Chapter 25: Before the Storm

Because sometimes, the cruelest thing about happiness is knowing when it expires.

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The festival smelled like sugar and smoke — cotton candy and gunpowder, laughter spilling out of strangers’ mouths like it belonged to them more than it ever belonged to me.

Yume’s hand clung to my arm as we walked through the chaos, her blind eyes tilted up like she could feel the colors instead of see them. Lantern light painted her face in gold, and for a second, I almost believed in something bigger than blood and pain.

“This is…” She paused, her voice catching like a thread on glass. “…loud.”

“Too loud?”

“No. Just… alive.”

She smiled then — wide, real, like a blade in my chest that I didn’t want to pull out.

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We played stupid festival games. Threw rings at bottles that laughed in our faces. She wanted a goldfish; I won her two. She named them “Moon” and “Not-Moon.” Don’t ask me why.

We ate takoyaki so hot it nearly burned her tongue. She laughed until her voice cracked, leaning against me like I was a wall she trusted not to fall.

God help her.

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When night dropped its curtain, the fireworks began.

The first boom split the sky open, scattering sparks like stars on fire. Yume tilted her head, listening, her lips parting as if the sound alone was painting something inside her.

“Tell me,” she whispered.

“What?”

“What it looks like.”

I swallowed something sharp. “Like… the sky’s bleeding light. Like a thousand suns breaking just for us.”

She laughed softly. “That sounds… beautiful.”

“It is.”

“You sound like you mean it.”

“I do.”

What I didn’t say: Because you’re here. Because you’re still breathing.

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The last firework bloomed like a dying star. We stood there in the ash and smoke, her hand clutching mine like it could stop the clock.

Then she turned her face toward me, blind eyes shining like they could still see everything I was trying to hide.

“Kazuki?”

“Yeah?”

“Promise me you’ll always be here.”

My throat locked.

I wanted to tell her the truth — that in three days, I might not even be standing. That I’m about to step into a ring with a monster just to buy her another sunrise.

But lies are softer than silence. So I said it anyway.

“Always.”

Her smile could’ve killed me right there. And maybe it did.

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Later, when I walked her home and she kissed my cheek — just once, soft, like a thank-you or a goodbye — I stood in the dark and let the sound of her door closing break every bone in my soul.

Because “always” is a word people like me should never use.

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