The night after our second wedding, I dreamed of fire.
It wasn't the kind that devours quickly—no roaring blaze or screaming heat. It was slow. Deliberate. Like memory returning.
The flames crawled up the walls of the cabin, licking at the beams we'd nailed with trembling hands. Smoke poured through the floorboards like breath from the past.
And in the center of the room stood Aiko.
Unafraid.
Smiling.
"Let it burn," she said.
---
I woke to the smell of smoke.
Real this time.
My heart exploded into panic as I sat up—my hand reaching out for her.
But Aiko was already awake, standing by the front window.
"It's not the house," she said softly. "It's them."
I joined her at the window.
A line of smoke rose from the far side of the forest. The path that led back to the town we'd tried to forget.
The world we'd left behind.
"They're coming."
---
I didn't ask how she knew.
I didn't need to.
Aiko always knew.
---
The next days were filled with a silence different from the ones before.
Not comfortable.
Not sacred.
But tense. Like waiting for a storm you already hear beneath the floor.
We didn't pack.
Didn't run.
We had built our world once before.
And we would defend it.
---
It was on the third night that the knock came.
Not on the door.
On the window.
I jumped, heart lurching.
Aiko moved faster than I did, standing between me and the glass.
A figure stood outside.
Tall. Dressed in a dark coat. The face shadowed, but familiar.
Too familiar.
I opened the window.
The wind hissed.
"Aiko," the man said. "It's time to come home."
---
My breath caught.
Because I knew that voice.
"Shiro?" she whispered.
The man's head turned toward me slowly.
"You remember me," he said.
I nodded. "You were in the photograph. The third one."
His smile was thin.
"Very good. You're catching up."
---
Shiro was her first love.
The one she never spoke about.
The one she had followed into darkness before she ever met me.
The one who never looked back.
---
"You died," I said. "Aiko told me—"
"I changed," he said. "Same thing."
He stepped closer to the window.
"She came to you because she couldn't kill me. She needed someone pure. Someone stupid."
His gaze sharpened.
"She chose wrong."
---
Aiko didn't move.
Didn't blink.
"I thought you were gone," she said. Her voice was small.
"You made me leave."
"You tried to control me."
"I tried to save you," he snapped. "From people like him."
His eyes burned into me.
"You think you've tamed her. You think you've fixed what you don't even understand. But Aiko isn't yours. She was never meant to belong to anyone."
He turned back to her.
"You know what you are."
"I know," she whispered.
He reached out his hand.
"Then come. Be who you were meant to be."
---
She didn't move.
Seconds passed like hours.
Then:
"No."
Shiro's face twisted.
"I gave you everything."
"And you gave me nothing," she said.
She stepped beside me.
Took my hand.
"This is who I choose. Not because I'm weak. Not because I need saving. But because he sees me."
She looked at me then, and I felt the ground beneath me steady.
---
Shiro didn't scream.
Didn't rage.
He simply smiled.
"It's already burning."
Then he turned and vanished into the trees.
---
The fire started at dawn.
We woke to flames chewing through the bellflower garden.
The old wood of the cabin caught quickly.
We had only minutes.
Aiko didn't scream.
She grabbed our box of memories, the photograph, the two rings.
I grabbed her hand.
And we ran.
---
We watched our home burn from the edge of the river.
Smoke painted the sky gray and gold.
The fire took everything.
But not us.
Never us.
---
I turned to her, covered in ash and tears.
"We can rebuild," I said.
She nodded.
"We always do."
She pressed something into my palm.
Her ring.
I looked at her, confused.
"You're giving this back?"
She smiled.
"No."
She took my hand and placed my own ring beside it.
"I'm asking you to give it to me again."
---
We exchanged vows again.
Not in words.
But in silence.
In soot.
In survival.
---
The fire had taken our house.
But not our love.
It couldn't.
Because love like ours doesn't die.
It simply changes shape.
---
We walked away with nothing but each other.
And the ashes still warm behind us.