Chapter Text
Chapter 40: Home
The highway stretched ahead, long and sun-drenched, winding away from the forested heart of Camp Willow Creek.
Inside the car, the Sakusa siblings and Motoya sat in tired silence. The car hummed, windows slightly cracked to let in the early afternoon breeze. Their mother, composed as ever behind the wheel, glanced occasionally at the rearview mirror, eyes flickering to her children.
No one said it aloud, but they all felt it—something had shifted over the past forty days.
Rintarou sat in the passenger seat, headphones over his ears, a sketchpad open across his lap. His foot, still wrapped, rested gently on a pillow by the dashboard. He wasn’t drawing anything in particular—just lines and shadows. A cabin roof here. The flick of flame from a long-dead bonfire there.
He didn’t even realize Akira was watching until she leaned over the back of his seat and asked, “Are you gonna draw the whole summer?”
He shrugged but smiled faintly. “Maybe.”
“You should.”
From beside her, Kiyoomi glanced up. He hadn’t spoken much since camp ended, and he wasn’t about to start spilling paragraphs now, but when Akira turned to meet his gaze, he gave a small nod.
It was his way of saying he agreed.
They were all a little quieter. A little older. A little more them.
Motoya, slouched dramatically in the middle of the backseat between Kiyoomi and Akira, had his cheek pressed to the window, watching trees blur by. He’d been unusually calm since they pulled out of the camp parking lot.
His duffel was a mess. His hoodie was three days unwashed. His hair stuck out in every direction.
But for once, Motoya wasn’t trying to fill the silence with jokes or songs or loud declarations about what animal he most resembled.
He was just… thinking.
Eventually, he broke the quiet with a slow, “Do you think we’ll all still be close after this?”
Rintarou looked up from his sketchbook.
“Yeah,” Akira said, confidently. “I do.”
Kiyoomi didn’t answer, but he didn’t look away either.
Motoya grinned, the kind that tugged tiredly at the corners of his mouth. “Good. ‘Cause I wasn’t ready to go back to being the weird cousin who shows up twice a year and steals snacks.”
“You are that cousin,” Rintarou said dryly.
“But now you’re our weird cousin,” Akira added.
“And you share your snacks,” Kiyoomi said quietly.
That made Motoya laugh. Loud and full and a little wet around the edges.
The drive was long, but peaceful.
They stopped once for food—sandwiches and vending machine candy from a roadside rest area—and then kept driving. The trees gave way to small towns, then suburbs, then city signs.
Eventually, the Sakusa car pulled up to a modest cream-colored house with ivy climbing one side.
Motoya’s house.
Their mother stepped out and opened the trunk. Motoya followed slowly, eyes scanning the familiar sidewalk, then looking back at the car as if he wasn’t quite ready to leave it.
The front door burst open.
His parents—both vibrant and smiling—came rushing down the porch steps, arms open.
His mom hugged him first, pulling him into a tight embrace. “There’s my sunshine.”
Then his dad ruffled his hair, laughing. “Look at this guy. Gained two inches and a whole personality.”
Motoya rolled his eyes but didn’t move away.
Akira climbed out of the car and came around to stand beside him. “You gonna visit us before school starts?”
He looked at her, and then up at Kiyoomi and Rintarou still in the car.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be around. You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”
Their mom exchanged a few words with Motoya’s parents, formal but familiar. The kind of conversation that happened often between relatives who always meant to see each other more.
As Motoya grabbed his duffel from the trunk, he paused and turned to the car. “Hey.”
All three Sakusa siblings looked up.
“Thanks,” he said. “For not letting me be alone this summer.”
No one responded right away.
Then Rintarou lifted his sketchpad. On the back page was a rough sketch of the four of them sitting by the campfire—Akira braiding flowers, Kiyoomi staring into the flame, Rintarou sketching, and Motoya mid-story, hands in the air.
“You were never alone,” Rintarou said.
Motoya blinked hard and grinned. “Damn right.”
And then he turned and walked up the steps into his house.
The rest of the ride was quieter.
Kiyoomi looked out the window, watching the world blur past, but his thoughts weren’t on the passing scenery.
They were on Atsumu’s hand brushing his. On the songs they’d worked on. On the way her voice softened when she said, “I’ll see you again.”
On whether she meant it.
He hoped she did.
Rintarou rested his sketchbook on his lap and closed his eyes. “Y’know,” he mumbled. “I’m glad we all went. Even if I did almost fall off a cliff.”
“Technically, you slipped on a slope,” Akira said.
“Same thing.”
“Not really.”
“Let me be dramatic.”
Their mother chuckled softly from the driver’s seat. “You all seem… different. In a good way.”
Kiyoomi met her eyes in the mirror. “We are.”
She smiled. “Good.”
Home appeared slowly—same neighborhood, same trees, same streetlights blinking awake in the dusk. The familiarity was comforting, but it also made the distance between here and camp feel more real.
They carried their things inside one by one.
Their bedrooms were the same as when they left. Neat, familiar, untouched. But something inside them had changed.
Akira unpacked slowly, setting her sketchbook beside her bed. She found a small rock she’d picked up by the lake, still tucked in her bag. She placed it on her windowsill like a reminder.
Rintarou propped up his crutches, set his sketchpad down, and pulled a photo from his pocket—one Motoya had taken of them all, blurry and perfect. He pinned it above his desk.
Kiyoomi sat at his desk in silence for a long time. Then he reached into his duffel and pulled out the folded piece of paper Atsumu had given him the night before the last day.
He unfolded it.
Inside: her number, a doodle of them as cats, and the words “I’ll call you. If you don’t call first.”
He smiled.
That night, the Sakusa siblings sat on the roof like they used to when they were younger. No one brought it up, but they all found their way there anyway.
The stars weren’t as bright here as they were at Camp Willow Creek, but they were the same stars.
“You think next summer will be like that again?” Akira asked.
“Nothing’s ever exactly the same,” Kiyoomi said.
“But that’s okay,” Rintarou added. “Next time might be even better.”
They all looked up at the sky.
Maybe it would.
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