Clouded Hearts

51: Dance to forever

Achelois

The lights around the plaza glowing softly against the darkened sky. The air was thick with music, laughter, and the faint scent of liquors and dishes from the party. Couples danced beneath the fairy lights, their faces lit with quiet joy. But the only person I could focus on was the woman in front of me.

Aster.

Tonight wasn’t just a night of music and celebration. Tonight was a culmination of years, of pain, hope, loss, and reconcile. It was the night I was going to ask her the one question I’d carried in my heart since the day I realized she was my forever.

As we stepped onto the dance floor at the center of the plaza. The music shifted into something slower, something softer, like it had been waiting for us all along. I placed my hand gently on her waist, pulling her closer. Her free hand rested on my shoulder, her touch light yet grounding.

“You’re full of surprises tonight. You sure you're not drunk?” she murmured, her eyes locking onto mine. I shook my head.

“You’ve always deserved surprises.” I whispered back, letting the words hang in the air between us.

As we swayed to the rhythm, everything else blurred. It was just us... her hand in mine, her warmth pressed against me, her scent filling every breath I took. Every step was slow, deliberate, as if we were moving through time itself. Her gaze never left mine, and for a moment, I wondered if she could hear the way my heart was thundering in my chest.

Years ago, we weren’t standing like this—close, steady, and whole. Years ago, fate decided to test the limits of what we could endure.

I had to leave her. In exchange, she had forgotten me.

It wasn’t sudden, nor was it dramatic. It was the slow, agonizing erosion of everything we had built. Aster’s memory had faded after an accident that stole parts of her life, and with it, were me.

"She doesn't remember you."

It shattered me in ways I never knew were possible. It was far more painful than the day I left. The guilt inside me was eating me alive, and I deserved it.

I stayed. I stayed because she was still my Aster, even if I was no longer her Achelois. I couldn’t forgot her, not when every part of me believed that somewhere deep inside, she would remember.

The days turned into weeks, then months... then years. I became her shadow, her familiar stranger, her friend, even when it killed me to know that she no longer felt the same. I memorized her again—her laugh, her quirks, the way she tucked her hair behind her ear when she was nervous. I fell in love with her all over again, even as she rediscovered the world without me.

I fell in love again, I didn't forgot the Aster that I knew first. But I had to know the new one. She changed, in a positive way.

I thought it was a never ending pain. I was an asshole for leaving her. I was coward to run away from her. I thought there's nothing I could do but to become her shoulder to cry on, her temporarily shelter or her dearest friend that always there for her. I thought that was the only way to keep her close, even though it could hurt me.

At last, fate sided our love. It finally gave up from separating the both of us. Indeed, love was the most powerful weapon in this world. Nothing, not even the most dangerous nuclear bomb, can stop the flaring fire of our love. Even the most lethal gun, can't shoot the connection of our destined souls. Not even the sharpest knife, can cut our invisible strings. The strings that pulled us closer, the string who kept us connected despite of everything that we've been through. Not even destiny, it cannot changed the reality of us—being bound for each other. Distance and obstacles wasn't enough to separate our unwavering love for each other. Not even fate, it failed, countless times. We stayed, we stood, strong and unshaken. We broke the walls, climbed the mountains, dived to the depths of the oceans, and almost went to outer space just to proove that no one, nothing can destroy what has been made—what has been destined since the very beginning.