Epilogue （1）
Kaze
Some months later
She’s still asleep beside me, her breathing slow and steady, the early morning light casting soft shadows across her face. I don’t move. I barely breathe. I just lie here and look at her like I do every morning because I’ll never take this for granted again.
She’s real. This is real. We are real.
We made it.
Sometimes I still wake up afraid I’m back in that room, trapped somewhere between life and death, suspended in that endless silence. But then I feel the warmth of her body pressed against mine, the way her fingers curl gently around the blanket, and I know I’m home.
Not some random house.
With Her.
Since the moment I left the hospital, going back to my parents’ place was never even a question. My place had always been here. With Khalee. Where my soul had always rested, even when my body couldn’t move.
Getting to the peace we have now wasn’t always easy.
There were days I could barely stand, when the pain made me want to give up, when therapy pushed me harder than I thought I could take.
There were nights we both cried more than we slept, when words failed and the silence felt like it might crush us.
But we kept being here. For each other. For this.
Because the truth is, it wasn’t just my body that needed healing or my soul. She had wounds too. Deep ones. The kind no scan or doctor could ever find.
And still, she never gave up on me or me on her.
Even when the nightmares came, they left her shaking, even when I couldn’t hold her the way I love to.
Even when our scars clashed in the dark, we kept choosing each other, fighting for each other, every damn day.
Because no matter how broken we were, we were always better together.
Two souls stitched by the same thread. Two people who are ever so in love that they never let go.
Now, I watch her sleep, peaceful in a way I used to pray for, before everything.
The haunted look in her eyes isn’t gone completely, but it doesn’t rule her anymore.
And maybe that’s what love really is. Not just the falling.
Not just the joy. But the staying. The quiet mornings.
The healing that happens in silence, under soft blankets, between steady breaths, and warm embraces.
So I lie here, and I love her. In silence. In stillness. With everything I am, a man, a living, breathing man.
My memories as a ghost still exist. I remember every single part of my out-of-body experience as much as I remember all my life before.
Science doesn’t explain it. Not even spirituality, to some extent, but we don’t need explanations for what it was.
We don’t need names for it. Just gratitude because we’ve found each other against all odds, felt each other even when being present, physically present, wasn’t an option, and we’re together as we were always supposed to be.
That’s all that matters. We’re all that matters.
So I say thank you, every day, every morning, every night. To God. To the universe.
To whatever force stood between life and death and said, not yet.
Thank you for this second chance.
For the pain that didn’t win. For the love that waited. For her. For the opportunity to reach heaven in life, beside her.
“Good morning, ” she murmurs, her voice still thick with sleep, eyes closed, but her body already leaning into mine. She feels me watching her. She always does.
“Morning, love, ” I whisper, brushing her hair off her face, kissing her temple. “You slept so peacefully.”
“I always do, with you next to me.”
“Good thing, because there’s nowhere else I would rather sleep.”
She hums softly and opens her eyes, lashes fluttering, and even after all these years, she still knocks the breath out of me. Not because she’s perfect, but because she’s real. Alive. Mine.
“You’re staring, ” she teases, lips tugging into the softest smile.
“Can you blame me?” I murmur, running a fingertip along her cheek. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Every morning, I wake up and fall in love all over again.”
Her smile deepens, sleep still clinging to her voice.
“That’s because you’re not wearing your glasses yet, baby,” she jokes.
Waking up from a coma doesn’t mean you’ll live as you once lived or that you are fully healed from the circumstances that put you in that coma.
That only happens in the movies, and trust me, I’m lucky, because I only have to wear some sexy glasses since I lost part of my vision in one eye.
I also have scars, burns, old pains, and have to visit doctors every month for some checks. But besides that, I healed well.
“I still see perfectly well and can assure you, nothing could change how beautiful you are to me.
“You’re ridiculously romantic for someone who just woke up.”
“You just woke up. My fate now is being a morning person, and look at you while you sleep.”
“Big words for someone who once didn’t believe in fate”. She giggles.
“I didn’t believe in fate until you, ” I say simply. “Now I believe in everything.”
She pulls me closer, her hand resting over my heart, right where it beats hardest and where now the first letter of her name is inked.
“Don’t say things like that, ” she whispers. “You’ll make me cry.”
“Then cry with me, ” I reply softly. “Happy tears only. We earned them.”
She doesn’t speak for a moment, just breathes against me, fingers tracing lazy circles against my chest. Then, quiet as a prayer:
“I’m so glad you came back for me. Even after all these months, Kaze. I’m so happy to have you, to wake up by your side every day. Sometimes… it feels too good to be true, you know?”
“I know, love. Trust me, the feeling is mutual.” I tell her, kissing the corner of her mouth. “But I’ll never leave you. Never again. And even if for some reason life gets in the way, I promise you that in every life, in every way, I’ll always find you.”
“Even in death?”
“Especially there.”
She smiles and pulls the blanket up around us, burying her face in the crook of my neck. Her breath warms my skin, her fingertips already drawing soft lines along my chest like she’s writing words without any sound.
We stay like that for a moment, no rush, no urgency. Just us. Breathing. Holding each other. Living inside a love so vast it barely fits in our bodies.
Then she lifts her face and looks at me, really looks at me, like she’s seeing through the surface and into the fragments of me only she could ever touch.
“I missed you, ” she says quietly.
“I’m right here.”
“I miss you even when you’re near, ” she adds softly. And I understand, deeply and instantly, because I feel it too, that quiet ache that never quite fades. Like, no matter how close we get, it’s never close enough. No touch deep enough. No scent strong enough.
Everything we share only leaves us craving more. More time. More skin. More of everything.
It’s like we’re always starving for each other, even when we’re wrapped in each other’s arms. And while that ache is beautiful, proof of how alive this love is, it’s also relentless. Every hour apart feels like holding my breath underwater.
Obsessive? Maybe. But there’s no shame in it—only truth.
Then her lips find mine, slow, reverent, like a promise we’ve made across lifetimes. There’s no urgency in it, not at first—just warmth and comfort.
I cup her face, guiding her closer. Her body slides over mine like it belongs there, and it does. It always has.
We savor each other in silence at first, like a conversation without words. Skin to skin. Heart to heart.
Her breath hitches as I trace the curve of her breasts, and then move to her waist, pulling her even closer, until there’s nothing between us but the rhythm we find together.
“Fuck, I need you, love.”
The words come out rough, raw, carved from something deeper than want. Her eyes flick up to meet mine, wide, dark, and shimmering, as if she feels the same pull unraveling her from the inside out.
“Have me,” she whispers, and there’s no hesitation in it, just certainty.
My hands slide down the length of her back, fingers pressing into warm skin as her hips begin to move with quiet intention, seeking, aligning. The first brush of her against me steals my breath.
And then we give in.
Slowly, she sinks onto me, a quiet gasp escaping her lips as I slide into her. It’s not rushed. It’s reverent. Her forehead rests against mine, our breaths syncing, hearts pounding in a shared rhythm that feels ancient.
We move together in that space between hunger and devotion, each thrust is always like a silent vow between us, each kiss a reminder of everything we’ve survived to get back here.
Her hands clutch at my shoulders, nails biting just enough to ground us both, and I hold her tighter, anchoring her to me like she’s the only thing keeping me from floating away.
And then I look up at her.
Straddling me, lit by the low, golden spill of light through the room, she looks like something sacred, like a goddess carved from flame and breath.
Her hair tumbles around her shoulders in wild waves, a curtain of shadow and softness that frames her face like something divine.
Her skin glows, flushed and damp with heat, and her eyes, God, her eyes, are half-lidded, dark with want and something deeper: love, yes, but also power.
She moves like she knows exactly what she’s doing to me. Like she owns this moment. Owns me. And she does.
To see her like this, above me, within me, completely herself, it’s more than desire. It’s awe. It’s worship.
She is strength and softness, fire and mercy, and every time she rolls her hips, I feel it in my bones: She is the only heaven I’ve ever needed.
I reach up to touch her, not just to guide but to feel, to remind myself she’s real. That this, we, are real.
“Look at you, ” I murmur, voice rough with emotion. “You’re… fucking beautiful.”
She smiles then, slow and knowing, and leans down to kiss me again. And I let her.