Life settled into a new, extraordinary kind of ordinary. The miracle of the melodic scar didn't cure Sina's amnesia, but it re-calibrated her entire existence. The morning re-awakenings became moments not of confusion, but of quiet, miraculous discovery. Her heart, guided by the four-note hum of our song, always found its way home to me with a gentle certainty that felt more profound than any factual memory ever could.
We were no longer defined by the struggle against her condition. We were defined by the life we built around it.
Our small apartments became a single, fluid home, the ten steps of the hallway a bridge we crossed a dozen times a day. Zeke declared my apartment the "Official Snack and Gaming Embassy," while Sina's was the "Studio of Zen and Pretty Things." Kaito and Sora visited on weekends, our study group seamlessly evolving into a dinner party group. Our scaffolding had become a true, sprawling home.
Sina's art, which had once been a tool for survival, became a true vocation. She didn't just sketch; she painted. She filled canvas after canvas with the emotions of our shared days—the quiet joy of a shared coffee, the vibrant chaos of a festival, the deep, soulful melancholy of her pre-accident memories. Her apartment was no longer just a gallery of our life; it was becoming a true artist's studio.
Which led to the new question. The one I had been dancing around for months.
It happened on the four-year anniversary of our "Honest Day One," Day 86. We were on the bridge, the sunrise painting the Tokyo sky in hues of soft pink and brilliant orange. We'd been through the gentle ceremony of her re-awakening, and were now just standing in the quiet, comfortable silence, sipping our coffees.
"I got you something," I said, breaking the silence. My heart started to beat a little faster.
"Oh?" she said, her eyes lighting up with that familiar, curious smile. "It's not an invisible cat, is it? Because I don't think my apartment has room."
I chuckled, reaching into my backpack. "Close," I said. "It's an easel. For your new apartment."
I pulled a small, sleek, white box from my bag. It wasn't an easel. It was smaller, heavier. I held it out to her.
She looked from the box to my face, her smile faltering, her brow furrowing in confusion. She took the box, her fingers trembling slightly. The weight, the shape... it was familiar, traditional.
She opened it.
Inside, nestled on a bed of black velvet, was a simple, elegant platinum ring. It wasn't large or ostentatious. A single, small, amber-colored stone was set in the band—the exact shade of her eyes.
The silence that fell was different from our usual comfortable quiet. This was the silence of a held breath, the pause before a story takes a sharp, new, terrifying turn.
She just stared at the ring, her mind clearly working at a million miles an hour, trying to fit this new, monumental piece of data into the map of her world.
"The architecture of our life is solid," I said, my voice quiet but steady. I had rehearsed this. "We have our rhythm. We have our village. We know how to do this." I took a deep breath. "But you're right. My apartment is the Snack Embassy. And yours is the Studio. And they are two separate, wonderful countries. But I... I don't want to live in the embassy anymore. I want to come home."
I gently took the box from her, took the ring out, and got down on one knee, right there in the middle of our bridge, as the sun broke free of the horizon.
Her breath hitched, a soft, sharp gasp.
"Sina Vance," I said, my voice shaking with the weight of five years of love. "Every single day for the rest of my life, I want the first face I see to be yours. I want to build a home with you, not just next to you. I want to fight the sunrise with you, side-by-side, forever. Will you... build that life with me?"
I didn't say, "Will you marry me?" The word felt too conventional, too tied to traditions of shared pasts and promised futures that didn't quite fit our unique reality. I asked her to build with me. Because that's what we did. We were builders.
She was crying, silent tears tracing paths down her cheeks, but she wasn't sad or scared. Her face was a canvas of pure, overwhelming emotion.
This was a question that no note from yesterday, no echo in her heart, could have prepared her for. This was a decision for today. For the woman standing in front of me right now.
"Get up, you idiot," she whispered, her voice choked.
I stood, my heart in my throat, the ring still held between my fingers.
She didn't give me an answer. Not with a word. Instead, she took my left hand in hers. She looked at our joined hands, and then back at my face, a slow, brilliant, tear-filled smile spreading across her lips.
"The new apartment," she said, her voice a strong, clear vow, "is going to need a much bigger corkboard."
It was the most beautiful "yes" I could have ever imagined.
I slipped the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly. It caught the morning light, the small amber stone glowing with a warm, quiet fire. A permanent, tangible piece of evidence. A new kind of scar.
She looked at the ring, then at me, her love a palpable, powerful force.
"Okay," she said, taking a deep, happy breath, as if for the first time. "Let's go design our forever."