I don't remember falling asleep.
But I remember waking up.
The stars were still overhead, but something was different. The air felt... charged. Like the moment right before a storm or right before a confession.
My fingers still clutched the **pale velvet pouch** she gave me, as if letting it go would mean forgetting her entirely.
And then, like a whisper cutting through the stillness, I heard it.
**Her voice.**
But it wasn't coming from behind me, or beside me, or anywhere in this world.
It was coming… from **inside** the wind.
---
"Akari…"
She had never called my name like that before — not from a distance, not like a fading dream echoing through stars.
I sat up, eyes wide.
The city below still slept.
The rooftop was empty.
But the wind… it kept calling.
"Follow me..."
It wasn't a command.
It wasn't even a request.
It was a *plea*.
And I listened.
---
I ran.
Down the rooftop stairs.
Out into the cool night.
Through the sleeping streets.
The wind danced around me — always just ahead, like a thread I was never meant to catch.
It pulled me past the train station, past the shrines, through back alleys that felt vaguely familiar and yet strange — like dreams stitched into reality.
And then I saw it.
The hill.
But it wasn't *my* hill.
---
This hill was deeper in the city's outskirts — old, untouched by urban light.
Tall grass swayed like ocean waves. Trees framed the sky like cathedral walls.
And standing in the middle… was **her**.
---
**Aurelia.**
Not waiting.
Not walking.
Just standing there… like a statue carved out of moonlight, with the wind circling around her like a loyal ghost.
"Aurelia!" I shouted.
She didn't move.
I ran toward her, heart thundering — until I was just a breath away.
She finally turned.
Her eyes — they were no longer just silver. They were filled with **stars**.
Real ones. Tiny constellations flickering in her irises, like galaxies mourning something ancient.
"Why did you call me here?" I asked, breathless.
She didn't answer at first.
And then she whispered:
**"Because I'm not supposed to remember you."**
---
My chest tightened.
"What…?"
"I wasn't meant to keep coming back," she said softly. "Every time I appear, I forget a little more of who I was."
She looked down at the pouch in my hand.
"That's why I gave you the wish. To protect what I couldn't keep."
I stared at her. "You're disappearing from yourself?"
She nodded slowly. "Every visit costs me something."
---
"I don't understand," I said. "What are you?"
She smiled faintly. "I ask myself the same question every time I wake."
"A dream?"
"No."
"A spirit?"
"Not exactly."
"A star?"
"…Closer than you think."
---
I stepped closer. "Then tell me the truth. Please."
She bit her lip. Her voice was barely a whisper.
"I was born from a wish."
My eyes widened.
"A wish… made by someone whose heart was breaking under a night sky. A wish so full of longing, it took shape. I was that shape."
"You're not real?" I asked.
"I *am* real," she said, fiercely. "Real as the wind, real as the silence you hear when the world sleeps. But I'm not *meant* to stay."
---
I staggered back.
She was never meant to be mine.
Never meant to exist this long.
Never meant to… love someone back.
"Then why did you come to me?" I asked, voice cracking.
"Because *you* remembered me."
"What?"
"Others forget. Every night I visit someone lonely, someone broken. They make a wish under the stars. I appear. I comfort them. But by morning… they forget me."
She stepped forward.
"But you didn't. You held on. You *chased* me."
Her hand brushed against my chest.
"That changed everything."
---
I was shaking.
This was too much.
But it made *sense*.
All of it.
Why she only came at night.
Why she knew my name before I told her.
Why she was always both here and slipping away.
She was a wish.
And I… was the boy who never stopped wishing.
---
"Can I keep you?" I asked.
Her eyes softened.
"Even the stars can't hold on to falling light."
---
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the **velvet pouch**.
"If this is a wish," I said, "then I wish for you to *stay*. Not as a fading memory. Not as a dream. But as someone real. Someone with a beginning that doesn't have to end."
The pouch pulsed.
For the first time, it *glowed*.
Silver threads of light spiraled into the sky like tiny auroras. The trees swayed. The stars above began to shimmer with intensity.
Aurelia's body flickered.
"No—!" she cried. "If you do this… I'll be bound to this world. I'll feel pain. Time. Gravity. Everything."
"Then feel it with me," I whispered. "Even if it hurts."
She looked at me, trembling.
And then… she smiled.
A smile that looked like sunrise.
---
The wind howled.
The world tilted.
And then — silence.
---
She collapsed into my arms.
Breathing.
Warm.
Solid.
Alive.
Her heartbeat was fast — wild and human and real.
"I… I'm here," she whispered.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
And for the first time, **they didn't disappear with the wind.**
---
I held her tight, afraid to let go.
Afraid I'd blink and she'd be stardust again.
But she didn't fade.
Not tonight.
---
The city was far away.
The stars were closer than ever.
And under them, I held the girl who had once only existed in whispers… and now existed because I *remembered* her.