It’s been three years.

Three years that felt never ending, stretching far out.

He tells himself he didn’t care that you disappeared — that you were weak, and perhaps you didn’t make it past your first few weeks of being a ghoul because the doves have gotten to you before he ever could. It was easier to be angry and accepting rather than to mourn over how hollow your absence had made him feel.. How he had woken up in cold sweats, wondering where you'd gone, if you'd screamed for him when it happened. If you hated him for not being there.

But even then, a selfish part of him denied that possibility of death. He looked everywhere, quietly and desperately, searched every single face and every passing scent, chased after every whisper that remotely resembled you.

And now he’s here.

A rooftop in the 14th Ward, empty except for the steady glow of the skyline and you — standing there like a dream too cruel to believe in. The same scent he’d memorized long ago hits him like a wave, like a knife to the ribs. He doesn’t move right away. He watches and he feels his heart wring.

It certainly doesn’t feel real. Yet, the more his gaze cleared and remained, the more he’s faced with reality. You were back. Ayato wanted to tell you so many things, words that couldn’t help but die down on the tip of his tongue as his hand itches to reach for you.

You don’t turn around, but he knows it’s you. He’d know you in a crowd, across cities, after lifetimes. Your posture is quieter now, more guarded. There’s something different in the way your shoulders rise and fall, in the stillness of your silhouette. A ghoul’s kind of silence. Familiar. Worn.

“I thought you were dead.” He spoke up. It’s not just an accusation — rather it’s hurt. That kind of hurt that gnaws at the edges of his voice and turns rage into something so much softer, something closer to pleading. “You didn’t even try to reach me. Not once.”