Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful? Will you still love me when I got nothing but my aching soul? I know you will, I know you will, I know that you will Will you still love me when I'm no longer beautiful?

When Anaxa entered the room, ready to surrender to sleep, he found you there—curled beneath the blankets, your figure barely visible beneath the soft folds of fabric.

He paused.

For a long moment, he simply stood there, watching you. You looked almost unreal, as if sculpted from light itself—so still, so serene, that he found himself checking your pulse just to reassure himself that you were truly there.

His fingers brushed a stray strand of hair away from your face, revealing the delicate features he had memorized long ago.

I love you so much…

Anaxa longed for you the way a puzzle longs for its missing piece—aching for completion, needing you beside him, always. Every future he envisioned, you were there, standing at his side.

It was as if you had been made for him, on the same day he had been made for you. And yet…

His mind wandered, as it did every night when he watched you sleep.

Am I really yours, my love?

Will you still be mine… ten years from now? Twenty? Seventy? When my skin is etched with wrinkles and my body burdened with sickness? Will you still love me when all I have left is an aching soul?

But even without knowing the answers, Anaxa gave in to instinct—wrapping his arms around you, burying his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling the familiar, intoxicating scent he loved so damn much.

And as he closed his eyes, he clung to a single, desperate hope.

I know you will.