mind. He was there. For real. With the past hanging between you like an invisible string that sooner or later someone would have to pull.