The dinner was a sensory overload, but not of chaos. It was a blinding kaleidoscope of small, perfect details, a three-dimensional photograph come to life. My mother's overly enthusiastic welcoming, my father's knowing, soft chuckles—it wasn't a stressful cacophony; it was the comforting, familiar symphony of a family finally, irrevocably whole. A heavy, liquid warmth spread through my chest, an ache of profound rightness that wiped away two years of cold silence.
Watching Jun at the table again was the ultimate vindication of my two years of devotion. He sat just as he always had, his posture a little too rigid, the way he unconsciously tucked his left elbow in when he reached for the rice bowl. He accepted my father's gentle teasing about needing to "eat enough to catch up on two years of growth" with a clumsy, polite sincerity.
These were the small, perfect habits of the boy I remembered, now inhabiting the body of the man beside me. It was a sweet, overwhelming confirmation that he was, despite the missing years and the unsettling changes, still my Jun. Every casual laugh and every word of praise he gave my mother, it felt like the first, real payment on the debt the universe owed me. He was here, at my table, eating my mother's food. The Silent Princess was gone, replaced by a ridiculously happy girl who couldn't stop smiling.
The second the dishes were cleared, the warmth gave way to a new, intense heat. I grabbed Jun's arm and shoved him toward the stairs. "Mom, Dad!" I called out, my voice too loud, too desperate. "We're going upstairs now. We have to—to study." I nearly dragged Jun up the steps. Study. As if. The sheer absurdity of the lie—he wasn't even enrolled, he had skipped two years of classes—was lost in my rising panic. My sanctuary, my room, was now the staging ground for our new, fraught reality.
I had aggressively laid out the spare futon on the floor, leaving it perfectly centered in the small, empty space that separated my single bed from the wall. This was my last attempt at maintaining boundaries, an absurd, thin line of defense against the man who had grown up without me.
I climbed into my bed, wrapping myself in the blanket like a cocoon. Jun lowered himself onto the futon, his silhouette looking impossibly large against the delicate white fabric. The light was off, but the moon filtered through the blinds, casting stripes across the room.
We lay there, separated by less than a foot of floorboard and futon, but a vast, silent ocean of two years and a mountain of unresolved emotion. The silence was heavy, but it wasn't the terrible, empty silence I had lived with. This silence was full, charged, and utterly terrifying.
Then, his voice came, soft as a brushstroke in the dark.
"Yui?"
"Yes?" My reply was instant, sharp. I hadn't even begun to think about sleeping.
"Did you fall asleep already?"
"Of course not," I retorted, turning my back to him and pulling the blanket up to my chin. My cheeks were already burning. "But you should. You just came back from the hospital. You need rest."
A long pause, heavy with his unspoken thoughts.
"Are you angry at me, Yui?"
The question was so simple, so direct, that it broke my careful composure. I inhaled a shaky breath. "...Yes, I am."
"Did you miss me?"
I closed my eyes, letting the truth escape like a whispered sigh. "Yes, I missed you, you fool."
"Did you cry a lot?"
"That is none of your business," I mumbled into the blanket.
Another beat of silence. Then, his tone shifted—it became serious, the deep, old-soul honesty that only Jun ever possessed. "...Do you love me?"
I rolled onto my side, facing the futon, facing the darkness where he lay. My voice was suddenly clear, free of the defensive edge. "Yes. I love you, Jun Kuroda. More than I thought a person was allowed to love."
"How much?" he pressed, the question a soft challenge.
"Enough to wait two years in silence. Enough to rewrite the entire world for you, just to make you happy," I confessed, the full weight of my vow suddenly exposed.
I heard him shift on the futon, a soft, satisfied sound of complete understanding. He mumbled, his voice thick with a sweet, familiar arrogance, "Yeah, I already knew that."
The sheer audacity of his confidence made the tension unbearable.
"I love you too, Yui," he whispered, no longer a tease, but a solemn vow. "More than the air I breathe. I will stay by your side forever, Yui. Nothing in this world or the next will ever take me from you."
He inhaled sharply, the solemnity shattering as the cold dread surfaced.
"I don't know where I was, Yui. And because I have no memory of how I was taken, I have no way to stop it. I'm not afraid of being gone, I'm afraid of leaving you alone to wait like that again. I'm afraid of breaking my promise to you."
His sudden, devastating vulnerability—the raw fear beneath his teasing bravado—hit me harder than any wave. I felt the sharp, fierce protectiveness I had earned over the last two years flare up inside me.
"I won't let that happen again," I promised, the words iron-clad. "I swear it. And if the worst comes to worst, you already came back once, I know that I can find you again. I will always find you."
The air felt impossibly charged. We had crossed the emotional chasm of the two years, acknowledging the loss and cementing the future.
"Yui?" he asked, the serious tone instantly replaced by that maddening, familiar playfulness. "When can we kiss again?"
I snorted softly, letting a tiny, genuine laugh escape—a sound I hadn't realized I'd suppressed for weeks. "Ah, so all your sweet talk about promises was just a ploy to steal my kiss?"
"Yes, that too," he admitted without hesitation. "But I want to kiss you every minute, Yui. I want to hold you. If I don't, I think I might die, for real this time." His voice was slightly exaggerated on the last line, but the desperate need beneath it—the need to re-anchor himself to me, the obsessive fear of being alone again—was terrifyingly real.
I didn't answer. I just pushed my blanket aside and slid silently from my bed. I took the one step required to reach the edge of his futon.
He watched me approach, his eyes wide and dark. I hovered over him, my hands bracing against the futon on either side of his head. I lowered myself, slowly, until our lips brushed—a small, innocent contact, the tentative start of a memory we were trying to rebuild. It wasn't enough. I settled my weight, not breaking contact, and allowed the touch to deepen. This first true kiss was a quiet, profound sigh of relief, a moment of pure confirmation that he was warm, solid, and real. It was the softest kiss, an act of sheer, exhausted compassion for the boy who had fought his way home.
When I drew back slightly, his arms immediately tightened around my neck, pulling me closer. He didn't ask; he simply claimed. Our lips met again, and this second joining was a deeper, more comprehensive vow—tender and searching, a desperate, shared prayer that the two years of silence would never return. It was fiercely compassionate, confirming that the contract was unbroken.
We parted for a breath that never fully came, only to fall back together with a desperate, consuming hunger. This final kiss was not a storm of chaos, but a suffocating, triumphant surge of everything we had waited for. It stole the air from both of us, a joining so complete it felt like our souls were trying to merge, and we only pulled apart when our lungs burned from the impossible, prolonged embrace.
I looked down at his face, flushed and beautiful, his eyes wide with triumphant confusion. I had to put the distance back. I had to be the one in charge.
I pressed my index finger against his damp, perfect lips. "That was for the last two years," I managed, my voice husky but firm. "Don't get over yourself."
I stood up, walked back to my bed, and climbed in, pulling the blanket up to my chin once more.
Jun didn't move. He just lay there, eyes closed, a faint, contented smile playing on his lips. "Thank you, Yui," he mumbled, his voice thick with gratitude and exhaustion.
I didn't reply. I just listened to the sound of his breathing, steady and deep, right there on the floor of my room, and finally, for the first time in two years, I began to let myself rest.