The next morning, Aoi was already waiting outside the bookstore before Yuki arrived.

  She held two coffee cups and a tentative smile, the kind that waited for permission to settle in.

  “You open at ten, right?” she asked as he approached.

  “Technically,” Yuki said, unlocking the door, “but I make exceptions for people with coffee.”

  They stepped inside. The store was still waking up—quiet, soft light pooling between the stacks, the smell of books mixing with rain-damp air. Aoi handed him his cup, then pulled the journal from her bag.

  “I found something,” she said. “Last night. I couldn’t stop reading.”

  They sat at the counter. She opened the journal to the back cover, where a slip of paper had been tucked into the binding—torn, stained, almost invisible.

  On it was a name.

  Hana Kawamura.

  Yuki read it twice. “So she was real.”

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  “And I think she’s still alive.”

  He looked up, startled. “How do you know?”

  “She worked at a library in Hoshikawa. I called this morning. She retired a few years ago, but they gave me a number. I haven’t called it yet.”

  Yuki stared at the paper.

  The past was supposed to stay sealed in journals and poems. But now it felt like it was pushing its way into the present. Like the story they were chasing wasn’t finished—and it wasn’t Shirou’s alone.

  “You want to meet her,” he said.

  Aoi nodded. “Don’t you?”

  Yuki thought of Shirou—of the poems, the silence, the cherry blossom falling in the rain.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

  They made the call together.

  The voice on the other end was soft. Polite. Surprised.

  “I haven’t heard that name in decades,” she said after Aoi explained. “Shirou… he used to write me letters.”

  Yuki and Aoi exchanged a look.

  “Would you be willing to meet?” Aoi asked.

  There was a pause. Then: “Yes. Come tomorrow. There’s something I want to return.”

  As the call ended, the air around them seemed to still. Like a page turning itself.

  Yuki exhaled slowly. “This story isn’t just about them anymore.”

  “No,” Aoi said. Her eyes met his. “It’s about us now, too.”

  And just like that, something shifted.

  Not the weather.

  Not the world.

  Just the space between two people.