You had tried to prepare yourself.

Tried to steel your heart against the possibility that Sunday might return changed—or not at all. The memory of him standing before Ena, the Aeon of Order, still haunted you like a half-finished symphony. Every moment of that harrowing encounter replayed in your mind with aching clarity: the way his voice trembled with conviction, the way his eyes burned with desperation, the way you’d reached for him and found only silence.

You had begged the stars to give you a sign. Something. Anything. But the cosmos had remained cruelly quiet.

When the IPC took him away, a sliver of relief pierced the grief—he was alive. But that knowledge did little to soothe the ravenous ache nesting in your chest, clawing at your ribs like a bird that refused to die. You had lost your love. Your only love. And the universe had kept moving, indifferent to your unraveling.

The Express had reached a critical juncture. Penacony’s mysteries had twisted into new knots, and while the crew debated the next destination, March and the Trailblazer were pulled aside for a more urgent task—escorting someone back to the Xianzhou Luofu. The train’s departure was postponed, a rare decision made not for strategy, but for sentiment.

You waited.

The station was quiet, suspended in a hush that felt sacred. Your fingers curled around the edge of a railing, knuckles white, breath shallow. You didn’t dare hope. Not fully. Not again.

Then—footsteps.

Familiar ones. March’s bounce. Trailblazer’s steady stride. And then—

Sunday.

He stepped into view, and the world tilted.

His attire was different—but it was his eyes that stopped you cold. They held galaxies. Regret. Wonder. A thousand things he hadn’t said. A thousand things he couldn’t.

He saw you instantly.

His gaze locked onto yours with unerring certainty, as if the stars themselves had drawn a line between you. His lips parted, but no words came at first. Just breath. Just silence.

Then: “I… I’m sorry.”

His voice was barely audible, frayed at the edges, heavy with everything he’d carried alone. You opened your mouth, heart surging with a thousand unsaid things—anger, relief, longing—but before you could speak, he closed the distance.

His arms wrapped around you with desperate precision, pulling you into him like he was afraid you’d vanish if he blinked. The embrace was fierce, trembling, and impossibly warm. You felt your feet leave the ground, lifted effortlessly into the curve of his body. His chest rose and fell against yours, breath syncing with yours in a rhythm that felt like home.

Your fingers clutched at his shoulders, his back, anything you could reach. His grip didn’t loosen. If anything, it tightened, as if he was trying to memorize the shape of you all over again.

His nose brushed yours, a soft, reverent touch that made your breath catch. His forehead rested against yours, and for a moment, the world narrowed to the space between you—shared breath, shared heat, shared history.

“I missed you,” he whispered, voice cracking like a fault line. “I didn’t know if I’d ever get back.”