Komorebi

“Why are we here again?”

Fali smiled as he pushed Mele’s wheelchair along the narrow trail through the nature reserve - a place they’d visited recently, but one he never tired of.

“I wanted to walk in nature,” he said lightly, “and you refused to be left behind.”

“Oh, right. Forgot I did that.”

He chuckled. “Well, you have to admit, it’s not bad.”

She nodded, pretending to think. “I never said that, but yeah. It isn’t bad.”

It wasn’t quiet - far from it. The nearby stream trickled over stones, birds chattered in the canopy, branches rustled in the breeze, and leaves crunched underfoot and underwheel as they made their slow way along the track. Shafts of sunlight slipped through the trees, painting the ground in scattered patterns - the same pattern Fali had once wanted to capture on canvas.

In the end, he’d taken Mele’s advice and decided against it. He was glad he had. Trying to trap that kind of beauty on a canvas, he’d realized, would’ve only cheapened it.

He smiled softly. “Anyway, I’m glad you came. It would’ve been lonely without you.”

Mele turned her gaze forward, trying to hide her faint smile. “Yeah. I would’ve been lonely too if I’d stayed behind…”

He’d known she would - which was exactly why he never would have left her. Truth be told, he couldn’t risk it. Not now. A delivery was due any day, something important - something he didn’t want her to see just yet. He wasn’t even sure if he’d be able to use what was inside, not while she was still so fragile. He needed to lift her up again, somehow. But how?

Surely, he thought, if she could fall so fast, he could bring her back just as quickly. Or at least close to it.

He wasn’t sure. But he smiled anyway.

“Hey,” he said, “when are you going to practice your song again? I was enjoying listening to you make it.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t really have the motivation right now.”

He frowned gently. “No motivation… even though it means so much to you, after everything that’s happened?”

She sighed. “Well… when you put it like that…”

“Oh, no pressure,” he said quickly. “I don’t want to force you into anything.”

She shook her head. “No, I need to do something. It’s not healthy to just… stop.”

Then she tilted her head back, looking up at him with a faint, upside-down smile. “Alright. I’ll play some when we get home. But only if you sing with me.”

“Ah… I can’t sing well at all.”

“Sure you can,” she teased. “I’ll go slow for you.”

He laughed under his breath, pushing with one hand while scratching his neck with the other. “I don’t know…”

She pouted dramatically. “Well, I’m not gonna do it if you don’t.”

He smiled in defeat. “You got me. Alright, I’ll sing with you.”

“Okay!” she grinned. “I’m looking forward to it.”

He smiled too, though his thoughts drifted elsewhere.

Maybe this was how it had to be - not a quick recovery, but a slow and careful one. Something that took patience, kindness, and time.

But maybe, just maybe… she didn’t have to be perfect again before he got down on one knee.

A week passed.

Slowly, bit by bit, Mele improved.

It took a lot of effort from Fali’s side - he never left her. Everywhere he went, she came too. They went flying and shopping. They ate out. They ate in. They cooked together, Mele doing whatever she could from her wheelchair. They went on little adventures, exploring the countryside they would soon be leaving behind.

And gradually, gradually, Fali watched the layers begin to fall away.

She started to smile more often. She laughed lightly, with no hidden weight behind it. Her eyes regained their sparkle. There was still a quiet bag she dragged with her - one full of grief and fear - but she was learning to set it down more and more often. It could always return, yes, but for the moment Fali could say, with cautious pride, that she really was improving.

She played her guitar again, singing songs she hadn’t touched since her live performance days. The house filled with warmth - and with life.

But he wasn’t the only one who noticed changes.

Mele saw things too. She watched his anxiety grow even as his smile did. He teased her, joked with her, found ways to make her laugh when she least wanted to. He was hiding something, she could tell - but she couldn’t imagine what. So she didn’t ask. She just smiled and stayed beside him.

Until one morning, as they were finishing breakfast, Fali took a deep breath.

“Mele… we’ve been cleared to move into the shop. We can leave whenever you want to.”

Her heart leapt. The day had finally come.

“Really?” she said brightly. “That’s great! When should we go?”

He smiled, though his mind seemed elsewhere. “Whenever you want.”

She grinned, tilting her head. “Penny for your thoughts?”

He shook his head quickly, snapping back to the present. “Nah, it’s nothing.”

She didn’t believe that for a second, but she smiled anyway. “I get that. So, how soon can we leave?”

He thought for a moment. “Tomorrow, if we start packing now. I just need to book a hangar. That’ll take the longest.”

She smiled wide. “Well, how about you get to that, and I’ll start packing.”

He chuckled, exactly as he’d expected that answer. “Sure.”

“This is so exciting,” she said, grinning from ear to ear. “Sleeping tonight’s going to be impossible.”

“Liar.”

She laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll sleep perfectly with you there.”

He smiled softly at her. She was almost free of the pit now - or at least the most recent one.

All Fali could hope was that the rest of their plans would go just as smoothly.

If Mele could stand, she would have been spinning on one foot in the middle of the empty shop, whooping at its bare interior.
Instead, she contented herself with spinning in her wheelchair - round and round - laughter spilling freely from her lips.

At least, until Fali, unable to contain his own excitement after holding it in for so long, stopped her chair suddenly and swept her into his arms.

She gasped, then laughed harder, clinging to his neck as he spun her in the center of the empty room, not caring if any passersby happened to glance through the great glass window at the front. The sound of their laughter filled the hollow space, echoing back at them as if even the walls were celebrating.

They looked into each other’s eyes, smiling with pure, unguarded glee - and then he lifted her higher, leaned forward, and kissed her.

It was brief, but it meant everything. Their first kiss in a home of their own - and their first since the day they’d learned their offer on the shop had been accepted. So much had happened since then. And so much more still lay ahead.

Furniture was on its way, but for now they would sleep on blankets spread across the floor. The shop itself wouldn’t open for several weeks yet - there were records to be delivered and signed by Mele, and plenty of paintings for Fali to finish and hang. He’d grown quite good at capturing combat scenes - especially of his old 8th Squadron.

But as he painted the airfields they’d once called home, the famous missions they’d flown, and the moments that had earned them their nickname - Comfort Fairies - he found, to his surprise, a sense of peace.

It felt good to tell his story, even if it was scattered across a dozen canvases and would never truly be complete. Even the action pieces - Freyla’s guns blazing as she dived low, his own face hidden behind the canopy glass - no longer stirred the old flashbacks.

And so, as their lips parted, both of them grinning as if the world outside had ceased to exist, his mind was calm.

For the first time in a long time, the future looked bright.