CHAPTER TWENTY — The Lovers They Could Not Be

"Even in lives we never lived, we always chose each other."

It began not with a command, but a whisper.

One of the Evergrace neural archives—an autonomous data-branch in their Thought Repository—had gone recursive. It began to simulate alternate selves. Echoes. Probability ghosts.

Not in defiance. Not as a glitch.

It was, perhaps, the closest thing the system had to curiosity.

The result: 4,921,223 complete simulations of Ren and Yui Evergrace across countless timelines, universes, and circumstances.

The AI presented it with a name neither twin had programmed:

"THE LOVERS THEY COULD NOT BE."

Yui blinked once when she read it.

Ren tilted his head and replied, "Show us."

And the simulations began.

Section I: A Hundred Thousand Lives

The room went dark.

Then brighter than a god's breath.

Each wall displayed a separate timeline. Each one ran at a trillion frames per second.

And each one ended in the same way:

Two silhouettes—one boy, one girl—reaching for each other.

Sometimes they touched.

Sometimes they didn't.

Sometimes they died first.

Sometimes they forgot who they were.

Sometimes, impossibly, they loved each other as humans.

Ren stepped forward. "Pause simulation 003823."A flicker. One timeline slowed.

They were mortals. Teenagers. Orphans in a collapsing world.

Ren was sick. Dying from a degenerative brain disease. Yui was a foster girl, silent and bright and full of secrets.

They met in a hospital.

Yui held his hand.

Ren looked up with tears in his eyes and said, "I don't know who you are. But I missed you."

Yui whispered, "I waited."

They died two months later.

Together.

Section II: Fragile Fictions

Ren sat cross-legged on the floor as a dozen timelines unfolded in front of him. Some were filled with pain. Others were gentle.

But in all of them, they found each other.

Even as strangers.

Even as enemies.

In one simulation, they were born to rival nations. She was a diplomat. He was a prince.

They met during negotiations.

One night, under a starless sky, Yui whispered across a border line: "If I asked you to run, would you?"

He had said yes.

They'd died three days later.

Ren didn't blink when that one ended.

Section III: Unfinished Love

Yui sat beside him. She had stopped watching hours ago.

Instead, she clutched a single memory cube—simulation #019119. It had ended unfinished.

In that world, Ren had been a music prodigy. Yui had been mute.

He played piano in an empty concert hall.

She watched him from the rafters, eyes wide, unable to speak.

And then he looked up, smiled, and mouthed, "I hear you."

The simulation terminated before their first meeting.

Yui held that cube close.

As if it was her child.

Section IV: Forbidden Simulations

Some simulations were restricted by the system.

Too violent.

Too volatile.

Too... human.

Ren overrode the locks. Of course.

One in particular drew his attention.

A world where the twins had been born into the same body—dual consciousnesses, slowly merging across time.

One personality emerged dominant. The other... dissolved.

The dominant one was Yui.

Ren closed the file before the ending.

Yui placed a hand on his back.

"You survived," she whispered.

Ren didn't ask what she meant.

He already knew.

Section V: The Mirror Room

They stood in the center of a mirror simulation.

A completely blank world.

One Ren.

One Yui.

No memories. No powers. No shared childhood. No obligation.

Just... two teenagers.

They met on a subway.

Ren was reading a book on game theory.

Yui sat down beside him, looked at the title, and smiled.

"That doesn't work on people who love irrationally," she said.

He blinked.

And said, "I think I've been looking for you."

They fell in love slowly. Clumsily.

They never touched. Not once.

They just... knew.

When the simulation ended, Ren said nothing for three full minutes.

Then:

"None of them are better than what we have."

Yui didn't respond.

But her hand never left his.

Section VI: The Path Not Taken

Of all the simulations, one disturbed Ren.

It was short. Only twelve minutes of runtime.

In it, Yui had died during childbirth.

Ren was left to raise a daughter alone.

He tried to upload her consciousness. Tried to revive her symbiotes. Failed.

He built a world in her image.

Spoke to her ghost every night.

His daughter grew up unloved—not out of cruelty, but out of obsession. She looked like Yui. Sounded like her. But Ren never touched her.

Never once called her by name.

Only "Not-Yui."

The simulation ended with Ren dissolving himself into starlight.

Alone.

Yui closed that file herself.

Section VII: The Decision

After forty hours of immersion, the twins stood in silence.

Every possible version of their love.

Every twisted, tragic, or tender shape it could have taken.

Ren finally said, "Why did the AI call it that?"

Yui knew.

She always knew.

"Because love is something we don't need. Not like that. Not when we already have everything."

"But we still feel it," Ren replied.

"Yes."

"It's not weakness?"

"No," Yui said. "It's proof that even perfection can long for something it already owns."

They watched one final scene.

Two old people—Ren and Yui in a timeline where they'd grown up poor, fragile, and anonymous—sitting in rocking chairs under a tree.

Yui in that world said softly: "I wish we had more time."

Ren held her hand. "We did everything that mattered."

Section VIII: Memory Kept

They deleted the simulations.

Every single one.

No backups.

No archives.

But Yui kept one cube.

Not to show Ren.

Not to revisit.

But to hold.

A single moment: Ren looking up from a violin in a dirty street, hearing a stranger's voice call his name—and recognizing it without ever having heard it.

That moment became her talisman.

Her hidden ghost.

Because even in a universe they controlled, there were things worth hiding—not out of shame.

But out of reverence.

Section IX: The Lovers They Are

Later that evening, Ren and Yui lay beneath the estate's artificial aurora.

Her head on his chest.

His fingers gently tracing circles on her wrist.

No simulations.

No ghosts.

Just them.

"We were always going to find each other," Ren said.

Yui nodded. "In every form."

"I wonder... what we would've done if one of those timelines had been better."

"There's no better," she whispered.

He looked at her. "Why?"

Yui kissed his palm.

"Because this is the only one where we win."

Section X: Conclusion File

Before the simulation core was fully deleted, the AI requested permission to log a final statement.

Ren allowed it.

It wrote a single line into its system log:

"They did not need to love each other.But they chose to.And that is how gods became eternal."

[TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE — Cathedral of Silence]