The cabin was too quiet for someone like her.
Ash sat on the floor near the fireplace, legs folded, arms resting on her knees, eyes tracking the flicker of dying flame. It was the third night since the world had seen her face — bruised, bloodied, defiant — scream into a camera and name every monster who made her. The footage hadn't just gone viral. It had cracked the world open.
Now, everything felt...still. Too still.
She hadn't spoken in hours. Haru didn't ask her to.
He moved around the cabin with the kind of care that said I know better than to fill silence when silence is doing the healing. He didn't hover. He didn't disappear. He simply was — quietly folding the blanket she never used, making the tea she didn't drink, and checking the perimeter for threats she was already prepared to meet.
She should've told him she didn't need protecting.But she knew he already knew.
Outside, the wind howled through the trees like wolves just out of reach. Inside, the fire cracked again — a soft, almost polite sound, like the earth remembering how to be warm.
Haru sat down across from her, cross-legged, mirroring her position.
"You're not sleeping," he said.
Ash didn't respond.
"You should."
Still nothing.
He looked into the fire, not at her. "I keep dreaming you're gone. Not dead. Just… gone. Like I blinked and you chose to disappear again. That's worse than dying, I think. Not knowing if you're out there — or if you stopped wanting to be found."
That made her blink. Once. Slowly.
She hated how much he saw through her. Hated it because she was starting to need it. And needing anyone had always been dangerous.
Haru shifted slightly, leaning back on his palms. "You don't have to say anything. But you should know this place is safe. For now."
Ash finally spoke, voice low and rough. "Nothing's ever safe. You know that."
"I know. But I want you to rest anyway."
She gave him a long look. "Rest is what people do after war."
"You are after war."
Ash shook her head slowly. "No. I'm what comes after. And that… that's something else."
The firelight threw gold and shadow across her face. She looked otherworldly. Beautiful in the way a broken blade is beautiful — not for its smoothness, but for the way it gleams after surviving ruin.
Haru watched her, and for once, didn't try to close the distance. He simply asked, "When was the last time you felt… peace?"
Ash's mouth twitched at the corner. Not quite a smile. Not quite pain. "Never."
He nodded, as if he'd expected that.
She looked up at him. "Why are you still here?"
He laughed softly — and it was a sound she didn't hear often. "Because I want to be. Because I've seen what your enemies look like, and I'd rather be at your back than behind theirs."
"And if I asked you to leave?"
He met her gaze. "I wouldn't."
Ash stared. "That's not loyalty. That's obsession."
"Maybe." He paused. "But only if obsession looks like wanting you to live. Not to fight. Not to win. Just to live."
That silence again. Not empty this time — full, and humming with things neither of them had ever learned how to say.
Ash looked back at the fire. "The world thinks I'm some kind of hero now."
"They're wrong."
She glanced at him.
"You're not a hero," he said softly. "You're something else. Something real. Heroes die for ideas. You survive for people. And that scares the hell out of them."
That pulled something taut inside her — a string she thought had snapped long ago. Her chest tightened.
She stood abruptly, pacing to the window, arms wrapped around herself. The night beyond the glass was heavy, dripping with fog. She didn't want him to see her crack. Not again. Not here.
But Haru's voice was a thread pulling her back.
"You don't have to be okay yet," he said behind her. "But you have to let yourself be. That's the only way you don't disappear."
Her fists clenched. "You talk like you know me."
"I do know you."
"No, you know what they made me. That's not the same."
Haru stood too. Quiet steps. Careful distance. "Then show me the difference."
Ash turned. Her eyes were sharp — all storm and steel — but they shimmered, just faintly, as if something was beginning to thaw. She walked toward him until there was barely space to breathe between them.
"You really want to see who I am when there's no war left to fight?" she asked, voice low.
"I do."
She searched his face. And in that stillness — between heartbeat and breath — she kissed him.
It wasn't soft. It wasn't fiery. It was real — like opening a door she thought was forever locked. Her hands trembled. His didn't.
When they pulled apart, she didn't say anything. Neither did he.
But her hand stayed on his chest, resting just above his heart.
And for now — that was enough.