Work Text:
The clock hands slid past four, and the Tokyo skyline dissolved into the almost transparent gold of late autumn. Ena let out a long sigh, the sound swallowed by the silence of her studio as she leaned back in her worn ergonomic chair. The casters groaned, a small complaint against the floor, as if sharing in her exhaustion.
The studio was quiet, save for the low hum of her computer’s fan and the distant, stretched-out sound of traffic drifting through the window. On the walls hung prints of work she was once proud of—commercial illustrations, doujinshi covers—each a testament to sleepless nights and fierce passion. Now, they were just… finished. They stirred nothing in her.
At twenty-seven, Shinonome Ena was a success, a moderately well-known illustrator. She no longer starved for a single word of approval from her father, nor did she spiral from an anonymous, venomous comment online. Her art translated reliably into commission fees, paying the rent on this expensive downtown apartment. She was living the life she had once bled for: making a living through drawing.
And yet.
With the dream achieved, an unspeakable emptiness had wrapped itself around her heart like a creeping vine. Her life was partitioned into blocks of time, each walled off by a different deadline. Commercial illustrations, character designs for mobile games, promotional posters… she met each client’s request with practiced skill and a sharp commercial instinct, operating like a precision instrument. The word “inspiration” felt like a foreign concept, a ghost from a past life. She no longer created; she completed.
Her phone vibrated on the desk. A client email with revision requests. She glanced at it and swiped the screen dark, pushing it away for later.
Her gaze drifted, unfocused, landing on a dust-covered box near her easel. It held old paints, brushes, trinkets freighted with memory. How long had it been since she’d touched a real canvas? So long she’d almost forgotten the unique, sharp scent of oil and turpentine mingled together.
Rising, she pulled open the blinds. The setting sun burst through the clouds, bleeding across the city in warm strokes of orange and red. On the streets below, the scurrying crowds were as small and ceaseless as ants. In that endless, flowing river of humanity, Ena felt a profound, isolating loneliness.
She thought of people. Her brother, Akito, whose tongue was as sharp as ever but who cared, in his own way; he was a rising musician now, too busy to be grounded. She thought of Kanade and Mafuyu, the members of 25-ji, their group chat now a quiet space where lives, though occasionally intersecting online, had already diverged into distant orbits.
And then, one figure surfaced, her hair the color of cherry blossoms in the sun, a shade that memory had refused to let fade.
Akiyama Mizuki.
The name was a needle, fine and sharp, pricking her heart with a familiar, bittersweet ache. When was the last time they’d met? Ena couldn’t recall with certainty. It must have been just before Mizuki left to study fashion design overseas. They had sat in a cafe for a long time, talking for hours about everything and nothing. Mizuki’s eyes had shone with dreams of the future, while Ena had silently calculated the thousands of kilometers and the impossible time difference that would soon separate them.
“You’re going to be an incredible artist, Ena!” Mizuki had said, her smile as bright as ever as she squeezed Ena’s hand. “When I have my first collection, you have to be the one to draw the promo art!”
“Of course,” she’d replied, her sharp tone ringing hollow in her own ears. “Your designs are so gaudy, I’m probably the only one who could make them look good.”
After Mizuki left, they’d tried. Daily video calls dwindled to messages every few days, which then stretched into weeks, until finally, all that remained was the occasional, meaningless like on social media. Life, a dull and persistent blade, had slowly, methodically, severed the ties that once bound them.
It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was just the silent conspiracy of time and distance.
Six months ago, Ena had seen Mizuki’s latest post: a photo from backstage at a glamorous fashion show. Surrounded by models, her pink hair tied back in a confident, practical ponytail, she looked radiant. She was no longer the girl who flinched at the world’s gaze. She had found her stage, and she was shining.
Ena was truly, deeply happy for her, but the happiness was swamped by a crushing sense of loss. They were walking their own paths, so far apart now that she could barely make out her friend’s silhouette.
A tightness seized her chest. Grabbing her jacket, she fled the suffocating quiet of her studio. She needed fresh air to disperse the stifling atmosphere that clung to her.
She walked without direction, letting instinct guide her through the intersecting streets. When she finally looked up, she found herself standing before a familiar, slightly shabby neighborhood park.
This was their old haunt. In high school, they came here to eat ice cream and complain about homework and nagging teachers. She remembered that Mizuki loved the swings most of all. The girl who had “cute” as her mantra would swing as high as she could, her pink hair arcing through the air, her laughter as crisp and clear as wind chimes.
On impulse, Ena stepped inside. The park was nearly empty, occupied by a few mothers with their children and some elderly people exercising. The setting sun stretched everyone’s shadow long across the ground.
Ena walked to the swing set. It was deserted. She reached out, her fingers brushing against the cold, metal chain.
Creaak.
The rusty joint issued a soft noise, like a sigh from the past. She sat, gently pushing off, letting the swing rock her. With the rhythmic motion, memories surged forward, sharp and glittering. Mizuki showing off a new ribbon, holding it up like a treasure and asking, “Isn’t it cute?” Mizuki sharing a single pair of earbuds, their heads close together as they listened to a new Nightcord demo. Mizuki just sitting beside her in silence for an entire afternoon when Ena was trapped in a creative slump, offering no words, just quiet, unwavering companionship.
When had those glittering days slipped away?
She pulled out her phone, opening their chat log. The conversation was frozen more than a year in the past. The last message was her own “Happy New Year.” Mizuki replied a rabbit emoji making a formal bow. That was all. She wanted to type something, but her fingers hovered over the screen, paralyzed. How are you? Too formal. I miss you. Too vulnerable.
When had they become so polite, so distant?
As she stared at the screen, a soft, timid voice, light as a feather, pulled her back.
“Um… Oneechan?”
Ena turned. And her breath caught in her throat.
Standing before her was a little girl, no older than ten. She wore a frilly, lace-trimmed dress and clutched a worn bunny plushie. Her hair, that unmistakable, soft shade of pink, glowed in the evening sun, adorned with a handmade, slightly clumsy, but undeniably cute ribbon. But it was her eyes that made Ena’s heart stop—rose quartz, wide with a child’s unfiltered curiosity.
It was Mizuki’s face. A younger, purer Mizuki, a blank page yet to be marred by the world’s harsh words.
It’s a hallucination. Ena thought, blinking hard, rubbing her temples. But the image remained. The little girl, seeing her lack of response, looked concerned.
“Are… are you okay, oneechan?” she whispered, her voice even smaller now, tinged with worry.
“I…” Ena’s throat was dry. This had to be a relative. Or just a child who looked uncannily like her friend. But that expression, that innate gravitation towards ‘cute,’ that hair… No, it couldn’t be.
“What’s… what’s your name?” Ena heard her own voice tremble.
The girl shrank back, intimidated by her intensity, hugging her bunny tighter. But she answered softly, “My name is… Mizuki. Akiyama Mizuki.”
Boom.
A firework exploded in Ena’s mind, leaving a silent, white void. It was her. A wild, impossible thought bloomed in her chest. This child was from the past. Or she herself had fallen into it.
“Your phone looks so cool!” Little Mizuki said, eyes lighting up as her focus shifted to the sleek smartphone in Ena’s hand, a model that was clearly not from her time.
Ena instinctively thumbed the screen off. She looked at this child, so small, so completely unaware of who she was, so unaware of the heartache awaiting her, of the courage she would need to simply be herself.
“Are you here to play, oneechan?” Mizuki asked, trying to fill the heavy silence.
Ena took a deep breath, forcing a gentle smile she didn’t feel. “Yes. I was just passing by and thought I’d rest for a bit.”
“The sunset is prettiest from here!” Mizuki chirped, delighted to have found a kindred spirit. “My mom says I have to go home for dinner when the sun goes down.”
“Is that so…” Ena murmured, watching the innocent, beaming face. The storm in her heart began to calm, replaced by an unprecedented, overwhelming impulse to protect this child. If this impossible moment was real, could she do something? Could she say something, anything, to arm this child against the future? To lessen the hurt, even by a little?
“The bow in your hair is very cute,” Ena finally said.
At the word “cute,” Mizuki’s eyes lit up like stars being born. She touched the bow, a flush of shy pride on her cheeks. “Hehe, I made it myself! I love making cute things!”
“You’re very good at it,” Ena said with a genuine smile, the words coming easily now. “You have a real talent.” These were words she’d always found a way to avoid saying to the Mizuki she knew, always deflecting with a tease or a barb.
The little girl blushed. Gaining confidence, she took a step closer, peering at the canvas tote bag by Ena’s feet, where the corner of a sketchbook was visible.
“Oneechan, are you an artist?”
Ena hesitated for a fraction of a second. “…I suppose I am.”
“Wow!” Mizuki breathed, her voice filled with awe. “Could you draw something for me? I want to see you draw the cutest thing in the world!”
The cutest thing in the world…
Ena’s gaze fell on the small, earnest face before her, framed in the golden halo of the setting sun, pure and full of expectation.
And for the first time in years, something inside her, something long dormant and calloused over, stirred.
She smiled, a real, unforced smile that reached her eyes.
“Okay.”
As the word left her lips, a strange sense of calm settled over Ena. It was as if the noise and impossibility of the world had been filtered through the child’s clear eyes, purified, leaving only the simplest, most fundamental urge to create.
She pulled out the sketchbook that had been her constant companion for years. Its corners were soft and curled with age, the pages a pale cream, imbued with the scent of time. She took out a 2B pencil, spinning it once between her fingers with practiced ease. These were motions she had repeated thousands of times, ingrained in her as muscle memory. This time, however, as she prepared to make the first mark, she felt a long-forgotten tension, something that bordered on sacred.
“Go sit on that swing, facing me,” Ena said. “It’ll be easier to see you that way.”
“Okay!” Mizuki responded, and with a cheerful hop, she skipped to the opposite swing. Her small legs dangled in the air, her skirt blooming around her like a flower. She placed the bunny plushie primly on her lap, straightened her little back, and looked at Ena with an expression of solemn excitement, as if she were about to take part in a grand ceremony.
The last of the sunset’s rays fell generously upon her. The edges of her pink hair were haloed in a soft, warm gold. The light shone through the delicate shells of her ears, turning them a fragile, translucent crimson. Her eyes were large, fringed with lashes like tiny fans that seemed to stir the air with every blink.
Ena was, for a moment, lost.
She had drawn countless faces. Exquisite, bewitching, cold, cute… Commercial art demanded the skill to capture and amplify any trait on command. But this face left her at a loss for words. It could not be defined by technique. It was a raw, unpolished, natural life force. This face was not yet a mask for complex, hidden emotions; it held none of the unspoken vulnerability that would one day live deep in her eyes.
The Mizuki she knew was like a sensitive cat, feigning a tough exterior. She used “cute” as her camouflage, her jokes and smiles as a shield. Only in unguarded moments would her deep-seated need to be loved and understood peek through. But this child… everything about her was open. Her happiness, her curiosity, were written plainly on her face, so pure it made Ena’s heart ache.
“What are you drawing, oneechan?” Mizuki’s curious voice pulled Ena from her thoughts. “Is it my bunny? His name is Cherry because he has a red nose!”
Ena’s gaze followed the girl’s to the plush toy. It was undeniably cute, its stitches a little crooked, clearly handmade and full of childish charm. But Ena shook her head.
“No,” she said softly. “I’m drawing something much cuter than that.”
Her pencil finally touched the paper.
Shhh, shhh…
The whisper of graphite on the page was crisp in the quiet park. Ena didn’t start with an outline. She began with the lightest of strokes, capturing the play of light. She drew how it kissed the tips of Mizuki’s hair, how it cast soft shadows on her cheeks. Her movements were fluid and focused, as if the world had shrunk to contain only the three of them: herself, the child, and the pencil in her hand.
Mizuki managed to sit still at first, but a child’s nature is restless. Soon, she was gently rocking the swing, humming a tuneless song. She would dip her head to whisper a secret to Cherry, then look up again, curious to see Ena’s progress.
“Oneeechan.” She drew out the word. “What’s your name? I keep calling you oneechan, but I don’t even know your name.”
Ena’s hand, sketching the curve of Mizuki’s lips, paused.
How should she answer? Shinonome Ena? To this Mizuki, the name was just a meaningless, foreign symbol. Their real meeting was still years away.
“My name is…” She deliberated, choosing the simplest answer. “Ena.”
“Ena-neechan!” Mizuki repeated the name cheerfully, as if tasting a piece of candy.
Ena smiled, returning her focus to the world taking shape on the page. She drew slowly, meticulously. She wanted to commit every detail of this moment to memory. She greedily rendered Mizuki’s clear eyes, trying to permanently capture the untroubled starlight within them on paper. She drew her small nose, her soft, slightly pouting lips.
Time slipped by in the whisper of the pencil. The sky slowly darkened, and the park lamps flickered on one by one, casting a warm, hazy glow.
“Ena-neechan,” Mizuki’s voice sounded again, this time holding a small, almost imperceptible thread of trouble. “Do you think… I’m weird?”
Ena’s heart gave a painful lurch.
She stopped drawing, lifting her head to look at the child seriously. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because…” Mizuki’s gaze fell, her light dimming. “The other kids at school, they all like to play with toys or dolls. But I… I like making things myself. I like using different colored fabrics and ribbons to make lots and lots of cute hair clips and bows. They… they say I’m a weirdo.”
There it was.
Ena’s heart sank. Even at this young age, the invisible, hurtful barriers were already being built. The innocent and yet most brutal kind of isolation, the kind that comes from one’s peers. She remembered the high school Mizuki, who desperately armed herself with “cute,” as if it were a suit of armor that could repel all the world’s malice. She was always smiling, as if nothing bothered her, but Ena knew how much insecurity and self-doubt was hidden behind those smiles.
So the wound had been there, even then.
A tightness seized Ena’s chest, making it hard to breathe. She looked at the little girl, head bowed in shame because her classmates had shunned her, and wished she could break through time and hold that small, lonely child.
But she couldn’t. All she could do now, as a “kind stranger,” was to offer a tiny, perhaps insignificant, but hopefully crucial piece of validation.
“Mizuki.” Ena put down her sketchbook, calling her name for the first time.
Mizuki’s head snapped up, her eyes wide with surprise.
Ena’s gaze was incredibly serious, imbued with a conviction that, unbeknownst to her, spanned decades. “Listen to me. There is nothing weird about loving to create beautiful things with your own hands. It is a wonderful, incredible talent.”
She stood and walked over to Mizuki, crouching down to meet her at eye level.
“The people who call you weird, they say that because they can’t do what you do. They don’t understand the magic of making something “cute” out of nothing. It takes talent and passion. So, because of jealousy, or just plain ignorance, they reject what they don’t understand.”
“Mizuki, you are not weird. You are special. Your hands have magic in them, a magic that can bring the cutest things in the world to life. So you don’t need to worry about what they think. You just need to keep doing what you love, and you need to be proud of it.”
The words poured out of her. They were words for the high school Mizuki, and words for the small child before her now.
Mizuki stared at her, a shimmer of moisture gathering in her pink eyes. She seemed to understand, but not completely. What she did understand was the unwavering, warm, and powerful strength flowing from the older sister before her.
Her small nose twitched. Then, with all her might, she gave a firm, resolute nod.
“Okay!”
At that exact moment, a faint wave of dizziness washed over Ena.
The scene before her seemed to distort for a split second. A park lamp flickered erratically, buzzing softly before returning to normal. The blurry city skyline in the distance wavered for a fraction of a second, like a bad TV signal.
It was over almost before it began, quick as a daydream.
Mizuki, lost in the feeling of being understood, noticed nothing. But Ena’s heart tightened.
It wasn’t a hallucination.
She could clearly feel a subtle, unstable sense of rejection between herself and this world. As if… as if she were a software bug that shouldn’t be here. And the world was trying to patch the error.
The realization hit her like a bucket of ice water.
She couldn’t stay here for long. This miraculous time was finite.
“Alright, sit still now,” Ena said, suppressing the panic rising in her chest. She returned to her seat and picked up her pencil, her voice deliberately light. “I’m almost done.”
She quickened her pace, but her strokes remained steady. She carefully, meticulously, captured the light that had just been rekindled in Mizuki’s eyes.
Finally, with one last stroke, Ena let out a long breath.
She looked at the girl on the page. In the drawing, she sat on the swing, holding her bunny, her head tilted slightly. Her eyes were bright, and a shy but determined smile played on her lips. Light and shadow wove around her, dressing her in a coat made of starlight.
This was, perhaps, the most heartfelt and emotionally invested piece she had drawn in years.
She carefully tore the page from the sketchbook, walked over to Mizuki, and held it out to her.
“This is for you.”
From the moment Mizuki’s eyes fell on the drawing, she couldn’t look away. Her mouth slowly formed a small “O,” her eyes filled with incredulous wonder.
“Is… is that… me?” she stammered, pointing from the drawing to her own face, her voice trembling with emotion. “Can I… really be this… this cute?”
“You always have been,” Ena said, watching her, her heart aching with a mix of sweetness and sorrow.
She had never said that to the Mizuki she used to bicker with. She had always used sarcasm to hide her true feelings. But now she saw how much one sincere affirmation meant to her.
Mizuki gently, reverently, stroked the paper with her fingertips, as if afraid to damage it. She looked up, her eyes shining with tears—not of sadness, but of pure, overwhelming happiness.
“Thank you… Ena-neechan!” she choked out. “This is… this is the best present I’ve ever gotten!”
Just then, a gentle woman’s voice called from the park entrance.
“Mizuki! It’s getting dark, time to come home!”
It was Mizuki’s mother.
Mizuki stiffened, her face a picture of reluctance. She clutched the drawing tightly, glanced towards the voice, then turned back to Ena, her eyes pleading.
“Ena-neechan… will you… will you be here tomorrow?” she asked in a small voice.
Ena’s heart was squeezed tight.
Could she be?
She didn’t know. Was today’s bizarre encounter a fluke, or was there some unknown rule at play? If she came back tomorrow, would she see this little version of her? Or was this all just a short, unrepeatable dream?
She couldn’t give a definite answer. She didn’t want to lie to her, but she didn’t want to disappoint her either.
Finally, Ena crouched down again, meeting her gaze, and said in the gentlest voice she could manage, “I’m not sure. But, if I can be, I will.”
It was a clever, yet deeply sincere, answer.
Mizuki seemed to understand the uncertainty in her words. The light in her eyes dimmed for a moment, but then she gave Ena’s arm a fierce hug, rubbing her small cheek against the fabric of her sleeve.
“Okay! Pinky promise!” She held out her chubby pinky finger.
Ena paused for a second, then extended her own pinky, hooking it with the small one.
“Pinky swear, cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.”
The childish oath dissipated in the evening breeze.
“Mizuki!” The voice from the distance was closer now.
“Coming!” Mizuki called back loudly. She let go of Ena, gave her one last look, and ran towards the park entrance, her pink hair bouncing behind her. Halfway there, she stopped, turned, and waved energetically in Ena’s direction, her other hand holding the drawing securely against her chest.
Ena raised her hand and waved back.
She watched until the small figure disappeared completely into the night and the warm yellow lights.
The park was quiet again. Only the rustling of leaves in the wind and the occasional, lonely creak of the swing chains remained.
Ena slowly stood up and walked to the swing Mizuki had just been sitting on. It seemed to still hold the child’s warmth. She reached out, but her hand met only cold, empty air.
The huge, familiar void inside her returned at that moment, more ferocious and consuming than ever before.
It wasn’t a dream. She looked down at her sketchbook. The first page was well and truly gone, leaving behind an uneven, torn edge.
It was all real.
She had really met the ten-year-old Akiyama Mizuki. She had talked to her, drawn a picture for her, made a pinky promise with her.
And then what?
She was like a drowning person who had grasped a miraculous piece of straw, and now the straw had been washed away by the tide. The brief encounter, far from filling the hole in her heart, had only magnified the sense of loss and longing a thousand times over.
She had been given a glimpse of paradise, only to be thrown back into the cage of her reality.
Ena stood alone in the park for a long, long time, until the night wind chilled her to the bone. She began the stiff journey home.
She didn’t look back. She was afraid that if she saw that empty swing, she would start to cry.
Her mind was a tangled mess.
What was happening? A time warp? A parallel universe? How could she see her again? And if she did, what could she do? Would the things she said, the picture she drew, change the future Mizuki? Or was this all just a fixed part of history?
And more importantly…
A thought arose in her mind, one that terrified her.
Was she… becoming addicted to this feeling?
Addicted to the god-like sense of power that came from being able to protect the fragile, younger version of her?
Was this a form of salvation, or was it a sweet poison?
Ena didn’t know. All she knew was that from tomorrow on, this old neighborhood park would no longer be a sanctuary for her memories.
It would become an addiction she couldn’t quit, a place filled with hope and a quiet, unbearable longing.
The day that followed was spent in a haze.
Ena woke at her usual 7:30, the morning light striping the walls through the blinds. She made coffee, toasted bread, and opened her laptop to the client’s revision requests from the day before, the red annotations crawling over the screen like a swarm of critical ants. Everything was as it had been for countless workdays past, yet everything had changed.
A part of her soul had been left behind in that dusky park, tangled up with a small, pink-haired ghost.
Concentration was impossible. The digital pen felt alien and heavy in her hand. The client’s needs were a distant buzz; the only voice in her head was Mizuki’s, choked with tears, saying, “This is the best present I’ve ever gotten!” She tried to sketch, but the lines that emerged on the screen softened and curved, always wanting to form the gentle arc of a child’s smile.
Lunch was a delivery she barely tasted. By two o’clock, a restless anxiety had taken root. Her heart felt like it was in a vise, each beat a throb of desperate anticipation. Will she be there? How much did a pinky promise weigh on the heart of a ten-year-old? More importantly, could she even break through into that time again?
The questions fluttered in her mind like a thousand frantic moths. An hour before she’d planned to leave, she shut down her computer—an unprecedented act in her disciplined career. She even spent a moment in front of the mirror, smoothing her messy hair and changing into a cream-colored knit sweater that seemed softer, gentler. She wanted to look like a trustworthy “Ena-neechan.”
When she stepped into the park again, her heart was a drum against her ribs.
She walked quickly to the swings, her eyes scanning every corner.
Empty.
A few elderly men sat on benches reading newspapers. The sound of children’s laughter drifted from the slide in the distance. But the one small figure she searched for was nowhere to be seen.
A tidal wave of disappointment crashed over her, so immense it threatened to drown her.
She told herself she was just early. She chose a bench with a clear view of the swings, took out her sketchbook, and pretended to draw, her gaze constantly darting towards the park’s entrances.
The minutes bled into one another.
Four o’clock. Four-thirty. Five.
The setting sun once again painted the sky in brilliant strokes of orange and red. The same breathtaking scenery as yesterday, but today, in Ena’s eyes, it was just a portrait of loneliness. The people in the park began to leave. Dusk settled, and the last sliver of light was swallowed by the horizon.
She hadn’t come.
Ena sat on that bench until the night wind soaked through her sweater, a deep chill seeping into her bones. Only then did she rise, her body stiff. She dragged her heavy feet out of the park, each step feeling hollow and unreal. Back in her empty apartment, she didn’t turn on the lights, simply collapsing onto the sofa. In the darkness, the familiar, numbing loneliness she had grown accustomed to felt sharper, more painful than ever.
The sting of a shattered hope, she was discovering, was infinitely more painful than having no hope at all. She even began to wonder if yesterday had been nothing more than an unusually vivid hallucination, brought on by stress.
The days that followed became a form of sweet, brutal torture.
Ena was bewitched. Every afternoon at four o’clock, she would appear in the park as if summoned. She became a silent, stubborn sentinel. She sat on the same bench, watched the sun rise and fall in the sky of her phone’s screen, watched children come and go. She sketched every tree, every lamp post, every worn-down stone in the park. Her sketchbook filled with landscapes, but her heart was empty, save for a single name.
Mizuki never appeared.
A week passed. Ena’s life was in disarray. Her productivity plummeted; she nearly missed several deadlines. Her editor called, asking gently if she was facing some difficulty. She could only mumble excuses about not feeling well.
Sleep became a stranger. She would lie awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, Mizuki’s smile and tears replaying in her mind. The memory of their small, trusting pinky promise was like a brand on her palm. She thought about giving up. She told herself it was just a fluke, a dream that would never be repeated. If she continued like this, she would destroy the life she had worked so hard to build.
But she couldn’t.
Whenever she remembered the way Mizuki’s eyes had clouded over when talking about being ostracized by her classmates, a sharp pain pierced her heart. She couldn’t let it go. The desire to protect her had grown beyond simple sympathy or nostalgia; it had become a primal, obsessive need.
On the eighth day, the sky was a grim, flat gray, and a cold, persistent drizzle began to fall.
Ena walked to the park under a clear plastic umbrella. This would be the last time, she decided. If Mizuki didn’t appear today, she had to wake up and return to her reality. The park was even more deserted than usual.
Rain pattered on the pavement, creating a thousand tiny, concentric ripples. The air was thick with the damp smell of earth and wet grass.
She walked to the familiar swings, their chains glistening coldly in the rain.
Just as she was about to turn and leave, a faint, suppressed sob reached her from behind a nearby bush.
Ena froze. That sound…
Holding her breath, she followed the sound. She rounded a waist-high holly bush and saw a sight that made her heart stop.
The little girl she had waited eight agonizing days for was curled up in a sandbox made from an old tire. She had no umbrella; the fine rain had soaked her pink hair, plastering it to her cheeks. She was clutching her bunny, Cherry, to her chest, her small shoulders shaking with heartbreaking sobs. Her cute dress was stained with mud, the ribbon in her hair askew. She looked utterly lost and miserable.
“Mizuki?”
Ena’s voice was a rough, hesitant whisper.
The crying stopped abruptly. Mizuki’s head snapped up. When she saw who was standing there, her eyes, red and swollen from crying, widened with a brilliant, disbelieving light.
“Ena… neechan?”
In the next second, a small, warm body was clinging tightly to her legs.
“Waaaah! Ena-neechan!” Mizuki buried her face in Ena’s trousers, and all the pent-up loneliness and despair of the past week erupted in a torrent of wails. “I thought… I thought I’d never see you again!”
Rain and tears soaked the hem of Ena’s pants, but she didn’t care. She dropped her umbrella, knelt, and gathered the sobbing child into her arms, holding her with all the tenderness she possessed.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” Ena didn’t know why she was apologizing, but she repeated the words like a mantra, stroking Mizuki’s wet hair, feeling the small, trembling body in her arms. “I’m here. I came back, didn’t I? Please don’t cry, okay?”
Mizuki cried for a long time, her sobs slowly quieting into shuddering hiccups. Ena used her sleeve to gently wipe the tears and rain from the girl’s face. She noticed then that Mizuki was clutching something in her small hand. It was a messy, tangled bracelet woven from several colored ribbons, with a small, plastic star charm attached. It looked like it had been crushed in her fist.
“What happened?” Ena asked softly. “Why were you hiding here crying in the rain? You’ll get sick.”
Between hiccups, Mizuki told her the story. Today was arts and crafts day at school. The teacher had asked them to pair up and make a “gift for your best friend.”
“I… I didn’t have a partner.” Mizuki whispered, her voice barely audible. “Everyone… everyone found a friend right away. Only me…”
“I made this bracelet by myself.” She opened her palm to show Ena the misshapen creation. “I wanted… I wanted to give it to a girl in my class named Miyabi. I think her hair is pretty. But… when I gave it to her, she looked at it… and threw it on the ground.”
Fresh tears welled in Mizuki’s eyes.
“She said… she said the things I make are tacky and weird. And she said… no one would want to be friends with a freak like me…”
Ena’s heart felt like it was being squeezed by an icy hand. The pain was so sharp it almost took her breath away. She could picture it perfectly: a hopeful child, offering a gift made with all her heart, only to have it, and her feelings, crushed and thrown to the ground with the cruelest words.
Such a devastating wound. No wonder she was hiding here. She didn’t want anyone, not even her family, to see her cry. This ten-year-old child had already learned to lick her wounds in solitude.
Ena was speechless. No words of comfort seemed adequate in the face of such raw malice. So she did the only thing she could. She gently picked up the crumpled bracelet, carefully smoothed it out, and then, slowly, fastened it around her own wrist.
It was too small for her, the clasp barely closing. But the little plastic star sat on her wrist, a strange, beautifully discordant sight.
“It’s beautiful,” Ena said, lifting her arm, looking Mizuki directly in the eye. She spoke each word with deliberate care. “This is the most beautiful bracelet I’ve ever seen. I love it.”
Mizuki stared, dumbfounded. She looked at the thing she had made, the thing that had been thrown away like trash, now sitting on Ena-neechan’s wrist. She looked into Ena-neechan’s eyes and saw no pity, no condescension—only complete, unwavering sincerity.
Her lower lip trembled, and the tears she’d been holding back began to fall again. But these were not tears of hurt. They were tears of a profound, overwhelming relief at being seen, at being treasured.
“Really…?”
“Really,” Ena affirmed. “It’s better than anything you could buy in a store. Because this has your heart in it, Mizuki. That makes it one-of-a-kind.”
She took Mizuki’s cold hand and led her under the shelter of a nearby awning. She took off her own jacket, which was still mostly dry, and wrapped it around Mizuki’s small shoulders.
“Listen to me, Mizuki,” Ena said, her expression serious. “That girl, Miyabi, it’s her loss that she can’t appreciate it. It’s not your fault. You should never feel sad because of someone who doesn’t know how to treasure you.”
“One day, you will find people who understand you, who admire you, who will treat every little thing you make like a treasure. But before that happens, you have to learn how to be your own treasure, okay?”
Ena spoke with an earnest, forceful passion. She prayed that these words would be like seeds, planting themselves in this child’s heart, ready to sprout and give her strength in the harder times to come.
Mizuki nodded, not quite understanding everything, but feeling the warmth and safety radiating from Ena. She leaned against her, inhaling the faint, comforting scent of her clothes. The rain was still falling, but she felt a small, broken piece of her heart being quietly mended.
And just then, Ena’s vision flickered.
It was more pronounced this time. The world before her, like a corrupted digital photograph, began to fray at the edges with ominous, pixelated noise. The sound of the rain stuttered for a moment, its pitch warping like a damaged cassette tape.
She knew. Her time here was almost up. The end always came too soon, leaving her no time to prepare. She had so much more she wanted to say, so much more she wanted to do.
“Ena-neechan?” Mizuki sensed her sudden stiffness and looked up, her expression anxious.
“Mizuki,” Ena said, fighting the rising panic in her heart, striving to keep her voice steady. “I… I think I have to go soon.”
“Go again?” Mizuki’s face fell instantly. “When… when will you be back next time?”
Ena couldn’t answer. She didn’t even know if there would be a next time. Looking into Mizuki’s clear eyes, which reflected her own pale, worried face, an impulse seized her.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, silver pin in the shape of a feather. It was something she had bought a long time ago, admiring its delicate design, but had never worn.
She carefully pinned it to the ribbon on Mizuki’s chest. The cool metal was a stark, beautiful contrast against the soft fabric.
“This is for you,” Ena said, her gaze intense. “Think of it as… an exchange of gifts.”
“It’s a feather. It represents freedom and courage. I want you to have it, so that no matter what happens, you can be like a feather. Even when the wind blows and the rain falls, you can still fly, freely and bravely.”
“Remember, you are not a weirdo. You’re a one-of-a-kind, beautiful bird who just hasn’t learned to fly yet.”
Mizuki stared at the pin, which caught the dim light, her small hand reaching up to touch it.
The world was distorting more violently now. A low, white-noise hum filled Ena’s ears. She knew she had to go.
She gave Mizuki one last, fierce hug, whispering in her ear, “Go home now, don’t make your mother worry. And remember, you are wonderful.”
Then, she let go. She stood up and, without looking back, walked quickly into the curtain of rain. She was afraid that if she turned back, she would never be able to leave.
Behind her, under the awning, Mizuki watched the cream-colored figure recede, until it dissolved completely into the gray mist. She looked down at the feather on her chest, then at her own empty hands, feeling as if she had just woken from a short, beautiful, and heartbreaking dream.
And Ena, walking briskly through the downpour, finally lost control. Hot tears streamed from her eyes, mixing with the cold rain on her cheeks.
She didn’t know if she was crying for Mizuki’s pain, or for their own brief, devastating reunion.
All she knew was that from now on, she would wear a too-small bracelet made of colored ribbons on her wrist.
It was her only, fragile link to the past.
It was the proof of her addiction, and her only salvation.
That rainy reunion became the watershed that split Ena’s life in two.
Her world was now fractured. One half was the monotonous present, a landscape of cold pixels on a screen and the relentless march of deadlines. The other was the park at dusk, a place of unknown possibilities, her only, fragile connection to the past.
The too-small ribbon bracelet on her wrist became her most private treasure. While working, she would subconsciously stroke it with her other hand, the rough texture of the hand-woven fabric a strange and potent comfort. In the dead of night, when sleep eluded her, she would study the cheap plastic star in the faint light of her phone, and in its facets, she would see a little girl’s defiant, tear-filled eyes.
The change in her did not go unnoticed.
“Hey, Ena, what the hell is going on with you lately?” Her brother Akito’s voice on the phone was, as usual, devoid of patience. “That client I hooked you up with complained to me. Said your last draft was completely off-point, like your head was somewhere else. You’re not that unprofessional.”
Ena was staring blankly at a half-finished illustration. The character’s eyes were vacant, just like her own. Akito’s question pulled her back.
“…It’s nothing. Just a little tired lately,” she answered, her voice listless.
“Tired?” Akito scoffed, his perception sharp. “Sounds more like you’re possessed. What happened? Did you get into another fight with Dad?”
“No,” Ena denied immediately. Her relationship with her father had long since settled into a kind of delicate, non-interfering truce. He was no longer the source of her turmoil.
“Then…” Akito paused, as if choosing his words. “…are you thinking about someone?”
Ena’s heart skipped a beat.
She said nothing. How could she explain? That she had met the ten-year-old version of Akiyama Mizuki? That she was lost in an impossible journey through time? Akito would think she had either lost her mind or was cracking under the pressure of work.
“…Don’t worry about me. I’ll handle my work,” she said finally, evading the question.
A sigh of frustration came through the line. “Fine. But don’t try to carry it all by yourself.”
After hanging up, Ena stared at the gray, overcast sky, feeling more isolated than ever. She held a secret she could share with no one—a secret that brought her both ecstatic joy and excruciating pain.
She couldn’t predict when their next meeting would be. She tried visiting the park at different times—morning, noon, late at night—but it was always empty. She tried forcing herself to stay away, to return to her normal life, but the gnawing anxiety, the feeling of having a part of herself hollowed out, was a torment worse than any deadline.
Slowly, she began to perceive a vague pattern.
It seemed the “rift” in time only opened when her own feelings for Mizuki—her longing, her worry, some related, powerful emotion—reached a crescendo. And the location was always, invariably, that park.
The realization terrified her. Did it mean she had to use her own intense emotions as fuel to power these encounters? Was she trading pieces of her soul for these stolen moments with the past?
Half a month later, on a Saturday, Ena was sorting through old belongings when she found a high school-era fashion magazine. The pages were yellowed, filled with ornate and frilly Lolita dresses. She remembered Mizuki pressing it into her hands, insisting the designs would give her inspiration for “cute” drawings.
She traced the glossy photos with her finger, Mizuki’s excited voice echoing in her memory as she explained the different types of lace and ruffles. That pure, unadulterated passion for beauty and cuteness was so vivid.
An overwhelming, desperate urge to see her seized Ena’s heart. She grabbed her coat and practically ran to the park.
This time, she was not disappointed.
When she arrived, breathless, she saw the familiar figure at once. Little Mizuki was sitting on a bench, her legs swinging, head bowed in concentration over something in her lap.
She was wearing what looked like a standard school uniform—a white blouse and a dark blue pleated skirt. But Ena’s sharp eye noticed the small, clever modifications. A tiny cherry blossom was embroidered on her collar in pale pink thread. A delicate line of white lace, almost invisible unless looked closely, was sewn along the hem of her skirt’s lining.
She was still the same Mizuki. The one who, no matter the restrictions, couldn’t stop “cute” from bubbling to the surface. Ena slowed her pace, approaching quietly.
“What are you working on?”
Mizuki looked up at the sound of her voice, her eyes instantly lighting up. “Ena-neechan!”
Like a happy little bird, she hopped off the bench and ran to Ena’s side.
“Look!” She held up her project like a trophy. It was a pair of plain white indoor school shoes, but on the toe of one, she had drawn a wobbly but charmingly goofy-looking kitten.
“I drew it yesterday! Isn’t it cute?” Her face was an open book, begging for praise.
“It’s adorable,” Ena said sincerely. But she also noticed that the other shoe was still blank, and behind Mizuki’s excitement was a shadow of frustration.
“Why did you only draw one?” Ena asked, leading her back to the bench.
“Because…” Mizuki’s spirits sank. “Yesterday, just as I finished this one and was about to start the other, my mom saw me.”
“She said I can’t break the school rules. She said everyone wears plain white shoes, and if mine are all decorated, the teachers will get mad at me. She… she took away my colored pens.”
Ena fell silent. She understood her mother’s concern. In a society that prized conformity, any act of individuality could be seen as a challenge, inviting criticism. Parents, acting on a protective instinct, often want their children to blend in, to avoid being singled out as “strange.” But for a child like Mizuki, wasn’t that kind of protection also a form of suffocation?
“Mom doesn’t mean to be mean, right?” Mizuki asked, looking up at Ena, searching for confirmation. “She’s just worried I’ll get in trouble.”
Looking into those pleading eyes, Ena’s heart softened. Even when her passion was being suppressed, the child’s first instinct was to understand her parent’s intentions.
“Yes, your mother is looking out for you,” Ena affirmed, before changing tack. “But, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to make your things prettier and more special.”
She picked up the shoe with the kitten. “Ena-neechan thinks you did a wonderful job. You’re very creative.”
“But… Mom won’t let me draw on them anymore,” Mizuki said, her voice full of disappointment.
“She won’t let you use colored pens. Maybe… we can try a different method?” Ena gave her a mysterious wink.
From her canvas tote bag, she pulled out a small box she had prepared in advance. For the past half-month, she had carried it with her every time she left the apartment, just in case.
She opened it. Inside was a small set of acrylic paints specifically for fabric, along with several fine-tipped brushes.
“What’s this?” Mizuki’s eyes were glued to the vibrant colors.
“It’s a special kind of paint. Once it dries on fabric, it won’t wash out,” Ena explained. “And we can just paint in a few places that aren’t too obvious. That way, you get to make your shoes unique, but it won’t be so flashy that it worries your mom or the teachers. What do you think?”
Her words were like a key, unlocking a new world for Mizuki. She stared from the paints to Ena, her eyes shining with a mixture of excitement and awe.
“Ena-neechan, you’re amazing! You’re like a magician!”
“Well then, my fellow magician,” Ena said with a smile, handing her the other white shoe, “What would you like to draw on this one?”
That afternoon, under a warm, gentle sun, Ena and Mizuki sat side-by-side on the bench, engaged in their secret, creative conspiracy.
Ena showed her how to mix colors, how to use the finest brush to paint smooth, clean lines. Mizuki was a fast learner, her hands possessing a natural intuition for beauty. She decided to paint her name “Mizuki” on the other shoe, entwining the letters with vines and flowers.
Ena didn’t interfere with her design, only offering small touches to enhance it. She would add a dot of white to a flower petal for a highlight, making it instantly pop. She added a few dynamic, curling tendrils to the end of a vine.
They sat close, and Ena could smell the faint, milky scent of Mizuki’s hair. She felt the child’s complete and utter trust in her, and it began to thaw her own heart, which had grown cold and numb with loneliness. In teaching Mizuki, she realized she was rediscovering something for herself: the pure, simple joy of creating for its own sake, not for a client or a paycheck. She hadn’t felt that in years. She had almost forgotten that she first picked up a brush simply because she loved it. This child was reminding her.
Just as they were nearing completion, the familiar, heart-stopping sensation of temporal dislocation struck without warning.
Ena’s hand froze in mid-air. She saw the tips of her fingers, holding the brush, begin to turn translucent, like a glitching projection.
“Ena-neechan?” Mizuki noticed her stillness and looked up in confusion.
“Oh no…” Ena’s heart clenched. This time, the rejection was more violent, more rapid than ever before. The buzzing in her ears grew deafening. The world before her began to shake and tear apart.
“Mizuki, listen,” she said urgently, fighting to stay present for a few more seconds. “These paints and brushes, they’re for you. Remember, never, ever stop creating the things you love!”
“Ena-neechan! What’s wrong?!” Mizuki was frightened by her pale face and trembling voice, reaching out to grab her hand.
But she grasped only empty air.
Before Mizuki’s terrified eyes, Shinonome Ena’s form dissolved, shattering into a million points of shimmering light and vanishing completely.
All that remained was the open box of paints, a single brush that had fallen to the ground, and a white shoe with a half-finished, beautifully blooming design.
“Ena… neechan?”
Mizuki sat frozen on the bench, her hand still outstretched, trying to catch something that was no longer there.
It was as if the kind older sister with the nice smell and the gentle hands had never existed at all. A vast, terrifying emptiness instantly consumed the ten-year-old child.
This was not the first time Ena-neechan had vanished, but to see it happen up close, to watch her disintegrate into nothing, was a shock unlike any she had ever known. She picked up the fallen brush, clutching it tightly, and buried her face in the shoes, as if trying to inhale the last trace of her presence.
She didn’t cry.
She just sat there, motionless, a small, solitary statue abandoned by the world.
And in her own time, forcibly ejected back into reality, Ena found herself standing in the entryway of her apartment. She was still in the posture of having just run out the door. But on her cream-colored sweater was a tiny, impossibly bright speck of pink paint from another time.
She leaned against the wall, gasping for breath, her heart hammering against her ribs from the violent temporal schism. The departure had been too abrupt, too cruel. She hadn’t even been able to say goodbye. All she had left Mizuki with was a terrifying, unfinished miracle.
Ena covered her face, her body sliding weakly to the floor.
Had she made a terrible mistake?
She kept crashing into this child’s life, offering her hope and comfort, only to vanish in the most bizarre way, leaving behind a wake of confusion and fear. She had thought of herself as a guardian, a “magician.”
But what if she was the selfish intruder, the one causing the deepest, most chaotic wounds of all?
The wind rustled through the park, sweeping a few fallen leaves across Mizuki’s feet.
She didn’t know how long she sat there on the bench. The sun had completely sunk below the horizon, and the sky had deepened to a bruised, indigo blue. Only the distant streetlights cast a lonely, jaundiced glow.
Ena-neechan was gone. As if she had never been.
Mizuki clutched the white indoor shoes to her chest. One bore the goofy kitten, the other, the half-finished name “Mizuki” entwined with vines and flowers. The last stroke Ena-neechan had painted, a dot of pink on a tiny flower bud, was still tacky to the touch. Beside her on the bench lay the open box, filled with jewel-like paints and delicate brushes—the only proof that she had existed at all.
Fear and bewilderment washed over her like an icy sea. But beneath the cold waves, a small, stubborn flame flickered, refusing to be extinguished.
She remembered Ena-neechan’s last, urgent words. “Remember, never, ever stop creating the things you love!”
Mizuki looked down at the unfinished drawing. She reached out a small finger and, with a reverence that was almost holy, gently touched the wet paint of the flower bud.
And then, she made a decision.
She had to finish it.
Awkwardly mimicking Ena-neechan’s movements, she picked up the finest brush, dipped it in a tiny bit of green paint, and held her breath. Carefully, she extended the broken line of the vine.
Her hand trembled, the line she drew was wobbly, lacking the fluid life of Ena-neechan’s work. But she didn’t stop. She stubbornly, painstakingly, filled in the rest of the design. She didn’t know if it was any good. She only knew that it was the only thing she could do. It felt as if completing the drawing was a spell, a ritual that might bring the vanished magician back.
By the time she painted the final stroke, the sky was completely dark. In the distance, she could hear her mother’s faint, anxious calls. She scrambled to pack the paints and brushes into the box, gathered up the precious shoes, and ran towards home.
That night, she lied. She told her mother she had been playing with friends in the park and lost track of time. Her mother scolded her for a few moments, but seeing she was safe, she simply sighed and told her to wash up for dinner.
Mizuki hid the shoes and the box of paints under her bed, in the deepest corner, as if she were hiding the world’s greatest treasure.
The next day, she wore the one-of-a-kind shoes to school. The kitten on her left foot and the floral name on her right made her feel as if she possessed a secret power. She walked into the classroom with her head held high, feeling as if she were walking on clouds, not the worn school floor.
A few classmates noticed her shoes and gathered around.
“Wow, Mizuki, your shoes are so cool!” “Did you draw that yourself? That’s amazing!”
This time, no one called her “weird.” The small, genuine words of admiration were like warm pebbles dropped into the frozen lake of her heart, sending out gentle ripples. She felt a little shy, but mostly, she felt an indescribable joy at being accepted.
She even saw Miyabi, the girl who had thrown her bracelet on the ground, glance over from a distance, her expression a mixture of curiosity and envy.
In that moment, Mizuki began to understand what Ena-neechan had meant.
You should never feel sad because of someone who doesn’t know how to treasure you. One day, you will find people who understand you.
Ena-neechan was a real magician. She hadn’t just given her paints and brushes; she had given her something far more important—courage.
But… when would the magician return?
Every day after school, she would go to the park and wait on their bench for a little while. She waited for three days, a week, two weeks.
Ena-neechan never came back. The promise made at dusk became an unclaimed secret, both sweet and sorrowful.
Meanwhile, in the future she had been violently thrown back into, Ena was experiencing a long and agonizing withdrawal of body and soul.
She locked herself in her apartment.
The curtains were drawn, shutting out the light and sound of the outside world. The easel was pushed into a corner, gathering a thin layer of dust. Her computer screen remained on a blank canvas, the digital pen discarded.
She had made a painful decision: she would not go back to the park.
She couldn’t.
The trauma of her last disappearance had forced her to see the truth. She wasn’t a savior. She was an unstable, dangerous variable. She couldn’t control when she appeared or when she left. Each of her “visitations” was potentially carving a new wound into a child’s already fragile heart. The encouragement and gifts she left behind might offer a moment of comfort, but what kind of fear and confusion did the inexplicable, terrifying vanishing act leave in their wake?
She couldn’t bear to think about it. The image of Mizuki’s small, tear-streaked, horrified face was like a thousand needles piercing her heart.
She was a selfish monster. She had used the excuse of “saving” Mizuki to satisfy her own pathetic desire to mend the past.
So it had to stop. For Mizuki’s sake, she had to vanish from her world completely.
The decision was easy to make, but carrying it out was like being flayed alive.
The longing was an addiction she couldn’t kick. It flared up every quiet afternoon, every silent night. An uncontrollable impulse would seize her, a physical need to run to the park, just to see if the child was okay.
She tried to numb herself with work. She took on a frantic number of commissions, burying herself in an endless mountain of drafts. She forced her mind to focus on color palettes and client briefs, leaving no empty space for the pink-haired ghost to slip in.
Her life returned to its old rhythm, only now it was more hectic, more “full.” But only she knew that her world had become more desolate than ever before. She avoided the park, deliberately taking longer routes to bypass it. The ribbon bracelet was removed from her wrist and locked away in a small jewelry box with the feather pin, deep in the back of a drawer.
She thought that out of sight would mean out of mind.
She was wrong.
One weekend, Akito dragged her out of her apartment to see an exhibition by an up-and-coming artist.
“If you stay cooped up in there any longer, you’re going to start growing mold，” he grumbled, shoving a gallery pamphlet into her hand.
Ena wanted to refuse, but the unyielding look in her brother’s eyes made her relent. The exhibition’s theme was “Fragments of Memory.” The artist used a multitude of broken images and symbols to construct a labyrinthine narrative about the past.
Ena walked through the gallery in a daze, the murmurs of appreciation and discussion around her seeming to come from a great distance. Until she stopped in front of one particular painting.
It was a massive canvas. The subject was a butterfly with broken, mud-stained wings. Painted on the wings with excruciatingly fine detail were countless crying, screaming, silent faces. And in a corner of the painting, a single, pristine white feather was drifting down from a great height, seemingly destined to never reach the struggling mire below.
The painting was titled, The Fall.
In that instant, the air left Ena’s lungs.
She remembered the feather pin she had given to little Mizuki.
“It’s a feather. It represents freedom and courage. I want you to have it, so that no matter what happens, you can be like a feather… you can still fly, freely and bravely.”
“Remember, you are not a weirdo. You’re a one-of-a-kind, beautiful bird who just hasn’t learned to fly yet.”
The words she had spoken now returned to her like sharp knives, slicing her heart to ribbons.
She had given Mizuki the promise of flight, only to break her wings herself, leaving her alone to face the unknown fears and malice of the world. She thought her departure was a form of protection. But what if her self-righteous, silent disappearance was the cruelest, most complete form of abandonment?
A tidal wave of regret and heartache, more powerful than anything she had ever felt, crashed over her. Her body began to tremble. The painting blurred, her vision swallowed by a sudden flood of tears.
“Hey, Ena? What’s wrong?” Akito, sensing something was terribly amiss, steadied her with a hand on her arm.
Ena couldn’t speak. She could only stare at the painting, at the single, helplessly falling feather.
At the very peak of her emotional breakdown, the long-dormant, terrifying sensation of temporal dislocation returned, more violent and irresistible than ever before.
The world dissolved before her eyes, spinning, fracturing, and reassembling. The noise of the gallery, Akito’s frantic calls, all warped and stretched like a dying tape recorder before fading away. Her body felt weightless, unmoored, as if it were being ripped from the fabric of reality by an invisible force.
She had no time to fight it, no way to resist.
When her consciousness cleared, a familiar, cool air, mixed with the scent of grass and earth, enveloped her.
And she heard a small, tentative voice, choked with tears—a voice she had yearned for with every fiber of her being.
“…anyone there?” “…My Cherry… he’s stuck in the tree… I can’t reach him…” “…Can someone… please help me…?”
Ena’s eyes snapped open.
Before her was the park she had avoided for a full month.
And under a tall camphor tree, the small, uniformed figure was looking up, tears welling in her eyes. At her feet, a school bag had spilled its contents of ribbons and art supplies.
High above her on a branch, the bunny named Cherry dangled precariously, swinging in the breeze.
Ena had thought she would hesitate. She’d thought she would struggle, that the carefully constructed walls of her resolve—I must stay away for her own good—would hold firm.
She was wrong.
The moment she saw that small figure, head tilted back, tears held captive in her eyes, every rational thought, every hard-won decision, every fear of the unknown, simply disintegrated. A more primal, powerful instinct took over.
I cannot let her cry.
“Don’t be scared. I’ll get it down for you.”
The voice, gentle and a little rough from disuse, came from behind her.
Little Mizuki stiffened. That voice… the one she had heard a thousand times in her dreams over the past month.
She spun around, and when she saw who was there, she froze.
It was Ena-neechan.
She wasn’t a ghost. She was wearing a dark gray coat Mizuki didn’t recognize, and her face was pale. Her eyes were a storm of complex emotions—heartache, guilt, and a deep, profound sadness Mizuki couldn’t decipher. But she was real. She was standing there against the evening light, radiating that same familiar, calming presence.
Mizuki’s lips trembled. She wanted to speak, but no words came. The overwhelming, ecstatic joy of her return collided with a month’s worth of loneliness, confusion, and waiting. The emotional torrent clogged her throat. In the end, it all coalesced into a single, hot, unstoppable tear that broke free and traced a path down her cheek.
Seeing that tear, Ena’s heart felt as if it had been violently wrung out.
She said nothing more. She walked to the tree, shrugged off her coat, and tossed it onto a dry bench. She looked up at the bunny dangling from the branch. It wasn’t too high; for an adult, it was manageable.
She flexed her stiff wrists and said to Mizuki, “Step back a little. I don’t want you to get hit.”
Then, with a push, she gripped a low-hanging branch and pulled herself up. She scrambled up the trunk, her movements far from graceful, her limbs protesting from a lack of exercise. But there was an undeniable determination in her ascent.
Mizuki watched, mesmerized, as Ena-neechan, without a moment’s hesitation, climbed a dirty tree just to retrieve a worn-out stuffed animal, heedless of the expensive-looking shirt she wore underneath.
In moments, Ena reached the branch. She carefully untangled the bunny and, with a soft thud, landed back on the ground. She walked over to Mizuki and placed the rescued rabbit, Cherry, back into her arms.
“There. No more tears,” she said, her voice soft. She reached out and gently, so gently, wiped the tear track from Mizuki’s cheek with the pad of her thumb. Her fingertip was cool, but the touch sent a shiver through Mizuki.
“Ena-neechan…” Mizuki finally found her voice. She clutched her bunny tightly and looked up, her red-rimmed eyes fixing on Ena with a stubborn intensity. “Where… where did you go?”
It wasn’t a happy greeting. It was an accusation, choked with all the sorrow she had suppressed for too long.
“I waited for you for so long… I came to the park every day, but you never came…” She hiccupped, her voice thick with hurt. “Did you… did you not want to see me anymore?”
“No!” The denial burst from Ena’s lips, sharp and immediate.
She knelt, bringing herself to eye-level with the child she had abandoned. Looking into those eyes, so full of raw, unshielded injury and dependence, she felt like a criminal standing before her judge.
How could she explain? That she was from the future? A temporal phantom? It was impossible.
“I’m sorry, Mizuki.” In the end, she could only offer the clumsiest, most honest apology. “The last time… disappearing without a word like that, it scared you, didn’t it? I am so, so sorry.”
“It… it wasn’t on purpose.” She struggled, trying to find a lie that didn’t taste like poison. “Something urgent happened. I had to leave right away. I didn’t have time to say goodbye… And after that… I was just so busy, I couldn’t get away… I’m sorry.”
The explanation was weak, flimsy. Even to her own ears, it was full of holes.
But Mizuki didn’t seem to doubt it. A child’s heart is simple. All she needed was an answer, any reason that could soothe her fear of being forgotten.
“So… will you disappear like that again?” she asked timidly. This was the question that mattered most.
Ena’s heart ached. She couldn’t make a promise she couldn’t keep. She didn’t know if she would be ejected from this world in the next second.
Her silence was its own answer.
For Mizuki, it was a confirmation. The joy of their reunion was instantly threatened by a deeper fear. Her face went pale, and her small hand tightened its grip on Ena’s sleeve.
Seeing her terror, Ena knew she couldn’t hide anymore.
“Mizuki, look at me.” She gently cupped the girl’s face, forcing their eyes to meet.
“Listen. Ena-neechan is… a little special. I might not be able to be with you every day, like your other friends,” she said, her voice quiet but every word crystal clear. “I might have to… leave sometimes, to take care of my own things. And I never know when I’ll be able to come back.”
“But.” Her tone shifted, her gaze becoming unshakeably firm. “That does not mean I don’t want to see you. And it absolutely does not mean I will ever forget you.”
“Whether I’m here or not, our promise is always real.”
She gestured to Mizuki’s school bag, where the corner of the paint box was visible. Then, she lightly tapped Mizuki’s chest, right over her heart.
“The magic doesn’t come from me. It comes from in here,” she said. “I just helped you find it. So even when I’m not around, Mizuki can still create the most wonderful, cute things in the world. Right?”
Mizuki listened, not quite grasping the abstract ideas of “special” or “magic.” But she understood the last part.
She nodded fiercely.
“Mm!” She opened her school bag and, like a magician revealing her secrets, pulled everything out.
Inside was the box of paints and brushes from Ena, along with her own collection of colorful ribbons, lace scraps, oddly shaped beads, and even a few beautiful, carefully pressed ginkgo leaves.
“Look!” She held up a new bracelet she had made. It was far more intricate than the one Miyabi had thrown away. This one was woven from pale blue and white ribbons into a beautiful spiral pattern, interspersed with tiny, clear beads that looked like morning dew.
“I made lots of things!” She picked up a small bow-shaped barrette made from pink lace and satin ribbon. “I gave some to the other girls in my class who like to draw, and they said they were really pretty! Now… now we’re friends!”
Her face broke into that pure, radiant smile—a smile brighter than all the sunlight in the park.
Ena looked at that smile, looked at the small, beautiful miracles Mizuki had created in her absence, and felt a hot sting behind her eyes.
She hadn’t broken her wings after all.
In the places she couldn’t see, this one-of-a-kind, beautiful little bird was using the tools Ena had given her to clumsily, but bravely, learn to fly on her own.
The feather she had given her hadn’t fallen. It had been delayed. But in the end, it had landed, gently and securely, right in the heart of this child.
“You did so well, Mizuki.” Ena’s voice was thick with an emotion she couldn’t name. “Better than… better than I ever could have imagined.”
She took the little bow barrette and carefully, gently, fastened it in Mizuki’s soft, pink hair.
“It’s perfect for you.”
And in that moment of perfect, fragile peace, the familiar, hated sensation of dislocation returned.
Ena’s body went rigid.
Again. Why? Why does it always happen now, when I’m happiest, when I least want to leave?
“Ena-neechan?” Mizuki’s smile froze, her sensitivity to Ena’s state immediate.
“It’s okay, Mizuki.” Ena fought against the roaring in her ears and the fracturing of her vision, forcing a smile. “See? Like I said. I think… I have to go again.”
Her form was already becoming transparent.
“Don’t go!” Mizuki panicked, reaching out with both hands as if to catch smoke.
“Listen to me, Mizuki,” Ena said, using her last seconds, her voice a desperate rush. “Remember what we said today. The magic is in your heart. It’s always there, even when I’m not. Keep making things you love, okay? Create more and more cute things.”
“Next time… next time we meet, you have to show me all your new creations. Pinky promise.”
She held out her little finger, which was already semi-translucent.
Mizuki, her eyes brimming with tears, quickly hooked her own small finger around the phantom one.
“Pinky promise…”
Before she could finish the rhyme, Shinonome Ena’s form dissolved completely into a swirling cascade of light and vanished.
Leaving only a gentle promise, echoing on the wind.
“…cross my heart, hope to die.”
The evening wind brought a cool touch of night to the park.
Mizuki stood alone on the empty ground, her small hand still held in the shape of a pinky promise, her fingertips tingling with a phantom cold, as if she had just touched starlight.
Ena-neechan was gone again.
This time, she wasn’t swallowed by the immense fear and confusion of before. She simply stood there, staring at the spot where Ena had vanished, as silent tears traced paths down her cheeks like falling stars.
She wasn’t afraid anymore. Because now, she had a promise.
“Next time… next time we meet, you have to show me all your new creations.”
Those words were like a tiny, warm sun rising in her heart, chasing away all the cold and darkness of the farewell. This wasn’t an ending. It was a “to be continued,” a chapter that had to be filled with her own waiting and her own effort.
She wiped her tears away with the back of her hand, then knelt and picked up the little bow barrette Ena had accidentally knocked over. She carefully blew off the dust and fastened it back in her hair. She gathered the scattered ribbons, beads, and the precious box of paints, one by one, placing them back in her school bag with the solemnity of a sacred ritual.
These were no longer just toys to pass the time. They were the artifacts of her pact with Ena-neechan. They were the proof she would present next time, the answer sheet to a test of her resolve.
From that day forward, Mizuki’s life had a secret, glittering core.
She poured herself into creating “cute” things. The first thing she did after school was no longer to wait aimlessly in the park, but to rush home, open the paint box she had named her “magic box,” and begin her secret work.
Her skills improved with astonishing speed. She learned to mix colors the way Ena had shown her, creating dreamy, unique shades. With the finest brush, she could paint delicate, smiling stars and moons on small scraps of fabric. The patterns of her ribbon bracelets grew more complex, more beautiful.
Her “creations” slowly began to circulate in her small world. During recess, girls would gather around her, curious to see what new, clever hair accessory she was wearing, or what unique pencil case she was using.
“Mizuki, where did you buy that little pouch? The embroidery is so cute!” “I made it myself!” she would reply, with a little bit of pride and a lot of shyness.
Gradually, some began to place “orders.” “Mizuki, Mizuki, can you make me a barrette just like yours? I’ll trade you my favorite stickers for it!”
She rarely said no. She loved seeing the look of surprise and delight on her friends’ faces. That feeling, just like when Ena-neechan praised her, made her feel that her existence was needed, that it had value. She was no longer the “weird” girl, isolated for her strange hobby. With her own two hands, she had woven a small but warm social net for herself. She now had friends with whom she could discuss “which ribbon combination looks best.”
Of course, there were still those who didn’t understand. One day, Miyabi saw her new pencil case and muttered, “So childish,” with a dismissive roll of her eyes.
Before, that would have crushed Mizuki. But now, she just smiled, unbothered. She remembered Ena-neechan’s words.
“Never feel sad because of someone who doesn’t know how to treasure you.”
She had more important people to care about, and more important things to do.
Every weekend, she would take her best work from the week to the park. She would sit on their bench, arrange her little creations in a neat row, and then, in a soft voice, she would describe each one to the empty air.
“Ena-neechan, look, this is a new weaving style I came up with. I call it ‘Star Trail.’ Isn’t that a pretty name?” “And this one—I turned the ginkgo leaves into bookmarks and drew little bunnies on them. Cherry, the bunny you rescued for me, he stays with me every day now.”
She spoke like a child reporting her achievements to a distant, beloved family member, earnest and devout. She didn’t know if Ena-neechan could hear her. But she believed, as long as she never stopped creating, as long as she held the memory of their pinky promise in her heart, they would absolutely, definitely meet again one day.
In the art gallery, the harsh, bright lights pulled Shinonome Ena back to reality.
“…Ena! Ena! Wake up!”
Akito’s frantic voice was in her ear, his hands shaking her shoulders.
Ena blinked slowly. Her vision swam back into focus. She saw her brother’s worried face, the curious stares of the people around them. She was still standing in front of the painting titled The Fall. Her own face was soaked with tears.
“What… what in the world happened to you? You just froze. I called your name and you didn’t react. You scared me to death!” Akito hissed, his voice a mixture of anger and concern.
“I’m fine…” Ena’s voice was hoarse.
She was fine. She had just returned from a journey across more than a decade of time.
Her heart was still pounding from the shock of their sudden reunion and abrupt farewell. Little Mizuki’s tearful, whispered “pinky promise” still echoed in her ears.
Unlike the other times, the vast, hollow emptiness was gone. In its place was a bittersweet, incredibly warm sense of fulfillment.
She had seen it. She had seen the child’s growth. She knew now that her clumsy, selfish “interventions” had truly planted a seed of courage in her heart.
And that was enough.
“Let’s… let’s go home,” she said to Akito, a quiet peace settling over her.
Back at her apartment, she declined Akito’s offer to stay, and closed the door, sealing herself inside her studio. But she didn’t retreat into darkness. Instead, she turned on every light, flooding the room with a brilliant, daytime glow.
She walked to the easel, which had been neglected for so long, and tore away the half-finished, soulless commercial illustration. She replaced it with a fresh, blank canvas.
From the deepest corner of her drawer, she retrieved the small, locked jewelry box. She opened it. Inside, the too-small ribbon bracelet and the silver feather pin lay quietly. She fastened the bracelet back onto her wrist.
Then, she picked up her brush.
There was no plan, no preliminary sketch. Her mind was filled with a single, vivid, indelible image.
She mixed the warmest gold, like molten sunset, and covered the canvas with it. Then, with soft, fluid strokes, she sketched the silhouette of a swing set.
On one of the swings sat a little girl in a school uniform. She had beautiful pink hair that shimmered in the light. She was holding a stuffed rabbit, her head tilted slightly, a pure, unblemished smile on her face.
And in her eyes, there were stars.
Ena painted with a focus that bordered on trance. She forgot time, forgot hunger, forgot the sky outside her window turning from black to white. All of her longing, guilt, relief, and hope poured from her heart, through her arm, and out of the tip of the brush.
She painted the way the light kissed Mizuki’s hair, the way the wind lifted the hem of her skirt. She painted the small, perfect bow barrette. She painted the one-of-a-kind shoes, with their kitten and their flowers.
She sealed every precious, impossible moment they had shared onto the canvas.
This was a painting that would have no client revisions. This was a painting that needed to prove nothing to anyone. It was a secret, shared only between her and the child who lived in the past.
As she laid down the final brushstroke, the first ray of dawn broke through the window, spilling onto the canvas. The girl in the painting seemed to come alive, smiling gently at her in the morning light.
Ena stepped back and looked at her work. It was, without a doubt, the most honest, most emotionally resonant painting she had ever created.
She thought, perhaps, she finally knew what she was meant to paint.
She walked to her desk, opened her computer, and created a new folder.
She named it—
To My Little Magician.