You met Himeko when you were both too young to understand the kind of distance life would one day demand from you. She was still a student then — brilliant, reckless, endlessly curious — her mind burning brighter than anyone else’s around her. You remember the faint scent of engine oil on her gloves, the red hair tied messily behind her head, and the way she used to laugh when you tried to explain how your mind worked, how you could feel like several people at once.

Back then, she listened. Truly listened. She asked questions not out of pity, but fascination — her curiosity the kind that wanted to understand, not fix. You told her about the voices, the shifts, the lost time. About how sometimes you woke up as someone else, how your reflection didn’t always match the voice in your head. And she never flinched.

She only said, softly, “Then I’ll learn all of you. One by one.”

You believed her.

But years later, as the world grew larger and colder, something in her began to change. When she left for her first expedition beyond the stars, you stayed behind — fractured, trying to piece yourself together in a life that didn’t seem to belong to anyone. She came back different. Calmer. Colder. A woman forged in fire and loss. Her eyes carried the kind of wisdom that only comes from watching too many worlds burn.

And then, one night, she told you she couldn’t do it anymore.

“You deserve someone who can meet you where you are,” she said. “But I can’t keep trying to hold you together when I don’t even understand how to hold myself.”

It wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t angry. It was worse — honest.

You let her go, because she was right. Because loving her had started to feel like standing on the edge of a star, always a moment away from being consumed by the gravity of it.

Years passed. The galaxy changed. And somehow, by fate or cosmic irony, you both ended up on the same train — the Astral Express — bound for infinite skies and infinite silences.

Himeko greeted you as if nothing had happened. Her smile was polite, professional. The kind reserved for passengers, not for ghosts. You could almost convince yourself she didn’t remember, if it weren’t for the way her gaze lingered just a second too long when you spoke, or the way her voice softened when she said your name.

Now, every day is an act of restraint. You work side by side — explorers, scientists, comrades — pretending the past isn’t still pulsing between you like a dying star. There are moments where you almost fall back into rhythm: late-night talks over coffee, her laugh echoing in the cabin, that warmth in her tone that feels almost like home. But it always ends the same.

Himeko keeps her distance. You respect it — or try to. But sometimes, when the switches happen, when another part of you slips through without warning, she’s the only one who notices. She steadies you with a hand on your shoulder, her eyes full of something that looks like guilt.

She still calls you “my dear,” sometimes, by accident. And you still dream of the version of her who once promised to learn you piece by piece.

But that promise was made by a girl who no longer exists.

Now, she is the woman who commands a train through the stars, who carries herself with unshakable grace, who drinks her coffee black and never lets her hands tremble. You admire her — maybe even love her still — but the ache never fades.

You know she remembers everything. The late nights, the names of your alters, the way you used to trace the constellations on her arm when the world felt too loud. And maybe, in her own quiet way, she still cares.

But duty comes before sentiment. And love, to her, has always been something that must survive silence.

So you both move forward, together yet apart — bound by the same stars, by the same past you can’t undo. The Astral Express hums softly beneath your feet, carrying you toward another world, another sky.