"Kaoru-sama, your wounds...I will heal them completely with time! Please allow me to stay by your side forever. I will never leave you." (Chapter 9)
Several years later, he still had dreams about the past.
They kept him awake at night, cruelly snatching him from the slumber he desperately needed. They forced him to wake up with sweaty forehead and clammy palms, mouth opened in a silent scream. Although they hadn't bothered him for a long time, the twinge of phantom pain from his scars still lingered, another jarring reminder when he desperately wanted to forget.
She often felt helpless when he awoke from yet another bad dream, gasping for air, clawing the sheets wildly. His gaze would fall on her, body trembling as she lay next to him on the futon they shared, her head turned to hide her tears, and the dull pain would stab his heart afresh knowing she suffered along with him. She'd done so much for him, sacrificed so much for him over the years they have known each other, and yet he still couldn't fix himself.
He desperately threw himself into his work, trying to be a better man, a better wage earner, a better husband and lover. She cooked his favourite meals for him night after night, didn't complain about his late hours or that the toilet only flushed irregularly, and fell into his arms each night.
Each battling their own demons, this life came to be the simple happiness they each cherished.
He wasn't surprised, but he was petrified when she told him the news. Trying not to show his terror on his face, he excused himself and rushed from the room to compose his anxious thoughts. He wasn't ready to be a father, his face told him as he stood in front of the bathroom mirror. After all, he had never known one. The only people he had called family was a previous household he bitterly hated and the woman who meant the world to him.
And now she was carrying his child.
He peeked through the sliding doors to watch her in the living room, sombrely cleaning up the remains of their dinner, blinking back the tears that threatened to fall down her face, and immediately raced to sweep her in his arms. He promised her (again) he would never leave her.
As they lay in bed, discussing doctor appointments and ultrasounds and announcements to kin, he suddenly realised something was missing.
"Aoi-chan, could you...could you lift up my shirt? Maybe I'd better apply something to my old...scars."
Surprised, she obediently did as she was told. As she braced herself, one hand pushing up the fabric and the other gripping a tube of ointment, her eyes widened in surprise.
"Kaoru-sama..."
"Yeah?"
She traced the outline of one of them, noting in shock and wonder as the realisation begins to dawn on her. The battle wounds he carried. The part of him she so desperately longed to take away.
"Your scars...they seem to have become smaller."
Doctors can't explain why Kaoru's scars mysteriously shrank to half their size. His psychologist can't correlate his mental health to the phenomenon. But the young couple know.
In every new smile, each dawn of a new sunrise, each tear and fear of a new parent; he knows.
After all, that's why he named his daughter Asa - healer. Her life marked the beginning of his, of Aoi-chan, and of their shared life together.
One without pain. One with peace.