The day began with a letter. A red envelope, no return address, resting at the foot of their grand oak door.
Hiro read the words under the dining room chandelier, its light fractured through crystal.
"To Hiro: You belong to her, but others still search. Let the past rest, or she will not."
He crumpled the paper instinctively, his fingers trembling. It wasn't just a threat. It was a warning from someone who knew the truth. Someone who had been watching.
Ayaka was in the sunroom, humming softly as she painted. The canvas was filled with peonies, but Hiro saw a trace of red beneath the petals—something else, hidden.
"Did you see this?" he asked, handing her the envelope.
She looked at it once and then set it aflame in the fireplace. "The world outside doesn't matter anymore."
"But what if it comes in?"
Ayaka's expression didn't change. "Then we will remind it that we bite."
That evening, Hiro sat by the piano in the chapel. He played the notes of an old lullaby, one Ayaka's mother used to sing. The melody echoed, ghost-like.
He felt her arms wrap around him from behind. "Play that again," she murmured. "That's the one I dreamt of when I was in Europe."
"Ayaka… if they find out—if someone looks too closely—"
"They won't. No one ever really cared for the truth. Just the image. And our image is beautiful, isn't it?"
He turned to face her, brushing her hair behind her ear. "Do you love me, even now?"
"I never stopped. I loved you before I knew what love was. I'll love you when our bones turn to dust in this place."
Later, while Ayaka tucked Haruka into bed, Hiro stepped into the study. The old laptop blinked to life. Hidden folders, passwords, surveillance data. A chilling breadcrumb trail.
Disappeared students.
Unnamed reports.
Female professors missing.
He traced a line back to the first—Kanna, the linguistics professor who always smiled too much. The last ping from her phone was within a kilometer of the villa.
A deep dread pressed against Hiro's ribs. He stood, breathing heavily, and opened the coat closet beside the bookshelf.
Inside was Ayaka's violin case. But it was too heavy. He opened it.
Not a violin.
Tools.
A roll of red silk cord. Silver scalpels. A burner phone.
And beneath it all, a small velvet box. Inside, the ring he had proposed with, still shining.
She had kept everything.
Every trace of their story.
Even the blood.
Ayaka's voice startled him. "You weren't supposed to find that yet."
He turned slowly. She stood there, in her nightdress, barefoot on the hardwood floor.
"Was it you? All of them?" he asked.
"Yes," she replied without flinching. "But only for us."
"Haruka—she deserves better."
"She'll have better. Because she has us."
He wanted to scream. He wanted to weep. But most of all, he wanted to hold her.
And he did.
Because love wasn't about purity. It was about truth.
And the truth was: he had always belonged to her.
They fell asleep curled around each other, crimson threads binding their hearts tighter than ever.
Tomorrow, he would tell her everything he knew.
Tomorrow, he might choose the cage again.
But tonight, in the stillness of the chapel's shadow, they were whole.