What Stayed
There was a time when I believed happiness was fragile.
Something temporary. Something you borrowed for a moment before life demanded it back with interest.
Now, standing at the window of my apartment in Tokyo, watching the city breathe beneath a gray winter sky, I knew that belief had been wrong.
Some things, once rebuilt properly, stayed.
----My parents----
My parents lived peacefully now.
Truly peacefully not the forced kind of calm where words are avoided and smiles are practiced, but the quiet harmony that comes when two people finally choose each other again without fear.
A few years after everything settled, I bought them a house.
Not an apartment.
Not a compromise.
A large, modern home on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by trees and open air. A place where mornings smelled like dew and evenings felt slow. It had wide windows, a small garden my mother loved, and a jogging path nearby for my father.
I bought them a car too safe, comfortable, nothing flashy. My father protested at first, as expected.
"Haruto, this is too much," he said, rubbing the back of his neck like he always did when he felt embarrassed.
I told him something I had rehearsed for years.
"This isn't repayment," I said. "It's appreciation."
He didn't argue after that.
Every morning, without fail, I woke up early when I visited them. Not because I had to but because I wanted to. I took my father jogging, just like I had started doing years ago. At first, he complained endlessly.
"You're trying to kill me, aren't you?"
"Slow down, I'm not twenty anymore."
"Do you even breathe when you run?"
But gradually, his steps became steadier. His laughter came easier. His health improved.
My mother waited for us every morning with tea already prepared, watching us through the window like it was her favorite show.
They talked more now.
About everything.
Things they never said when I was younger regrets, misunderstandings, apologies that arrived years late but still mattered. I didn't interrupt. I didn't need to.
Just knowing they were finally honest with each other was enough.
Sometimes, late at night, my mother would call me.
"Haruto," she'd say softly, "your father fell asleep on the sofa again."
And I'd laugh, picturing the scene perfectly.
Those moments grounded me.
They reminded me why I worked so hard.
I lived in Tokyo now.
The city never slept, but it never overwhelmed me either. Maybe because I had already lived through a future that was louder, harsher, and emptier than this.
My apartment wasn't extravagant. Clean lines. Minimal furniture. Warm lighting.
Amane liked it that way.
Our daughter liked running through it anyway, ignoring every design choice we made.
Tokyo was where my companies operated, where meetings blurred into late nights, where decisions carried weight but it was also where my life finally felt balanced.
I wasn't running anymore.
I was walking confidently.
------Yui-----
Yui and I didn't drift apart the way people assume childhood connections do.
We just… changed direction.
After high school graduation, we stayed in touch through calls and messages. Not daily. Not desperately. Just enough to know the other was alive and moving forward.
She went abroad first.
Studied fashion design under names I only recognized later when her brand began appearing in international magazines. She had always had that eye the ability to see elegance where others saw excess.
Years later, she became the CEO and creative director of Élan Noire, a luxury fashion house known for blending minimalist Japanese aesthetics with bold European silhouettes.
When I first saw her designs on a runway livestream, I smiled without realizing it.
"That's so Yui," I muttered.
Sharp. Confident. Fearless.
We met occasionally sometimes for coffee, sometimes at events where neither of us belonged emotionally, but attended professionally.
She teased me relentlessly.
"So," she'd say, swirling her wine, "the quiet boy from school owns car companies and spy tech now?"
"And the girl who used to sketch dresses in her notebook runs fashion week," I replied.
She laughed every time.
There was no tension between us.
No unresolved feelings.
Just respect.
Once, she looked at me seriously and said, "You look lighter now."
I understood exactly what she meant.
What I Learned
I used to think my life was defined by what I lost.
But as the years passed, I realized something important.
I wasn't shaped by betrayal.
I was shaped by what came after.
The mornings jogging with my father.
My mother laughing freely in her own home.
Amane's quiet strength.
My daughter's tiny hands gripping my finger.
Friends who survived alongside me.
Even Miyuki and Souta walking their own paths, no longer tangled in mine.
All of it mattered.
All of it stayed.
And sometimes, late at night, when Tokyo's lights flickered like distant stars, I thought about Valkyrie.
Not with fear.
But with gratitude.
Because she didn't give me revenge.
She gave me time.