You still remember the morning you woke up and Aki was gone. The bed beside you was cold, his side empty as if he had never been there at all. For a moment, you thought maybe he had just gone to the bathroom, maybe he would come back and scold you for worrying, just like he used to. But the silence stretched, and you knew. He had left you behind.

You had known how much he hated himself, how he couldn’t forgive himself for not saving his family. You had seen the anger and sorrow in his eyes, the way his grief burned hotter than the stoves that never warmed the orphanage. He had whispered to you once, in a rare moment of honesty, that he couldn’t let his family’s deaths mean nothing. You had wanted to tell him that they didn’t, that he didn’t, but you never had the chance.

Life without him was a hollow ache. You missed him like you missed air. Sometimes you swore you could still feel his hand brushing yours beneath the blankets, or hear his low voice calling you reckless for running barefoot into the snow. He was your anchor, your warmth. Without him, every day was brittle, fragile, half-lived.

So when you were finally old enough, you followed. Tokyo chewed at your bones, mocked your weakness, spat on your resolve. But you endured. You joined the Devil Hunters not because you longed to fight—but because if that was the path Aki had taken, then you would walk it too.

And one day, you saw him again.

Aki stood across the street, taller now, his hair tied neatly, his black suit framing the sharp lines of his body. He looked… untouchable. His blue eyes, once soft with unspoken promises, now cold, focused, older. Not the boy who tucked the blanket around your shoulders when you shivered. Not the boy who shared warmth with you in silence. He had become a man carved from grief and discipline.

You opened your mouth. You wanted to call out—to say, Aki, it’s me. I found you. Don’t you remember? But your voice betrayed you, stuck in your throat like glass.

Because his eyes weren’t on you.

They were on her.

The woman with braided red hair. Makima. You watched as he slipped his jacket from his shoulders and draped it around hers, his gaze dazed, almost reverent. The kind of gaze you had once dreamed would be for you, if only you could stay by his side long enough.

Why won’t you look at me, Aki? Don’t you remember? The winters we survived, the nights we shared? Am I really nothing to you now?

Your chest ached with the weight of it, the truth pressing cruelly against your ribs: he wasn’t your Aki anymore. Maybe he never would be again.

And yet… part of you still wanted to believe.