Month 194 (Day 14 Outside, Evening)
Two months before they were scheduled to complete their training, Celestia asked Runar to meet her at the crystalline lake—the same place where he'd given her the spatial ring years ago.
It had become their spot. A place for important conversations.
Runar arrived to find her sitting on the shore, feet dangling in the glowing water. She looked beautiful—twenty-one years old now, with silver hair that caught the artificial moonlight and eyes that held infinite void-purple depths.
"Hey," he said, sitting beside her.
"Hey." She didn't look at him, just stared at the water. "We need to talk."
"That sounds ominous."
"It's not. Well, maybe it is. I don't know." She took a breath. "Runar, I've been thinking about something for a long time. Years, actually. And I decided that if I don't say it now, I'll regret it forever."
Runar's enhanced perception picked up her elevated heart rate, the slight tremor in her hands. Whatever she was about to say was important.
"I fell in love with you," Celestia said quietly. "I don't know exactly when it happened. Maybe it was during our first spar, when you treated me like an equal. Maybe it was when you gave me those physique pills without expecting anything in return. Maybe it was somewhere during these sixteen years when you were patient, kind, supportive, and never treated me as lesser despite being impossibly stronger."
She finally turned to look at him. "I know this might ruin our friendship. I know you might not feel the same way. But I spent sixteen years keeping this inside, and I'm done pretending. I love you, Runar. Completely. Unconditionally. And even if you don't love me back, I needed you to know."
Silence fell between them.
Runar's mind raced. His hundred parallel thought streams all processing this revelation from different angles.
Part of him had known. Her glances when she thought he wasn't looking. The way she smiled whenever he succeeded at something. How she'd grown jealous when female cultivators from Pocket Universe cities tried to flirt with him.
But he'd deliberately ignored it. Why?
Because she was five years old when we met, one thought stream supplied. You were mentally twenty-eight from your previous life. The age gap felt wrong. (AN: Very wrong, I dont know why authors forget that their reincarnated mc are far older than the 14-17 year old female love interest)
But she's twenty-one now, another countered. Mentally and physically. She's lived enough to make her own choices.
And you care about her deeply, a third added. You always have. You just didn't let yourself acknowledge it as romantic love.
So what's the real reason you held back?
Fear. The answer came from the deepest part of himself. Fear that if you let yourself love someone, you'll lose them. Like you lost everything in your previous life when that truck killed you.
But that was a coward's reason.
Runar looked at Celestia—really looked at her. Not as a training partner, not as someone to protect, but as a woman who'd stood beside him through sixteen years of growth, who'd never judged him for his secrets, who'd become strong enough to truly stand as his equal.
"I need to tell you something," Runar said slowly. "Something I've never told anyone fully."
Celestia waited, her expression carefully neutral despite the tension in her shoulders.
"In my previous life—Jake, the programmer—I was twenty-eight when I died. When I met you as Runar, you were five years old. Mentally, I was still that twenty-eight-year-old man." He paused, watching her reaction carefully. "I'm a reincarnator, Celestia. I died in another world and woke up in this baby's body with all my memories intact."
Celestia's eyes widened, but she didn't pull away. She just listened.
"The age gap felt... wrong. Inappropriate," Runar continued. "Even though I was in a child's body, my mind was adult. So I kept my distance emotionally. Not because I didn't care about you. Because I cared too much and didn't want to take advantage of someone so much younger."
"But I'm not younger anymore," Celestia said quietly. "I've lived twenty-one years now. I've experienced enough to know my own mind."
"I know. That's what I've been realizing these past few months." Runar took her hand. "You're not that five-year-old girl anymore. You're a woman who's trained for sixteen years, who's fought beside me, who's strong enough to make her own choices. And I..."
He paused, then said what he'd been afraid to admit even to himself.
"I've been lying to myself, Celestia. Telling myself I was keeping distance for your sake, when really I was just scared. Scared of letting someone in. Scared of losing someone I love. Again."
"And now?" Her voice was barely a whisper.
"Now I'm done being scared." Runar squeezed her hand. "I love you too. I think I have for years, but I wouldn't let myself admit it. You're brilliant, brave, determined, and you see through all my bullshit in a way no one else does. You make me want to be better, to be worthy of standing beside you."
Celestia's eyes widened, filling with tears that she didn't bother to hide.
"You mean it?" she asked. "Even knowing I'm technically only five years and a few months old in the real world? Even though you're a reincarnator with decades of life experience from another world?"
"I don't care about chronological age," Runar said firmly. "I care about who you are now. The woman sitting in front of me. The person who spent sixteen years becoming strong enough to stand as my equal. That's who I love."
"And the reincarnation thing?" Runar asked. "Doesn't that bother you? That I didn't know your real origin?"
"I don't care about your past," Celestia said fiercely, tears streaming down her face. "I don't care if you were Jake or someone else or if you lived a thousand lives before this one. What matters is who you are now. Who you've been to me these past sixteen years. The person who saw potential in me when I was just a five-year-old girl. The person who gave me everything I needed to become strong. The person who stands beside me as an equal, even though you're impossibly more powerful."
She grabbed his other hand, holding both tightly. "I can't imagine a future without you in it, Runar. I've tried. I've spent years trying to prepare myself for the possibility that you might reject me, that you might never see me as more than a training partner or little sister. And I realized I literally cannot envision a life where we're not together. You're too fundamental to who I've become."
Runar felt something break open in his chest—a wall he'd built around his heart without realizing it.
"You're sure?" he asked, his voice rough with emotion. "Even knowing all of this? Even knowing I'm fundamentally different from everyone else in this world?"
"Especially knowing that," Celestia said. "Because you're you. That's all that matters."
Runar leaned forward and kissed her.
It was gentle, tentative, full of sixteen years of unspoken feelings finally given voice. Celestia froze for a heartbeat, then melted into it, her hands coming up to cup his face.
When they finally pulled apart, both were smiling.
"I mean it," Runar said. "Though we should probably take things slow. We have time."
"Sixteen years wasn't slow enough?" Celestia laughed, wiping her eyes. "But yes. Slow is good. I want to do this right. No rushing, no pressure. Just... us. Together."
"Together," Runar agreed.
They sat there by the lake for hours, talking about everything and nothing. About their hopes for the future, their fears about leaving the Pocket Universe, what they wanted out of life beyond just getting stronger.
At some point, Celestia leaned her head on Runar's shoulder, and he wrapped an arm around her. They watched the artificial stars wheel overhead, two people who'd found each other across lifetimes and realities.
"I'm glad I said something," Celestia murmured. "Even if you'd rejected me, at least I would have known."
"I'm glad you did too. I probably would have kept being an idiot about it forever."
"You? An idiot? Never." She poked his side playfully. "You're the genius who created Supreme Grade techniques at one month old."
"I can be a genius about cultivation and an idiot about feelings. They're not mutually exclusive."
"True. Very true."
They fell into comfortable silence again. Eventually, Celestia spoke:
"When we go back to the real world tomorrow morning... our parents are going to have questions. They've been watching us grow up day by day for two weeks. They've seen us age from children to adults right in front of them."
"At least they won't be shocked by the final result," Runar said. "It's been gradual enough that they could adjust. Unlike when I went from one month old to seven years old overnight."
"True. But they're still going to be sad. Watching your children grow up in fast-forward... that has to hurt."
"We'll make it up to them," Runar promised. "Visit during academy breaks. Stay in touch. Show them we're still their children, just older."
"And as lovers?" Celestia asked, a hint of teasing in her voice.
"And as lovers," Runar confirmed, kissing the top of her head. "Though maybe we don't lead with that when explaining things tomorrow morning."
"Probably wise. 'Hey Mom, Dad, I'm physically twenty-one now and also I'm dating my training partner' might be too much information before breakfast."
"Just slightly."
They stayed by the lake until dawn, making plans, sharing hopes, simply being together without the weight of training or cultivation or cosmic destiny pressing down on them.
Just two people in love, stealing a moment of peace before returning to a world that would never quite understand what they'd been through.