Barely strong enough to touch even autumn leaves, the wind moved like tiny ripples on water. If he made an effort to taste it he could feel it caress the backside of his hand. A little drunk, a little scared and more than a little sad, Ioha sat perched high on a rooftop. Stars littered the sky between dark patches of clouds. Foreign stars. These were not the constellations he grew up with, and right now, he felt a long way from home. Memories from childhood mixed with those from his teens in an unorganised jumble, but stronger and with a fluid narrative of its own. Five glorious years from another life, when this world still remained a wistful wish itching in his soul, made themselves remembered.

  He twisted just a touch, just enough to lay a few aching muscles to rest, and let his eyes fall from the night sky to the rooftop tiling by his side. Ai lay there, on her side, curled up in a ball with both hands in his lap. His cloak served as her bedding, and hers a blanket. For the first time in his life, he looked at her features as if they truly mattered. To him, she’d been just Ai, the woman he loved in secret and someone who only needed to be. What she looked like, how she sounded, or the way she moved had never been important, just as long as she was Ai. Now, in the dim light of the town, he realised that in his eyes she was breathtakingly beautiful and that she had always been in both her forms.

  Satisfied noises from her sleeping touched his ears. She murmured happy dreams.

  “I’ve never been this happy in my life and never so afraid of losing it all,” he said to no one in particular and the entire world. Mom, I wish you could see her. You’d pull my cheeks and say I took too long. He leaned backwards on his hands. Dad, I want this woman. I want to marry her and share children with her. Maybe then he’d understand the tired joy he saw in his parents’ eyes. Mrs and Mr Nakagawa, I hope you think I’m good enough for her. I’m not sure I do. A long breath escaped from his lips. Damn, I really did it this time. Gods, I love her!

  She stirred by his side, and Ioha pushed himself back up. He’d played with the idea of taking her to his bed, but he let it drop long before they had their dinner. Somewhere in his mind, he still wanted to fall asleep with her, but his deepest longing, the one that almost hurt inside him, was to wake up with her by his side.

  I shouldn’t have asked. His quest for knowledge was infinite. I didn’t want to know this. Finding things out made him stronger. I regret what I did. I never want it undone.

  He sighed and took her in his arms, carefully so she wouldn’t wake. Two steps took him to the edge of the roof. With the next, he left it behind him. Paved stone lay three floors below him, and he slowly walked all the way down on stairs of ever-descending aura shields. When he set foot on the square, Ioha released the shields, a neat little trick he’d learned from his conversation with Ai on their way here. While he couldn’t control them after casting, he could cast them with a prepared catastrophic flaw only triggered by a second independent spell of his, and his only.

  Academy or an inn? His purse said academy, but his greed told him otherwise. In the end, greed won, and Ai’s grateful eyes when she woke from coming in to a warm indoors allowed him to believe his choice had been right. Mentally, they were adults, and in this world they were adults anyway, but he was a coward. He could sleep by her side, not doing anything and then wake up with her, or he could just rent two rooms.

  At the counter, she covered his hand when he reached for the coins he brought and shook her head. “Not this time,” she said. “I want no regrets from this night. I love you for giving me so much, but I want these memories all for myself.” Then she winked and trashed the mood. “And it makes me look cool.”

  Ioha blinked and stared at her. A glimmering star in her eyes told him she still meant every word, including looking cool. “You always look cool,” he tried. He left the rest of her words unsaid. A night’s stay in an inn would barely register for her, but for him, it might be money he desperately needed later. At least until he found himself some kind of work. “Thank you,” he said, and he meant it.

  The innkeeper took her coins and gave her a key. There were no comments, not even a knowing look. Secret trysts were more common than Ioha had guessed. Wooden stairs led up to the second floor and into a corridor, narrow but clean. The same could be said for their room. It was small but well-kept. A bed, generously sized for the room, waited with clean bedsheets and, as an extra luxury, a bathtub with heated water.

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  Ai looked at it. “Yes, we are,” she said.

  “Cold?” Ioha coughed.

  “Not for much longer.” She stepped out of her clothes. “Only you get to look?”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” he said and studied his shoes, just like that day in the mess hall.

  “You don’t look, and I go home. Deal?”

  No deal. He dropped his own clothes while he listened to her getting into the water.

  They spent time in the tub soaking in warmth to banish the autumn outdoors, they spent time with hands touching and exploring, and they spent time learning how to love in ways where no words were needed. Most of all, they spent time looking at each other with the hungry need of a shared longing reaching through years slowly filled to the brim with happiness during a red dawn before they returned to a short sleep entangled in each other's arms.

  On the road back to the academy, neither of them said very much. Awkward smiles, touching hands and a few grunts and laughs were all they needed. Should any of their fellow students have seen them, they were a couple bickering on their way back home, sullen for some reason but not angry enough for a full-blown quarrel. Those of their teachers with years and experience enough would tell another tale. One of uncomfortable joy, a bit too large to be spoken of and shared selfishness, where the need for more mixed with the fear of less. Most importantly, those teachers, suddenly filled with memories of their own, would smile or maybe even let it widen to a grin.

  Just before the red gate, it was Ioha’s turn to break the mood. A little devil climbed inside his mind, and, with one aura-enhanced move, he scooped Ai up in his arms. “Welcome back home, my love,” he said and carried her across the invisible barrier between out and in. She shrieked and flailed according to script, but ultimately, she threw her hands around his neck.

  “Stupid!” she said with no conviction reaching her voice. Then a grin of her own. “Carry me all the way home. I want the others to see.”

  It was too late to burn red, so Ioha just adjusted how he carried her slightly and kept walking. He did get a little colour out of her when he walked straight through the administrative building with her in his arms. After that, he cut across the school yard to the amused grins of a few students and one teacher, who held the doors open to building three and welcomed them with booming laughter. Ioha extended aura to his legs before he climbed the stairs. Large and strong he might be, but this version of Ai wasn’t anyone he could carry five floors without looking like a panting fool at the end. With a little nudging from her side, he made it to her room. He guessed the strategy students were allowed to mingle on all three dormitory floors.

  “No sharing?” he asked after coming inside. The room was furnished with one bed only. “Sharing with a roommate, I mean.”

  “Why would I want a roommate? Wait! If it’s you, then…”

  Wistful thinking made its tour in his mind, but cats and healers didn’t share dormitories. “I’ll visit,” he suggested, and tried to sound as lecherous as possible.

  Her room looked lived in, as if Ai had put down roots in this world before she moved here. In ways, it looked like the female version of Karaki’s half of their shared room, and Ioha was once again reminded of how he had gated here with far too few preparations. His half was a resting place prepared by someone else. He was a long-term guest, not someone who made a home. A pang of jealousy stung him before he firmly pushed it down into the recess where it belonged. Nothing prevented him from exchanging money in the gateway bank. Back home, he had a few months’ worth of perfectly decent salary saved in bank accounts and stocks he couldn’t touch this side of the gate. A few thousand euro deposited in exchange for a soul imprint, and his purse would hold a couple of gold coins as well as several more silver ones. His own fault.

  He touched a few flowers she had brought and waited by the window for her to make herself ready. He had already changed in the inn. A satchel slung over his shoulder under the cloak looked better than the same satchel for someone wearing a dress. Next time, he’d carry her necessities.

  Yesterday was maybe the best day in his life but also, he realised as he smirked at himself, a useful day.