The Red String Between Us: Part III Eternal Thread

第23章 Pain & Revelation's

Kenji

     Kenji folded another shirt into the open suitcase at his feet, the Hokkaido night pressing in around him. His flight to India was confirmed, his schedule already loaded with meetings and site visits for his gas company. Yet his mind was far from logistics and deadlines.

His mind kept drifting to the gala, the red carpet chaos, the sea of flashing lights.

He sat on the edge of the bed, running a hand through his hair. For so long, he hadn't let himself fall this far, this fast. Not since Mallory. Not even with Aya. Each name was a ghost that stirred as he tried to breathe in the present.

He remembered Mallory's sharp wit, her unflinching loyalty, and the sting of how things ended. Their memories had surged back when he saw her come to Aoki Global—like flipping through an old photo album he'd forgotten he still kept. It had been... nice. Familiar. But as quickly as it rushed in, the truth anchored him: his heart wasn't with Mallory anymore.

Aya's memory carried a different weight. Sweet, trusting Aya, whose heart he hadn't guarded carefully enough. Her pain had once mirrored his own mistakes back to him, a reminder of the cost of carelessness.

Kenji exhaled, rubbing at the knot forming in his chest. He had broken hearts before. Too many. Whether out of ambition, distance, or his inability to admit what he wanted, he had left behind shadows. Mallory. Aya. Others. A trail he didn't like to acknowledge.

But Eden... Eden was different.

He zipped the suitcase halfway, pausing. He loved her. He knew it now with an intensity that frightened him as much as it steadied him. She wasn't a chapter in a past he could close; she was the thread he wanted to tie his future to. And for the first time in years, he wasn't thinking about control or appearances—he was thinking about forever.

Kenji closed the suitcase and stood, staring out the wide window toward the dark horizon. Tomorrow, India would demand his attention. Contracts, pipelines, investors. But tonight, his thoughts belonged to Eden, and the quiet vow he made to himself: never to let her become another name, another ghost, another mistake.