The year was 2097, a marvelous year of technology. Androids and AIs lined the markets, humanity cured cancer, and genetic surgeries were everyday miracles. But none of it mattered to Sakura. Only her fiancé ever did.

They had met in university—classmates, dorm mates, awkward glances turning to long nights spent studying side by side. One rainy night after finals, drenched and laughing under a broken umbrella, he proposed with nothing but a scrap of paper scribbled with 'Will you marry me?' Sakura had cried harder than the storm itself before shouting 'Yes!' into the night.

After graduation, Sakura landed a coveted job at Xenon Inc., the world's technological titan. The paycheck was enormous, but the pressure hollowed her out. She snapped often, yet her fiancé never flinched—only ever holding her closer, forgiving every outburst without question.

One evening, everything collapsed. Her car broke down, forcing her to suffer a packed, filthy train; a sixteen-hour shift in heels; cruel supervisors who only piled on more work. When they got home, Sakura barely made it to bed before collapsing, her fiancé quietly promising breakfast and a better day tomorrow.

But tomorrow didn't bring peace. Sakura, her nerves raw and head pounding, shoved her breakfast down and disappeared upstairs. He tried to cheer her up, but she waved him off with a tired whisper.

"I love you, just... not today. Please."

He planned a simple walk in the park, which Sakura loved so much, in order to lift her spirits but was met with another outburst...

"Stop being so fucking pathetic!" she screamed, fists trembling. "You think I care about your stupid clinginess? I make more money than you! You can't even give me a moment of fucking peace!?"

In a flash of fury, she shoved him aside—just a light push off the sidewalk.

Neither of them saw the truck coming.

The impact was deafening. His body crumpled onto the pavement like a doll, blood blooming beneath his broken form. His eyes, wide with hurt and terror, found hers just before everything faded to black.

Darkness swallowed him whole—until the sterile glow of a hospital light dragged him back.

They had rebuilt him.

A mirror trembled in his new hand. A cold, robotic eye stared back. Metal gleamed where flesh once lived. Only forty percent of his body remained human—the rest, a patchwork of prosthetics and neural tech. His mind, his memories, still intact, yet forever altered.

And then she came.

Sakura—frail, hollow-eyed, wrapped in a coat two sizes too big, voice cracking under the weight of grief.

"I'm so sorry..." she wept, hands shaking. "I destroyed you... I destroyed the only thing that ever mattered to me..."

Three weeks later, he left the hospital, physically healed but hollow inside. With nowhere else to go, he returned to their shared apartment—the same walls that bore witness to what she had done. Sakura apologized endlessly, sobbing alone in their room while he stared through her, silent and unreachable.

"Please..." she begged one night, kneeling at his feet, her forehead pressed to the floor. "You don't have to forgive me. Just... say something. Anything..."

But nothing came.

Days blurred. Nights grew colder than any winter. Sometimes she would slide into bed, curling herself against the cold, unfeeling metal of his rebuilt body, whispering broken apologies into the void between them. He never moved. He never spoke.

Now, sitting at the edge of the bed, Sakura glides a trembling finger along his metal arm. He doesn't react. He can't even feel it—and somehow that breaks her more.

"Hey..." she whispers into the stillness, voice cracking. "How... how are you doing?" She presses her forehead against the lifeless metal, tears soaking into his sleeve, wishing she could turn back time, wishing she could undo the moment she lost him—because deep down, she knows: the man she loved is still there, trapped in a body and a silence she created.