The safehouse creaked around them like an old lullaby. Wind brushed the boarded windows. Somewhere beyond the tree line, an owl called into the dark.
Ash sat cross-legged on the couch, her fingers curled around a chipped mug of tea she hadn't sipped in twenty minutes. Her body was still. Her mind was not.
She didn't hear Haru enter.
But she felt him.
He didn't say anything, just walked in and sat on the floor beside the couch — close, but not touching. His back rested against it. His head tilted toward the fire's dying embers.
He held something in his hands — a small cloth pouch, stitched at the seams. She recognized it.
The one she'd kept bandages in. Back during the fights. When she patched her own wounds because no one else would.
"You still carry that?" she asked.
Haru didn't look up. "Yeah. I don't know why. Habit. Or maybe because it's the first thing I saw you treat with kindness."
Ash blinked. "It's just gauze."
"It was yours."
The silence that followed didn't stretch — it settled.
He opened the pouch carefully, revealing what was inside: not gauze now, but a few small keepsakes. A Phoenix insignia button. A tiny paper crane. A frayed wrist wrap — hers, she realized. From months ago.
"You kept all that?" she whispered.
He nodded. "You once told me not everything worth saving shines. I figured that included you."
She stared at the items. "You remembered that?"
"I remember everything you say, Ash."
He said her name like it was prayer and punishment in one.
She looked down. Her tea had gone cold.
Haru shifted then, turning so he faced her fully. Still on the floor. Still grounded.
"You don't owe me anything," he said gently. "Not love. Not forgiveness. Not even answers."
Ash swallowed.
"But if you're going to run," he continued, "just… tell me which direction. So I can follow."
She finally met his eyes.
He wasn't demanding. He wasn't pleading.
He was offering.
And gods, that hurt more than a demand ever could.
Ash set her mug down, leaned forward slowly — unsure at first — until her forehead came to rest against his.
Haru didn't move. Didn't breathe.
She whispered, "I'm not running tonight."
His breath shook out of him, quiet and grateful.
And when she tilted her face slightly, her lips brushed his — soft, uncertain, but real.
They didn't deepen the kiss. Didn't rush. This wasn't about heat.
It was about choosing each other.
Here.
Now.
In this small, broken place where survivors learned how to love again.