The walk to the bridge was a pilgrimage. With every step, Sina felt the war within her subsiding, replaced by a singular, focused purpose. Her own words from the day before—Be strong. This is for him.—were a fading echo, drowned out by the thunder of the words he had written in her yearbook.
I choose to fall in love with you, every single day.
It wasn't a promise of an easy life. It was a promise of a chosen one. A life where the daily struggle was not a bug, but the very definition of their love. A love that had to be actively, consciously renewed with every sunrise. It wasn't a curse. It was a commitment.
She clutched the open yearbook to her chest, the page with his letter a tangible anchor in the confusing sea of her morning. She wasn't just following her heart's echo anymore. She was following the pull of a future he had so bravely laid out for her.
The bridge came into view. And her breath caught in her throat.
He was there.
He was just standing there, in the middle of the bridge, not looking out at the water, but looking down the path, in the direction she would come from. He was waiting. Just as his letter promised. His shoulders were slumped slightly, his hands shoved in his pockets, the very picture of a boy clinging to a sliver of impossible hope.
My heart wasn't just aching. It was bleeding. The solitary vigil on the bridge was the loneliest I had ever felt. I had poured my entire soul onto that yearbook page, a desperate, final volley. If it didn't work, if she chose to honor her past self's noble sacrifice, then this was it. This was the end. I would wait for another hour, and then I would have to start figuring out how to live in a world where the sun never rose.
And then I saw her.
She wasn't just walking. She was almost running, a determined, focused stride I had never seen from her. She was clutching her yearbook, not as a lifeline, but as a declaration.
Our eyes met across the fifty feet that separated us, and in that instant, I knew. The question, the uncertainty, the fear in her usual morning gaze was gone. She was looking at me, at Kelin Ishida, the boy from her yearbook, and her eyes were shining with a brilliant, tear-filled certainty.
She didn't slow down as she approached. She closed the distance until she was standing right in front of me, her chest rising and falling with her quick breaths. The world seemed to fade away. There was no river, no city, no quiet morning. Just us.
She didn't need a re-awakening. She didn't need to feel the echo. She had the words, the proof, and the unwavering truth of his promise. She was already here. Home.
She lifted a trembling hand and gently touched my face, her fingers tracing the line of my jaw as if confirming I was real. "You idiot," she whispered, the same words as the night she'd watched the archives, but this time they weren't a lament. They were a term of endearment. The most profound one she could offer.
"You incredible, perfect, absolute idiot."
Tears began to spill from her eyes, but she was smiling. A radiant, world-changing smile.
"I choose it," she said, her voice a strong, clear vow. "I choose this. I choose you. Every sunrise. Every single day."
All the air left my lungs. All the pain, all the loneliness, all the fear of the last one hundred and eighty-four days... it all just... dissolved. Washed away by the sheer, overwhelming power of her choice.
I put my hands over hers, pressing her palm against my cheek. "Are you sure?" I had to ask. "Sina, it will be hard. It will always be hard."
"I know," she said, her smile never wavering. "But a life of hard days with you is better than a lifetime of easy, empty ones. Your letter... it taught me something. The forgetting... it's not a weakness. It's a chance. A chance to choose you again. Every morning. To prove that you're not a habit. You're a choice."
She took the yearbook from under her arm and held it up, the letter a sacred text between us. "This is Day One," she declared, her voice ringing with a joy so pure it felt like the sun had finally broken through the clouds. "The first day of forever. Let's make it a good one."
I laughed, a choked, tear-filled sound of pure, unadulterated happiness. I pulled her into my arms, burying my face in her hair, breathing her in. She wrapped her arms around my neck, holding on tight, a perfect, solid anchor.
"I love you," I whispered against her skin, the words finally free, finally whole.
"I know," she whispered back. "My heart remembers, even when I don't."
She pulled back just enough to look at me, her amber eyes sparkling, brighter than I had ever seen them. And then she leaned in and kissed me.
It wasn't like the first, impulsive kiss in the arcade. This was a kiss of choice. A kiss of promises. It was a sunrise, a foundational myth, and a happily ever after, all in one. It was the end of a long, painful chapter, and the explosive, brilliant, perfect beginning of the next.
On the bridge, in the soft morning light, surrounded by the ghosts of a hundred and eighty-four remembered sunrises, we finally began our life. Not as a project. Not as a lie. But as a choice. Made anew, with every dawn.
Forever.