I leaned back against the couch, watching her fuss over ribbons and tape and all the tiny details that sohow made the living room look like a gift-wrapping battlefield. "You know," I said quietly, "you could’ve just gone for gift bags like a normal person."
"Gift bags are lazy," she said without missing a beat. "This—" she gestured at the chaos around her "—is art."
I couldn’t help but smile back. "You’re impossible."
"Impossible," she said, eyes softening, "but yours."
After we were finally done wrapping the gifts, she dusted her hands off and turned toward the tree with that little glint in her eyes.
Now it was our turn.
There were two presents under the tree, one wrapped in gold paper, one in silver.
She grabbed the smallest one, sat crossed legged in front of and handed it over with a grin. "Start with this."
"rry Christmas, Mr. Tanaka," she said, offering it to like it was the crown jewels. "Open it carefully. It’s fragile."
I raised a brow. "Should I be worried?"
She only smiled. "You should always be worried when it’s from ."
I shook it gently. "If it explodes—"
"Then you’ll die loved," she said sweetly.
I peeled the gold paper slowly, mostly because I knew she’d scold if I ripped it, and when I finally lifted the lid, I froze.
Inside was a sleek, black leather journal embossed with gold edges and my initials, K.T., pressed neatly into the corner. But that wasn’t what made go silent.
When I opened the first page, I found her handwriting, small, neat, and familiar, filling the lines.
> Day One
It was raining, the miserable kind that ruins your shoes and your mood in equal asure.
I was standing there, trying to decide if I should just go ho instead of walking in looking like a drowned heiress, when you showed up.
Hoodie. Glasses. Hair half-wet. You looked like soone who spent more ti arguing with professors than talking to people.
For a second, I thought you were another guy trying to be a hero. So smug guy who saw a wet girl and thought, perfect opportunity to flirt.
Then you handed your umbrella.
Just handed it to . No na, no flirting, nothing.
I rember staring after you walked away, completely thrown off. You didn’t even wait for a thank-you. You didn’t care who I was. You were just so random, slightly awkward guy doing sothing nice.
It was so... unexpected.
So infuriatingly, adorably unexpected.
That’s when it hit .
You had no idea who I was.
Which actually made you look dumber.
"Ouch," I said, glancing up from the letter.
Val was still sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of , smiling like a cat caught mid-cri. "What? Keep going."
I raised a brow. "You literally just called dumb."
She shrugged. "Accurate historical detail. Now finish it."
I sighed, glanced up at her one last ti, then looked back down and kept reading.
> But also...
That was the first ti soone saw as just a girl in the rain.
Not a Moreau. Not a na. Just .
No one had ever done that before, just helped without asking, without wanting sothing in return.
You probably don’t rember it the sa way I did, but that little gesture of kindness changed sothing in . And I decided that whoever you were, I wanted to find out.
I didn’t know it then, but that was the mont everything started.
The day I t the man I’d want to spend the rest of my life with.
I looked up again. She was watching quietly, eyes soft, the sa eyes that had stared at in lecture halls, through late-night argunts, across four years of chaos and calm.
"Day One, huh?" I said.
She smiled. "The first of many."
My throat tightened as I flipped to the next few pages, snippets of mories. Random days, inside jokes, things she rembered that I didn’t even know she’d noticed.
There was a little doodle of Duchess, a pressed ticket from the museum date we went on last year, a folded note that just said, "For the days you forget how much you matter."
When I looked up, she was watching with that soft, quiet smile that only showed up when she wasn’t trying to win an argunt.
"I figured you’d need sothing to write in," she said, a faint pink tint rising in her cheeks. "For all your ideas, your thoughts, your... overthinking."
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. "Val..."
She shrugged lightly. "You always say you rember everything, but I know you don’t write much for yourself anymore. So I did it for you. Well... the start of it."
I didn’t even know what to say. My brain just... stopped.
So I leaned forward and pulled her into a hug. "You’re unbelievable, you know that?"
"I love you too," she said into my shoulder.
When we pulled apart, she smirked — that soft, self-satisfied curve that usually ant she knew sothing I didn’t.
"There’s one more," she said, reaching for the bigger box, neatly wrapped box from under the tree.
I raised a brow. "You’re spoiling ."
"Please," she said, rolling her eyes. "One is sentintal. This one’s just... balance."
I opened it carefully and found a sleek black watch nestled inside. Clean, elegant — the kind that sohow looked like .
When I turned it over, I froze.
On the back, engraved in small, deliberate letters, were the words:
Married to Celestia Valentina Moreau.
I blinked, then looked up at her. "You had this custom-made?"
She smirked, all faux innocence. "Maybe. Or maybe I just happened to find a watch that sohow ca with those exact words already engraved."
I huffed a laugh, shaking my head. "You’re unbelievable."
"Correction," she said, leaning in with a grin, "I’m unforgettable."
"Now," she said, crossing her arms, "your turn. You’ve been dying to hand that one."
I tried to play it cool, but my heartbeat didn’t get the mo.
"Right. Uh..." I reached behind for the small velvet box sitting under the tree. "I, uh, might’ve overthought this one."
Her eyes softened instantly, amused, expectant. "You always overthink."
"Yeah, well," I muttered, handing it to her, "this ti it might actually show."
She gave that look — the one that said she already loved whatever it was before even opening it — and carefully lifted the lid.
Her breath caught.
Inside was a delicate white-gold necklace — simple, elegant, yet stunning — with a small diamond pendant shaped like a teardrop. Not flashy. Just... her.
The sa one I’d been secretly looking up on my laptop the other day, trying to decide if it was too much. It was the first truly expensive thing I’d ever bought for her.
She stared at it for a long mont, then at . "Kai..."
"It’s— it’s nothing crazy," I said quickly, tripping over my own words. "I just— I wanted to get you sothing that... I don’t know, matched you. And yeah, I know you’ll say I didn’t have to, but—"
She put a finger over my lips then she smiled, small and trembling at the corners. "It’s perfect."
When she turned around and asked to clasp it for her, my hands shook slightly. And when she looked back over her shoulder, hair brushing against my fingers, the necklace caught the light — but sohow, she still outshined it.
"You overthink beautifully," she said softly.
And in that mont, I didn’t care if I’d spent too much. Because the way she looked at right then?
Worth every damn cent.
Monts like this — simple, quiet, full of warmth — had a way of fooling you into thinking they’d last forever.
And maybe, in so way, I wanted to believe that too.
Even if sowhere deep down, I already knew what was waiting ahead.
---
To be continued...
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