Three months later.
The countryside house I ran to was quiet in a way that felt like punishment.
No city noise. No husband's footsteps. No Haruto's pen scratching against paper at midnight. Just wind through the rice fields and the distant lowing of cows. I'd rented this tiny wooden place at the foot of the mountains with the last of my savings, telling myself I'd finally find the peace of mind I'd been chasing that night.
I never did.
Every morning I woke up with the same ache between my legs — phantom memory of being stretched and filled until my belly swelled. My massive tits still carried faint bite marks that refused to fade completely. I'd catch myself in the mirror sometimes, hand drifting to my stomach, wondering if anything had taken root… but I never took the test. I didn't want to know. Knowing would have been a kind of ending, and endings were something I no longer deserved.
I sat on the weathered wooden porch every evening, knees drawn to my chest, staring at the purple mountains until the stars came out. The same question still circled my head like a vulture.
*Was it sex?*
*Was it love?*
*Or was I really just a broken Yariman who needed someone — anyone — to make the emptiness stop?*
I still didn't have the answer.
And I never would.
A small stack of letters sat beside me on the porch step. Haruto had sent them to my old address. My sister forwarded them without a word. I never replied. I couldn't.
I picked up the last one he'd written — dated two weeks ago — and read it again for the hundredth time.
---
*Meguri,*
*I know you won't answer. That's okay. I just need to write this.*
*I went back to the city. I'm studying again, like before. But nothing feels the same. Every time I open a textbook I see your face. Every time I close my eyes I feel your legs locked around me, hear your voice begging me to stay inside. I still love you. I think I always will. Even after what happened. Even after your husband looked at me like I was nothing and walked away. Even after I ran.*
*I'm sorry I wasn't enough to give you the peace you needed.*
*I hope you find it someday.*
*Forever yours,*
*Haruto*
---
I folded the letter with shaking fingers and pressed it against my chest, right between my heavy breasts. Tears slipped down my cheeks again — silent, like they had been in the shower that last morning.
*He still calls me Meguri. Not Aunt. Not anymore.*
Somewhere in the city, that poor, pure, heartbroken boy was probably sitting in a tiny apartment right now, staring at the same stars, whispering the same useless question I whispered every night.
*Why can't I forget her?*
I closed my eyes and let the mountain wind dry my tears.
The old Yariman blood that had started all of this was gone now. There was only this hollow woman who had destroyed two lives because she was too weak to sit with her own emptiness.
I opened my mouth and spoke to the empty porch, voice barely louder than the crickets.
"I still can't forget that boy…"
The words hung in the cool night air.
No answer came.
No knock on the door.
No final letter.
No reunion.
No pregnancy reveal.
No forgiveness.
Just the mountains.
Just the silence.
Just two ruined hearts living on opposite sides of the country, forever chained to the same memory.
And somewhere far away, I knew Haruto was whispering the exact same thing.
We would never forget each other.
That was the only ending we'd ever get.
---
**The End**