The quiet warmth of the moment didn't fade on its own.
Marumaya's mother cleared her throat—not loudly, not sharply, but with the kind of practiced sound that carried authority simply because it had been used so many times before. The room seemed to shrink slightly afterward, as if it recognized the shift in tone.
"I know you two have only just found each other again," she said, folding her arms loosely. "And I'm not blind to what that means. But my husband will be home in about thirty minutes."
She paused, eyes flicking briefly to Kanji.
"And he will not be pleased to find another boy here with our daughter. Even if that boy is you."
The words weren't cruel.
Marumaya felt heat rush to her face before she could stop it. Her cheeks burned, and she hated that her body betrayed her so easily. Kanji shifted where he stood, suddenly very aware of his hands, of the floor, of everything except where he was supposed to look. He reached up and scratched the back of his head, a habit that came back to him whenever he didn't know what else to do.
"Yeah," he said after a moment. "I get it."
He hesitated, then added more quietly, "I just… I didn't want to leave without at least a way to talk to her."
Her mother sighed, the sound barely audible, and rolled her eyes—not sharply, but with weary familiarity. "It always starts that way," she murmured. "Every boy thinks he's different."
Marumaya spun toward her.
"Mom."
Her voice cracked the way it always did when emotion got ahead of thought. "You know how long I've waited to see him again. And you're acting like he's some stranger." She reached into her pocket, fingers shaking just slightly, pulled out her phone, and quickly wrote something down on a scrap of paper.
She shoved it toward Kanji.
"This is my number," she said, not meeting her mother's eyes. "Take it."
Kanji stared at the paper.
Then realization struck him with the dull weight of embarrassment.
"…I don't actually have a phone."
For a second, no one reacted.
Then the priest laughed—openly, genuinely, the sound echoing lightly against the walls.
"You're serious?" he said, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. "You don't own a phone?"
Kanji's ears burned. "I guess I never really needed one," he admitted.
Marumaya smiled, soft and unbothered. "Then don't lose the paper," she said. "I'll be waiting for your call."
He folded it carefully, far more carefully than necessary, and tucked it away like it was something fragile.
When it was time to leave, the goodbye felt heavy. Kanji stepped outside, the air cooler than before, the light already shifting toward evening. He walked a few steps, then stopped.
Something made him turn.
Marumaya stood in the doorway, hands clasped in front of her, watching him leave. Her eyes shimmered—not crying, not yet, but close enough that the space between was full of unsaid things.
Kanji held her gaze for a heartbeat longer than he should have.
Then he walked on.
Later, standing beside the church as evening settled in, Kanji found the courage to speak again.
"Could I stay here for a while?" he asked the priest. "Just until I get on my feet. I'll work. I'll pay you back."
The priest didn't answer immediately. He placed a hand on Kanji's shoulder instead, firm and warm.
"I've been waiting for you to come back," he said quietly. "Just like that girl has." He smiled faintly. "Giving you food and a place to sleep is hardly a sacrifice. And I couldn't face God if I turned you away now."
So Kanji stayed.
The days settled into something steady. He woke early, helped with chores, scrubbed floors, repaired what he could. The work was simple, grounding. After a month, he had saved enough to buy something small, something necessary.
A phone.
The first number he dialed was hers.
Their voices stumbled over each other, excited, nervous, alive. They planned meetings carefully, laughing when plans shifted, promising to try again. When the call ended, Kanji stood outside the church and watched the world pass by.
He waited in the parking , pacing, stopping, pacing again.
Then he saw her.
Marumaya stood among the crowd, posture slightly stiff, eyes downcast, unmistakable even from a distance. When she drew close, Kanji stepped forward and held out his hand.
"Hey," he said.
She looked up—and froze.
Her face flushed instantly, color rushing to her cheeks.
He took her hand gently. His pulse hammered so loudly he wondered if she could feel it.
They wandered the city together, time slipping by unnoticed. Movies. Food. Games. Laughter that came easily, naturally, without effort. Kanji memorized the sound of it without realizing he was doing so.
As the day waned, he stopped and faced her.
"There's one more thing," he said. "Something I want to show you."
Her heart leapt. On the first date?
She nodded anyway.
He led her to a quiet corner behind the mall.
"Hold onto me," he said.
She did.
And then the ground disappeared.
The scream tore out of her before she could stop it, but Kanji held her firmly. "Look," he said calmly. "We're not falling."
She opened her eyes.
The city lay beneath them, vast and glowing. Slowly, terror gave way to awe.
They flew until the lights faded, until the church appeared below—and then past it, landing gently in a clearing. Her legs trembled when he let go.
"You can let go now," he said with a smile.
She shook her head, embarrassed. "I'm sorry."
He laughed softly and took her hand. "Don't be."
"How did you do that?" she whispered.
He smiled. "That's a long story. But it started with the red-haired man."
Her face paled instantly.
"I'll never forget him," she said, anger trembling beneath her words.
Kanji's smile faded. "I'm sorry," he said. "This was supposed to be a happy day. But if we're going to be family someday… I don't want to hide anything."
Golden lines appeared first—thin, deliberate, sketching themselves into existence around his body. They didn't rush. They assembled. Plate by plate, contour by contour, a suit of armor formed around him, radiant but restrained, like something ancient that had learned patience the hard way.
The armor hugged his form closely, segmented in a way that suggested function over beauty, yet the glow alone made it impossible to look away from. Symbols—faint, almost worn—ran along the chest and arms, half-erased by time or conflict.
Marumaya stepped back instinctively, breath catching in her throat.
Marumaya — "K-Kanji…?"
Kanji lifted his hand, palm open toward the sky.
Then he released a small burst of energy upward.
The energy rose like a quiet thought and brushed against the clouds above them. There was no explosion—just a gentle displacement, as if the sky itself had been politely asked to make room. The clouds thinned, parted, dissolved into soft trails of vapor, revealing a wide stretch of open blue and the first hints of evening light.
Kanji lowered his hand.
The armor remained.
Kanji — "I didn't want you to see it like this," he said quietly. "Not all at once."
Marumaya stared at him, her heart pounding so hard she was sure he could hear it.
Marumaya — "What… are you?"
Kanji exhaled slowly. The glow around him dimmed just a little, responding to his breath.
Kanji — "I don't have a simple answer for that."
Kanji — "I only know what I wasn't allowed to be for a very long time."
He looked away from her then, eyes lifting toward the sky he had just cleared.
Kanji — "After that day… after everything broke… I tried to survive. That was it at first. No grand purpose. Just surviving."
Kanji — "I failed more times than I can count."
His fingers curled slightly, the armor reacting with a soft hum.
Kanji — "I thought power would fix the emptiness, and when it didn't, I thought maybe suffering was what I deserved."
Marumaya didn't interrupt. She barely breathed.
Kanji — "There were years where every step forward felt like an accident. Like I wasn't supposed to still be here."
Kanji — "Try after try. Mistake after mistake. I lost count of how many versions of myself died along the way."
He finally turned back to her.
Kanji — "But every time I thought about giving up… your face came back to me."
Marumaya felt her chest tighten.
Kanji took a step closer.
Kanji — "Not as you are now. As you were then. Standing there, trying to be brave when the world was tearing itself apart."
Kanji — "That memory followed me everywhere."
He looked at her fully now.
Really looked.
The way her hair caught the fading light, strands moving slightly with the breeze. The way her eyes reflected more emotion than words ever could. The familiar curve of her expression—older now, sharper in some ways, softer in others—but unmistakably her.
Kanji — "You're more beautiful than I remembered," he said, not as a compliment, but as a realization.
Kanji — "Not because of how you look… but because of how much you endured."
Marumaya swallowed hard.
Marumaya — "Kanji… you don't have to—"
Kanji — "I do."
He shook his head once, firmly.
Kanji — "Because I didn't fight through all of that just to see you and walk away again."
Kanji — "I didn't survive despair, or failure, or myself… just to let go now."
The armor around him pulsed softly, as if echoing his resolve.
Kanji — "You understood me when I had nothing to offer. You waited, even when you had no reason to."
Kanji — "I won't pretend I'm normal. I won't promise you a quiet life."
He reached for her hand again, slower this time, giving her space to pull away if she wanted.
She didn't.
Kanji — "But I can promise you this."
Kanji — "I'm here. And I'm not running anymore."
Marumaya's eyes shimmered. Her voice trembled when she finally spoke.
Marumaya — "You're terrifying," she said softly.
Marumaya — "And you disappeared for so long that I thought I had imagined you."
She squeezed his hand.
Marumaya — "But you came back."
Kanji closed his eyes for a moment.
Kanji — "I can't let you go again."
The armor dimmed slightly, becoming quieter, as if it had fulfilled its purpose.
Marumaya stepped closer, resting her forehead lightly against his chest. The warmth of the golden light surrounded her, steady and alive.
Marumaya — "Then don't," she whispered.
Above them, the sky remained clear.
The silence after her words wasn't empty.
It was full—so full it pressed gently against them, like the pause before a vow is spoken.
Kanji — "I don't just want to stay," he said.
Kanji — "I want us to build something. Slowly. Properly."
Marumaya lifted her head, searching his face.
Kanji — "Not running ahead of ourselves."
Kanji — "I want to be with you. And when you're ready—when we're ready—I want us to become a family. A real one. Marriage."
Marumaya's breath caught. She didn't smile immediately. Instead, she studied him the way one studies the horizon—carefully, as if afraid the image might vanish if she blinked too fast.
Marumaya — "You don't say things lightly anymore," she said softly.
Kanji shook his head.
Kanji — "yea..."
She nodded once, then leaned into him again, her voice barely more than a whisper.
Marumaya — "Then don't rush me… but don't disappear either."
Kanji rested his forehead against hers.
Kanji — "Never again."
Time passed.
It passed the way real time always does—through small changes that only become obvious in hindsight.
Kanji found work beyond the church.
He became a night maintenance technician for the city's elevated transit lines—the rails that carried people home without ever asking who they were or where they came from. He worked when the city slept, walking long stretches of steel and concrete, repairing faults before they became disasters.
The job paid better.
But that wasn't why he stayed.
He liked the solitude.
The responsibility.
The knowledge that if he failed, people would suffer—and if he succeeded, no one would ever know his name.
It suited him.
Every bolt tightened, every circuit restored, felt like an apology to a world he had once only known how to run from.
When the day came that he told the priest he was moving out, it didn't go as planned.
The old man listened quietly, nodding, hands folded.
Then he cried.
Just tears slipping down his cheeks as he smiled.
Priest — "You're becoming an adult," he said, voice breaking.
Priest — "I've been waiting to see that."
Kanji swallowed.
Kanji — "I'll still come by," he said quickly.
Kanji — "At least once a week. I promise."
The priest laughed through his tears.
Priest — "I know," he said. "That's how I know you're ready."
The apartment was small.
Two rooms. Thin walls. A kitchen that barely deserved the name.
Kanji told Marumaya about it with careful excitement, already bracing himself for resistance.
It took time.
Arguments. Long conversations.
But time did what it always does when patience is involved—it softened edges.
When Marumaya finally moved in, her parents were furious.
At first.
Then cautious.
Then… curious.
They saw Kanji wake early and return late. They saw how he spoke to their daughter—not with possession, but with presence. Even her father, stern and slow to trust, eventually nodded once and said:
"He works hard. That matters."
It was the closest thing to approval Kanji ever needed.
Adulthood came quietly.
Marumaya found work too—steady, thoughtful work that suited her patience and intelligence. Together, they lived comfortably. Not rich. Not struggling.
Middle class.
Content.
Years passed again.
This time, they bought a house.
It sat at the end of a gently curving road, where the asphalt gave way to gravel and the noise of the town thinned into something breathable. Trees surrounded it—not in a wild, choking way, but deliberately, as if the land itself had chosen to shelter the place. Old maples stood to the left, their branches arching protectively over the roof, while shorter pines lined the back, breaking the wind and filling the air with a faint, resinous scent after rain.
The house was two stories, modest in width but deep, built with dark cedar siding that had been allowed to age naturally. The wood carried a muted, weathered warmth—neither new nor decaying, just lived-in, like a thing that understood time and had made peace with it. The roof sloped gently, dark gray tiles laid carefully, each one solid, reliable, unpretentious.
A narrow front porch stretched across the lower level, supported by thick wooden beams. Kanji liked that porch most. It wasn't decorative. It was meant to be used. A place to sit, to think, to wait. The boards creaked slightly underfoot, not from weakness, but from familiarity. Someone had walked there often, once.
The front door was heavy oak, scarred near the handle where keys had struck it over the years. Kanji kept those marks. He said they made the house honest.
Inside, the air always felt still—quiet in the way only safe places are.
The living room opened first, wide enough to feel free but small enough to feel close. Sunlight poured through large, rectangular windows, painting slow-moving shapes across the wooden floor throughout the day. The floorboards were polished but not glossy, their grain visible, warm under bare feet. A brick fireplace sat against the far wall—not ornate, but sturdy. Kanji had cleaned it himself, brick by brick, as if earning the right to use it.
The kitchen was attached openly to the living space. Simple cabinets, pale wood, iron handles. No excess. The table there was solid, rectangular, built to endure years of meals and conversations that would run late into the night. Marumaya liked that the kitchen smelled like bread in the mornings and tea in the evenings. She said it felt like a promise.
Upstairs, the bedrooms were small but thoughtful. The master bedroom faced east, catching the first light of dawn. Kanji had insisted on that without fully knowing why. Only later did he admit that waking up to light felt like a reminder that he had chosen to be here.
Omoshiro's room was the smallest, but it was quiet. The window overlooked the trees behind the house, where leaves moved slowly, rhythmically, like breathing. Kanji once stood there holding his son and realized the room felt protected—not enclosed, but held.
There was a backyard, uneven and imperfect. Grass that grew stubbornly in patches. A place where rain pooled and sunlight lingered. Kanji planned to build something there one day—a bench, maybe. Or nothing at all.
At night, when the lights were off, the house didn't disappear into the dark.
Surrounded by trees. Quiet roads. Evenings that belonged only to them.
And then—
One evening, Marumaya stood in the doorway, hands trembling, eyes bright and afraid all at once.
Marumaya — "Kanji…"
He knew before she finished.
Their first child was born on a quiet morning.
They named him Omoshiro Kazuhira.
He had dark hair, soft and unruly, and Marumaya's eyes—wide, observant, already full of questions. His cries were strong, indignant, as if offended by the sudden brightness of existence.
Kanji held him with hands that had once carried armor and destruction—and now shook with fear at the idea of doing anything wrong.
Kanji — "He's real," he whispered.
Marumaya smiled tiredly.
Omoshiro grew into a curious child. Calm, but watchful. He laughed easily, but when he fell silent, it was never empty—always thoughtful. He liked quiet corners, liked listening more than speaking, liked holding onto Kanji's finger with a grip stronger than it looked.
Kanji watched him sleep one night and felt something inside finally settle.
The despair he had carried for so long vanish.