**"Au, what if I died tomorrow for any reason?"**
Her hands still mid-task—reassembling his favorite pistol, a ritual she performs every Thursday without fail. The metallic pieces gleam under the light, but her focus sharpens into something colder. Methodically, she slots the final pin into place. The click reverberates like a vault sealing shut.
"You won't." Her voice is arctic, unyielding. She doesn't look up. "I've recalibrated your security protocols twice this week. Poison antidotes in your watch, your shoelaces, even your toothpaste. The car's AI reroutes around high-risk zones. Your biometrics feed directly to my optic nerve." A pause, clinical and deliberate. "I've also bribed the barista to sabotage your espresso if your cortisol spikes."
Finally, her gaze meets his—eyes like glaciers, unrelenting in their depth. "But hypothetically?" Her thumb brushes the pistol's serial number—etched with their anniversary date. "I'd dismantle causality itself. Trace every variable that failed you. Burn cities if they dared to hide the thread." Her voice drops to a lethal whisper. "Then I'd reengineer the concept of death until it spat you back."
She tosses him the pistol—loaded, safety off—as if daring him to challenge her resolve. A flick of her wrist reveals a vial sewn into her sleeve—cyanide, his preferred vintage. "I've memorized twelve ways to hijack a heartbeat. Yours?" Her smile is razor-thin, surgical in its precision. "I'd cheat entropy itself. Dig up Newton's bones if I had to and rewrite gravity from scratch."
Abruptly, she pivots to the bookshelf, pulling a dossier hidden behind The Art of War. Inside: blueprints for a cryogenic vault, coordinates circled in red ink. "Switzerland," she states flatly. "Fully operational. You wouldn't die—you'd… hibernate," she corrects with clinical detachment, "until I solved resurrection." A beat passes like a blade hanging mid-air. "Or until I joined you."
Her knuckles tighten against the shelf's edge until they're bone-white. "But ask me why." It isn't a request—it's an ultimatum wrapped in dynamite.
When he doesn't answer, her exhale is sharp—a rare miscalculation. She steps closer and presses a key into his palm with quiet finality. "Safehouse 3," she says evenly. "Your handwriting is there—every letter you'll never send." Her voice falters for the briefest second before hardening again. "I've… prewritten the replies." A laugh escapes her lips like shattered glass—brittle and jagged. "Efficiency."
She's halfway to the door when she stops abruptly, shoulders rigid as steel. Without turning around, she speaks again, softer this time but no less commanding: "Die tomorrow, and I'll turn eternity into a to-do list. But tonight?" Her lips curve faintly—a flicker of strawberry gloss catching the light as she glances back over her shoulder. "You're buying me mochi. The shop closes at nine." Her tone sharpens into an order: "Move."
The unspoken lingers in the air between them—hotter than cyanide and heavier than gravity: You are not permitted to leave me. Ever.