The city was waking.
Buses hummed.
Shops opened.
People rushed past one another with earbuds in and eyes down, never knowing the moment they passed two people who had once rewritten time to find each other again.
But they didn't need the world to notice.
Because this moment was theirs.
They sat beneath the rusted eaves of the old university watchtower, now fenced off, scheduled for demolition in two weeks.
But it had lasted long enough.
It had waited for them.
So had time.
I remember it all now," Mei whispered.
"So do I," Kai said. "Even the first life. The one we forgot."
She turned to him, surprised. "You remember that far back?"
He nodded.
"There was a war. You wore armor. You chose to stay and died for it."
"You never came for me."
"I did. Too late."
A pause.
Then she reached for his hand.
"You still came."
The watches ticked between them — two broken things that now beat in sync, not with seconds, but with memory.
Kai glanced at her.
"No prophecy this time. No scroll. No monk. Just us."
"And no veil," she added.
"Which means whatever happens now… it's real."
He smiled.
"Then let's make it count."
They spent the day walking.
No destination. Just the rhythm of feet, the echo of what had been, and the pulse of something new blooming in the silence.
They talked about the past — all of it:
The red palace.
The rebellion.
The garden where silver orchids bloomed only when she sang.
The pain of remembering too soon, and the fear of forgetting too late.
And eventually, they spoke of the future.
Not in timelines.
Not in fates.
But in mornings.
And coffees.
And shared names on leases they hadn't signed yet.
That night, back in Mei's apartment, she pulled the two watches out again.
They sat ticking on the windowsill, facing the city.
"One day they'll stop," she said quietly. "Time always runs out."
He moved beside her.
"And when it does…?"
She turned to him, eyes soft but steady.
"Then we make our own time."
Outside, the city lights glowed.
Somewhere, far away in an archive no one remembered building, the scrolls began to fade.
The story was no longer being rewritten.
It was being lived.
No more dreams.
No more lives lost in memory.
Only this one.
In the final entry of the temple's hidden ledger, long untouched by light, a last line etched itself into the parchment — in her handwriting, in his voice:
"Time, remember us not by the lives we lost,
But by the one we chose.
Together. "
~End of the Novel ~
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