We spent our wedding night under open sky.
No roof. No walls.
Just stars — cold and distant — and the embers of everything we once called home.
I remember the way Aiko curled into me. Her breathing slow, steady. Like she wasn't afraid.
Like we hadn't just survived a fire set by the past.
Like she was already dreaming of what came next.
---
The next morning, the forest smelled clean.
No smoke. No rot.
Just dew on leaves and the song of birds who hadn't sung in weeks.
We stood hand in hand at the edge of the ruins, watching sunlight crawl over blackened earth.
It should've hurt more.
But it didn't.
Not this time.
Because the fire hadn't taken anything we couldn't rebuild.
---
Aiko looked up at me.
Her eyes were tired.
But not broken.
"Are you ready?" she asked.
I nodded.
"For what?"
She smiled softly.
"For life."
---
We wandered for a while.
Drifted from place to place.
A borrowed apartment above an old bookstore.
A tiny cottage near the sea.
Each place a little more ours than the last.
We painted walls with dreams.
Planted new gardens. Not bellflowers, this time — but sunflowers.
They grew fast.
Loud. Bright.
Unapologetically alive.
Like us.
---
Sometimes we talked about the fire.
Sometimes we didn't.
It became one of those things — like a scar you don't hide, but don't show off either.
Just a truth, resting quietly beneath your skin.
---
One evening, while watching the sun set over a sleepy hill, I asked her:
"Why did you choose me?"
She didn't answer right away.
She just laid her head on my shoulder and said, "Because you stayed."
---
There were still shadows sometimes.
Nights when I'd wake to find her standing in the hallway, staring out at nothing.
But she always came back to bed.
And in time, the shadows stopped looking like ghosts.
They looked like the past.
And the past no longer had claws.
---
We didn't need to be perfect.
We just needed to be together.
That was the vow we kept.
Not one written in ink or spoken in church, but etched in the marrow of our bones.
We had bled for this life.
Burned for it.
We weren't just lovers.
We were survivors.
---
Years passed.
Seasons changed.
Our garden grew wild.
Books lined every shelf.
Photographs filled every frame — smiles real this time.
No lies.
No missing faces.
Just us.
And one last frame, near the front door.
The first photo of us, as children.
Restored.
Her face no longer scratched out.
Just a red ribbon pinned beside it.
---
I still write sometimes.
Mostly to her.
Letters I never send.
Words she doesn't need to hear, but I need to say.
Things like:
"Thank you for choosing me."
"Thank you for staying, even when I was falling apart."
"Thank you for showing me that love doesn't have to hurt to be real."
---
And sometimes I dream.
Not of blood, or fire.
But of sunlight through kitchen windows.
Of her laughter echoing in our little house.
Of our future — unwritten, but ours to build.
---
I used to be afraid of hope.
It felt dangerous. Like temptation.
But now?
Now I understand.
Hope is a promise.
A quiet vow whispered between broken hearts:
We made it through the dark.
We can survive the morning, too.
---
The End.