They stayed the night in the warehouse. No fires. No lights. Just breath and heartbeat and the brittle hush of a building too old to shelter hope.
Jin had taken first watch, a silent sentinel by the door, never looking too long in either of their directions.
Ash sat with her back to the cold concrete wall, legs drawn up, arms wrapped loosely around her knees. Haru rested nearby, not quite asleep, but not fully awake either — his gaze unfocused, trained on a ceiling that sagged under the weight of forgotten years.
Ash broke the silence first.
"Do you ever count them?"
Haru blinked. "Count what?"
"Your scars."
He turned to her, slowly. "Sometimes. Why?"
She shrugged, eyes on her own hands. "I was thinking about how many of mine were earned… and how many were just punishment."
A beat passed. Then another.
Finally, Haru said, "Show me."
She froze. "What?"
"I want to see them."
Ash's voice was low, almost brittle. "Why?"
"Because I want to know the language you speak when no one's listening."
Silence.
Then, without speaking, Ash stood.
She unzipped the top half of her tactical suit and peeled back the black fabric beneath. The scars were like constellations across her back, some thin and silver, others rawer, newer — a map of every time she hadn't been allowed to break.
Haru stood too, slower.
He stepped toward her, but didn't touch. Not yet. He let his gaze move across the landscape of her body with reverence, not pity. Then, without asking, he lifted his own shirt.
His chest bore less, but what was there was stark — a long diagonal slice across his ribs, a puncture mark near his shoulder, faded burns around his left hip.
They faced each other, bare and wordless, like soldiers returning from opposite sides of the same war.
Ash whispered, "You don't flinch."
"Neither do you."
"I used to think they made me ugly."
"They make you real."
He stepped closer.
Her breath caught, but she didn't move away.
When he touched her, it was light — fingertips tracing the highest scar along her collarbone, like he was learning a second language in braille.
She reached for him in return, pressing her palm gently over the old wound near his ribs."What happened here?"
"Father," he said softly. "One of the first times I said no."
She didn't need more detail.
Then her fingers brushed the burn on his side.
"That?"
He huffed a humorless laugh. "DaeCorp made me punish someone. I refused. They reminded me that silence wasn't always protection."
Ash's throat tightened. "We've both been burned for saying no."
He met her eyes. "Then say yes."
Her heartbeat stuttered.
He added, "Not to me. Not now. Just to this moment. Let it be yours."
She didn't respond in words.
Instead, she leaned forward — slow, deliberate — and pressed her lips to the scar over his ribs.
A kiss, soft and sure.
Then another, over the burn on his side.
And one more, near the faded cut just under his collarbone.
Haru's breath caught, but he didn't move.
Ash whispered, "I see them. All of them. And I don't look away."
His hand brushed her cheek, reverent. "No one ever has."
"Then let this be the first time."
She pressed her forehead to his, both of them breathing through the tremble of something unspoken — something alive.
And when he pulled her into his arms, it wasn't possession or conquest.
It was surrender.
They lay side by side later, on the padded mats Jin had brought out from storage. No barriers now. Their bodies aligned, not in heat, but in something even rarer — peace.
Ash whispered into the darkness, "Do you think we'll ever be free?"
Haru's hand found hers.
"I think freedom isn't the absence of war," he said. "It's who you choose to stand beside when it comes."
She turned to look at him.
"You keep choosing me."
His voice was soft. "There's no one else I'd follow into fire."
They didn't kiss that night — not yet.
But something inside her shifted.
Not melted — no. Ash didn't melt. But maybe… maybe she thawed. Just enough to let a different kind of scar form — one made from connection, not survival.
And maybe, just maybe, that was the most dangerous thing of all.