Yumiko couldn't forget the dream.
All morning, it clung to her like a second skin—the violet sky, the way Jash had looked at her, the ache that still pulsed in her chest as if something precious had been torn away. She stared at her reflection, searching for answers in familiar eyes that suddenly felt… incomplete.
Her fingers brushed her wrist absently.
And she froze.
There, just beneath the skin, was a faint mark—thin, silver, almost like a scar shaped by light rather than pain. It hadn't been there before. She was sure of it.
Her breath quickened.
"No," she whispered.
But her body betrayed her certainty. The mark warmed under her touch, pulsing softly, as if responding to her fear. Or her memory.
The sound of rain outside made her flinch.
She grabbed her coat and stepped out, heart racing, instincts guiding her feet without thought. The city blurred around her until she found herself back at the place she'd sworn to avoid—the streetlamp, glowing weakly against the gray sky.
Jash was already there.
He looked up the moment she arrived, eyes darkening—not with surprise, but recognition. "You dreamed," he said quietly.
Yumiko swallowed. "You knew."
He nodded once. "It's starting."
She held out her wrist, rain soaking her sleeve. "What is this?"
For the first time, Jash looked shaken. His hand hovered near her skin, careful, reverent, but he didn't touch her. "That," he said softly, "is proof you existed before this life."
Her chest tightened. "Existed… how?"
"As someone who mattered enough to change fate," he replied. "Someone who chose to be reborn rather than forget me forever."
The rain fell harder, drumming against the silence between them. Yumiko shook her head, tears burning her eyes. "Why would I do that?"
Jash finally met her gaze fully, pain etched into every line of his face. "Because loving me cost you everything."
The words shattered something inside her.
She took a step back, heart breaking in ways she didn't understand. "Then why are you still here?"
"Because you asked me to be," he said. "And because even now… I would do it all again."
Thunder cracked overhead. Yumiko pressed her hand to her wrist, to her heart, to the ache that had never truly left.
She didn't know who she had been.
She didn't know what she had lost.
But she knew one thing with terrifying certainty.
Whatever she and Jash once were—
It was far from over.