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The floorboards near the entrance of the tiny shop still bore a faint, dark water stain shaped vaguely like a crescent moon. Jo looked down at it as he moved his broom, pushing a small pile of dust toward the metal pan. Every time he cleaned that specific corner near the art history section, his mind went back to that late autumn afternoon.
He was twenty-one then, still adjusting to the quiet weight of running the shop alone after his uncle stepped away. The shop was a maze of towering cedar shelves that always smelled faintly of dried vanilla and old glue—it was a predictable and an insular world, but Jo always liked it that way.
Until the door had slammed open against the wall, nearly rattling the glass panes.
A young man—Nicholas—had practically been blown inside by a sudden October squall. He was clutching a leather portfolio tightly against his chest, his knuckles white, while water streamed from the hem of his dark jacket directly onto the welcome mat. His umbrella was ruined, the metal ribs snapped, and were poking out at useless angles.
"I'm sorry," Nicholas had managed, his teeth visibly chattering as he tried to brush wet strands of hair out of his eyes.
The words were perfectly polite, but Jo caught it instantly—the slight, careful deliberation in the syllables, the vowels just a fraction rounder than a native speaker's. It was a beautiful, crispy sort of Japanese, spoken with a cautious precision that made Jo pause.
Nicholas stayed strictly on the mat, looking mortified. Wet, jet-black hair fell across his brow, partially obscuring dark eyes that were strikingly sharp and tilted slightly upward at the corners. Even soaked and shivering, there was an effortless, neat symmetry to his face—a straight, prominent nose and a sharp jawline countered by the soft, slight pink of his lips as he bit down on his lower one in embarrassment.
"I just—the wind took my umbrella two blocks back," Nicholas explained, his voice dropping slightly as he gestured down at his boots. "Can I just stand by the door for five minutes until the worst of it passes? I won't touch any of the merchandise, I swear."
Jo did not move immediately. He let the words hang in the quiet air of the shop, his gaze shifting from the puddle rapidly forming on the woven welcome mat up to the stranger's dripping jacket. Nicholas shifted his weight uncomfortably under the scrutiny, tightening his grip on the leather portfolio as if expecting to be politely asked to leave.
Instead, Jo set his broom against the nearest shelf. He walked out from behind the counter, stopping a few feet away from the entrance line.
"If you stand right there, the draft from the glass is just going to keep making you shiver," Jo said, his tone casual, lacking any of the formal rigidity of a typical shopkeeper. He pointed toward a small, cast-iron radiator tucked between two shelves a little further in. "Step inside, mister. Pull off those boots, so you don't track the mud, and you can leave your portfolio on the dry bench over there."
Nicholas hesitated, looking down at his soaked laces and then back at Jo. "Are you sure? I really am making a mess."
"The wood is used to it," Jo replied, already turning on his heel toward the small back room where a small electric kettle was always kept on standby. "Just give me a second."
When Jo returned, he was holding a clean, thick grey towel and a steaming ceramic mug of roasted barley tea.
"Take this," Jo said, stepping forward to hand over the towel first. "And the tea, please drink it before it gets cold."
When Jo offered the mug, Nicholas looked up, his sharp features catching the warm light of the shop's overhead lamps. Seeing the stranger's lingering hesitation, Jo let out a laugh—a wide and bright unreserved smile that bared his teeth and crinkled the corners of his eye into dark crescents. It was the kind of expression that transformed Jo's face, radiating a warm, youthful energy that instantly made the quiet shop feel less like a formal business and more like a friend's living room.
Nicholas blinked, caught off guard by the sheer openness of the gesture, before a small, answering smile tugged at his own lips. "Thank you, I really appreciate it."
He took the tea, wrapping both of his freezing hands around the ceramic surface, letting out a long, shaky breath that smelled faintly of rain.
The five-minute storm had turned into a two-hour downpour. Nicholas had stood by the radiator at first, slowly drying off, but his eyes kept wandering. Within thirty minutes, he was drifting down the narrow aisles, his bare socks clicking softly on the wood since Jo had made him leave his soaked boots by the door.
Jo watched him from the front desk, ostensibly logging inventory but secretly tracking the way the stranger moved. The man was meticulous; he did not pull books out by their spines, instead using a single finger against the top edge to tip them forward carefully. When he reached the back corner, he paused, his fingers lingering on a thick, faded folio regarding pre-war architectural blueprints.
"That one has original hand-drawn plates in the appendix," Jo called out quietly, breaking the silence of the shop.
Nicholas looked back over his shoulder, his dark fringe falling slightly over his eyes. "Are you serious? Like, the 1924 edition?"
"Mhm. The cover is a bit battered, but the inside is pristine."
Nicholas brought the heavy book over the counter, lifting it with both hands to ensure the cracked leather corners did not rub against the wood. He set it down with a muted, heavy thud right in front of Jo, his long fingers instantly smoothing over the faded gold lettering on the corner.
"May I take a look at the folio?" Nicholas asked, his hand hovering over the edge of the first page.
"Go ahead," Jo said, leaning his hip against the edge of the desk, "It's been sitting on that shelf since the day I took over this shop. I think it's also feeling tired of being closed."
Nicholas turned the page; the thick, aged paper let out a dry, satisfying rasp under his thumb. As the first set of hand-drawn floor plans revealed themselves, he leaned down, his dark fringe falling forward as his eyes tracked the intricate grid lines and faded ink notations.
"Oh, look at the spacing here," Nicholas murmured, pointing a finger just a millimeter above the rendering of a curved archway. "They don't draw elevations like this anymore, like the symmetry is just—honest. Modern digital drafts lose the weight of the ink, you know? You can tell someone spent hours deciding on the exact thickness of this specific pillar."
Jo did not look at the archway; instead, his gaze settled on Nicholas's face, observing how his profile changed the moment he began to speak about the blueprints. The rigid posture from the doorway was gone; Nicholas was focused now, his thumb tracing the margins of the layout.
"Are you studying design?" Jo asked quietly.
Nicholas looked up, a faint, slightly sheepish expression crossing his features as he caught himself. "Ah, is it that obvious? Yes, I moved from Taiwan about a year ago for an architecture program here, so my Japanese still gets tangled up when I'm trying to order food or ask for directions, but…"
He offered a small smile, gesturing down at the vintage folio. "When it comes to these, the language is the same."
"Your Japanese sounds great, though," Jo countered, shifting his weight to lean his forearms on the counter, bringing himself closer to the open book. "And you don't sound tangled as you said to me. It just sounds like you take your time with the words."
Nicholas blinked, his dark eyes fixed on Jo for a brief second before he looked back down at the page, a subtle, warm tint appearing on the tips of his ears. "Thank you so much. I do worry about the accent sometimes, but with stuff like this, I forget to be careful."
He turned to the next section, detailing the cross-sections of an old train terminal, and began to pointing out the hidden support structures tucked beneath the grand lobby. Jo listened, entirely content to let the technical jargon wash over him. He did not know much about structural loads or classical pillars, but he watched the way Nicholas's sentences flowed whenever he talked about the drawings, his voice carrying a natural flow that filled the quiet space between them.
When the rain finally tapered off into a quiet drizzle, leaving the streetlights reflecting off the wet asphalt outside, Nicholas checked the clock on the wall and let out a small breath.
"I ruined your afternoon, didn't I?" he said, looking down at his socks before sliding his feet back into his stiff leather boots by the welcome mat.
Jo leaned his forearms on the glass counter, his dark hair falling forward as he looked up. "Not at all, to be very honest. I usually close early when it pours because the silence gets heavy. Let's just say—you kept the place alive today."
Nicholas paused with his hand on the brass doorknob, his thumb rubbing the worn strap of his portfolio. "I'm Nicholas, by the way. I've walked past that window a dozen times on my way to campus, but I guess it took a storm to actually get me through the door."
"Jo," he replied, his eyes crinkling into those familiar, bright crescents. "Well, you don't have to wait for a typhoon to come back, Nicholas."
With that invitation, Nicholas kept the promise. What started as a mutual excuse to escape the autumn chill quickly settled into a habit that neither of them was willing to break. Thursdays at four o'clock became fixed; Nicholas would slip past the threshold, shed his heavy jacket, and head straight for the back corner with a quiet nod of greeting.
Over the months, the space between the counter and the aisles began to shrink. When the shop was empty, Nicholas would bring his university drafting assignments over to Jo's desk, spreading large sheets of tracing paper over the dark wood. Jo would work on re-binding frayed spines, comfortable with the steady scratching of Nicholas's mechanical pencil beside him.
"Nicholas, you're pressing too hard," Jo murmured one afternoon, not looking up from the linen thread he was pulling through a signature. "You're going to tear the vellum if you keep using that lead."
Nicholas paused, his pencil hovering over the paper. He looked at the paper, then slanted a look at Jo, a rare, amused quirk at the corner of his mouth. "It's standard draft weight, Jo. I'm pretty sure the paper can handle it."
"The paper is older than both of us combined," Jo replied softly, finally tilting his head up to meet Nicholas's gaze, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Be gentle with it, okay?"
Nicholas stared at him for a second, his dark eyes unblinking, before he dropped his hand slightly. "Fine, show me how you do the corners then."
Sometimes, the routine spilled outside the cedar walls. On crisp winter nights after closing, they would wander down the narrow alleyways behind the train station, looking for cheap food. Jo remembered a particular January evening when they sat in a cramped, steaming ramen stall, the air so thick with broth vapor that Nicholas's eyelashes had fogged up.
"The interlocking joinery on the central beam is wrong for this kind of weight distribution," Nicholas had insisted, using a pair of bamboo chopsticks and a crumpled paper napkin to construct a makeshift truss system right next to his half-empty bowl. His voice was low but urgent, his sharp profile cutting cleanly through the rising steam as he gestured towards the ceiling. "If the snow load increases by even ten percent, this winter, the rafters will split right at the seam."
Jo had not looked at the rafters once. He simply rested his chin in his hand, his bowl of noodles growing cold as he watched the animated light in Nicholas's eyes, captivated by the foreign, elegant lilt in his words when he forgot to be guarded.
"You're not even looking," Nicholas said suddenly, breaking off his explanation. He lowered the chopsticks, catching Jo's fixed stare.
"I am looking," Jo said smoothly, his voice dropping into a quiet, honest cadence that made Nicholas blink. "The rafters look fine from here."
Nicholas's throat moved as he swallowed, his fingers tightening slightly around the chopsticks. He did not look away, but the tips of his ears turned a distinct pink against the black of his hair. "Eat your dinner, Jo," he muttered, turning his attention strictly back to his soup, though his movements were suddenly much slower.
It was during those small, unprompted moments that the shift happened—subtle, gradual, and unacknowledged. It was the way Nicholas would automatically buy two cans of warm coffee from the vending machine instead of one, dropping the second onto Jo's ledger without a word, waiting until Jo's hands wrapped around the metal before walking away. It was how Jo found himself ordering a specific foreign design magazine he knew his shop did not usually carry, solely to watch the sharp, reserved lines of Nicholas's features soften when he discovered them on the display table.
They had grown protective of each other's presence, hiding the growing weight of their feelings behind the easy, familiar safety of shared spaces.
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Almost a full year slipped by in that quiet fashion, and Jo was turning twenty-two today. The polite hesitation of their first meeting had long dissolved into an easy, unbroken understanding, but as the clock crept toward the late afternoon, Jo still found himself tracking the minute hand, waiting for the familiar weight of the door to swing open.
The brass chime above the entrance let out its low, familiar rattle exactly at four o'clock, ushering in a brief gust of the humid air from the street outside.
Jo did not look up immediately. He kept his head bowed over the counter, his dark hair falling over his forehead as he applied a microscopic bead of archival glue to the split spine of a nineteenth-century poetry volume. He worked with a tiny, fine-tipped brush, his movements steady and deliberate. The shop was still, thick with its usual scent of decomposing paper, dried lavender sachets, and the bitter, melted remains of the cold brew coffee sitting in a sweating glass near his elbows.
"You're still working on a day like this," a voice noted from the threshold.
Jo's hand halted, the brush hovering a fraction of an inch above the exposed binding. A familiar warmth hit his chest before he even raised his chin. He set the brush down carefully on a small ceramic rest and looked up, a broad, unreserved smile already breaking across his face, baring his teeth and crinkling his eyes into dark crescents.
Nicholas stood just inside the door, letting the screen swing shut behind him. He was not carrying his usual canvas tote bag today—the one that usually overflowed with heavy art history textbooks or architectural journals. Instead, he wore a neat, dark jean jacket over a black hoodie, his hands tucked loosely into his pockets. A few jet-black strands of his fringe were damp from the city's humidity, clinging slightly to his temple, and his sharp jawline carried a faint flush, as if he had hurried down the block to get here before four.
"The glue takes a couple of hours to set properly," Jo replied, pulling a linen cloth from his back pocket to wipe his fingers. "Besides, the brick stays cool in here. What brings you by on a Wednesday? I thought you had a massive review session for your studio project today."
"I did. It wrapped up an hour ago," Nicholas said, walking down the central aisle toward the desk. He did not drift toward his usual corner in the back, nor did he look at the display tables. He stopped directly across from Jo, leaning his hips against the edge of the glass counter. Without the massive book bag separating them, the distance between them felt exceptionally close. "But I had an errand to run before the trains get crowded—specifically an errand here."
Jo tilted his head, his eyes tracking the sharp symmetry of Nicholas's profile as the older boy looked down at the counter. "An errand? Did you need me to hold the lithography print for you?"
"No," Nicholas said softly.
He pulled his right hand from his jacket pocket and placed a small, rectangular parcel on the flat of his palm. It was wrapped meticulously in plain brown butcher paper, the edges folded with precision and secured with a single, tight knot of hemp twine. He held it out toward Jo, keeping it steady between them.
Jo looked from the neatly wrapped package up to Nicholas's face. Nicholas's expression was carefully guarded, his straight, prominent nose catching the soft overhead light of the shop, but he was biting down slightly on his lower lip—a small, telltale habit he only fell into when he was thoroughly nervous.
"Is it for me?" Jo asked, his voice dropping into a quieter register. He reached out but did not take it yet. "What is it?"
"Happy birthday, Jo."
The words were spoken with a quiet, cautious precision, the vowels carrying that faint, rounded lilt that Jo had grown to listen for over the past year.
Jo froze, his fingers hovering just above the twine. He had not told Nicholas the date. They had shared dozens of dinners, spent hours talking about old buildings and rare print editions behind this very counter, but they had never explicitly talked about calendars or aging.
"How did you even know?" Jo asked, looking up with genuine bewilderment.
Nicholas shifted his weight, his slightly upturned eyes darting down to the floorboards for a split second before returning to Jo's. A distinct pink hue was creeping up the tips of his ears. "You complained about it in April," he murmured, his voice low. "We were walking back from the noodle stall in the rain, and you said you hated turning a year older in July because the dead of summer makes everything feel too heavy and sluggish to celebrate. I just… well, kinda noted it down."
A sudden tightness formed in Jo's throat, completely unrelated to the humid air. The fact that Nicholas had carried that passing, half-mumbled complaint in his head for months felt weightier than any grand gesture. Jo reached forward and took the package from Nicholas's palm. Their fingers brushed—a brief contact where Jo's warm skin met the cool texture of Nicholas's hand.
"Thank you very much, Nicholas," Jo said, his voice softer now, his usual wide smile replaced by something more gentle, his eyes locked onto Nicholas's face. "Can I open it?"
Nicholas immediately placed a hand over the top of the parcel, his long fingers gently pressing down against Jo's to stop him. "Don't—I mean, not right now."
Jo blinked. "Why not?"
"Open it later," Nicholas said, a small, slightly playful curve finally touching his lips as he pulled his hand back and tucked it into his pocket. "When you close up the shop for the evening, and it's quiet. I want you to read it when you're alone."
"Read it?" Jo caught the word, his thumb tracing the rough twine.
"You'll see," Nicholas replied, stepping back from the counter. "I'm heading out of town early tomorrow morning. My family flew into Japan for a visit from Taiwan today, but they're travelling straight up to a resort in Hakone first thing tomorrow. I'm meeting them there at the station for a weekend trip, so I have to spend tonight packing and getting my place ready. I won't be back in the city until Sunday."
Jo's shoulders dropped a fraction. "So you're going to be away for the whole weekend?"
"Yeah," Nicholas said, looking a little sheepish as he rubbed the back of his neck, his dark hair shifting over his collar. "It's my birthday tomorrow, actually—July 9th. My parents kinda refused to let me spend it alone in my apartment since I'm turning twenty-four, so they planned this whole trip for my birthday."
The words hung in the quiet space between the shelves. July 9th.
Jo stared at him, his mind instantly mapping the dates. "Tomorrow is your birthday?" he repeated, his thumb pressing hard against the brown paper wrapper. "Like—the tomorrow? July 9th?"
"A twenty-four hour difference," Nicholas said, offering a small, genuine smile that softened the sharp lines of his face. "We're right next to each other. What a funny coincidence, isn't it? Anyway, I really should get going—I still have a mountain of laundry and packing to finish tonight. I'll see you next Tuesday, okay?"
Before Jo could find his voice to wish him properly a happy birthday in return, or to protest that he was being left empty-handed on the cusp of their days joining together, the brass chime above the door let out its low, resonant sigh.
The screen door clicked shut. Nicholas walked out into the blinding July sunlight, his figure disappearing past the frosted glass window within seconds. Jo was left alone in the dim, lavender-scented shop, holding the heavy paper package against his chest, the ticking of the grandfather clock suddenly sounding incredibly loud against the silence.
The door had barely clicked shut behind Nicholas before the package on the counter began to feel like a magnet, drawing Jo's gaze every time he tried to focus on his work. For the remaining hour and a half of his shift, the plain brown butcher paper seemed to mock his resolve. Twice, his hand wandered toward the hemp twine, his fingers itching to unravel the knot just a fraction to peek inside, but each time Nicholas's voice echoed in his head, pulling his fingers back: Open it later.
Nicholas had spoken with such emphasis that Jo felt an odd protective instinct over the request. He forced himself back to his ledger, matching Nicholas's careful precision with his own stubborn patience, counting down the minutes until the afternoon heat finally began to break.
The grandfather clock in the corner let out a heavy groan before striking six times, the sound vibrating faintly through the wooden floorboards. Jo did not wait for the final chime to fade. He flipped the sign on the glass door to Closed, slid the heavy brass deadbolt forward with a solid click, and pulled down the linen shade to shut out the remaining amber glare of the afternoon heat.
The shop instantly settled into a profound quiet, save for the distant, low rumble of a commuter train passing a few blocks over.
Jo walked back to the desk, his hands feeling uncharacteristically stiff. He sat down on the high wooden stool and pulled the brown paper package into the small circle of warm light cast by his desk lamp. His fingers worked clumsily at the tight knot Nicholas had tied, unravelling the twine with a rough scratch before peeling back the thick butcher paper, careful not to rip the edges.
Inside lay a book.
It was not a rare architectural folio or an expensive vintage edition. It was a modest, dark blue cloth-bound copy of Natsume Sōseki's Kokoro—the exact, slightly battered volume that had been sitting on the bargain shelf near the front window for months. Jo recognized the faded water spot on the upper left corner of the cover instantly; Nicholas had bought it from him three weeks ago for a few hundred yen.
Jo ran his thumb over the rough fabric, a quiet, puzzled expression crossing his face.
He tilted the spine, and as he did, he noticed the edges of the pages were not flush. Tiny, square pieces of pale yellow paper peeked out from the margins like small flags.
Jo opened the book to the first marker, tucked into the early pages of a new chapter. Slipped neatly between the sheets was a small sticky note. Written across it in dark black ink was Nicholas's handwriting—the characters neat. sharp, and slightly stylized, carrying that same careful deliberation that defined his spoken Japanese.
Page XX.
The author talks about how some people are naturally drawn to quiet places. It made me think of the first time I saw this shop through the glass. I was freezing, and the light inside looked so warm. I almost didn't come in because I thought I'd look ridiculous dripping on your rug, but I'm glad the wind broke my umbrella that day.
Jo let out a slow breath, his chest tightening. He traced the slant of the ink lines with his index finger before carefully turning the pages to find the second marker, placed further deep into the story where the narrator describes a long evening spent sharing tea.
Page XX.
This section reminded me of last November, when the radiator in the back aisle kept clicking and making that horrible noise. You spent an hour trying to fix it with an old wrench, and your face was covered in rust smudges. You looked so proud when it finally stopped rattling. I didn't care about the noise, honestly. I just like sitting there while you work.
A quiet laugh escaped Jo's lips, his fingers pressing against his mouth as a warm flush crept up his neck. He remembered that afternoon vividly—how his hands had been shaking because Nicholas had been watching him over the top of his textbook. He had thought Nicholas was just being polite, but Nicholas had been paying attention.
He kept flipping, his movements growing faster, his heart knocking against his ribs as he unearthed a map of an entirely hidden world.
Page XX.
The characters are talking about how difficult it is to say what you actually mean. My professor told me my accent gets heavier when I'm tired. On Thursdays, by the time I walk into the shop after studio, my brain is usually dead—but when you look up and smile like that—the one where your eyes disappear completely—I forget that I'm tired. Weirdly, it makes me forget that I'm in a different country.
Jo stopped, the paper rough against his fingertips. The words were bare, lacking any of the guarded hesitation Nicholas usually wore like a shield. It was a confession delivered in silence, left for Jo to find in the dark after the door had already closed.
Jo frantically turned toward the very back of the book, tracking the last two yellow flags. As he neared the final pages, his eyes caught the numbers—one was firmly placed on Page 8, and right behind it, another page on Page 9.
Jo unfolded the note on Page 8 first, his thumb trembling slightly against the edge.
Happy birthday, Jo. You told me you hated turning a year older in the summer because the heat makes everything too sluggish to celebrate, but I hope this book isn't too heavy for you. I wanted to give you something that belonged to your shop, so you'd know that even when I'm browsing the shelves, I'm always looking at you. I have liked you for a long time, Jo—more than I know how to say in your language.
The directness of the last sentence hit him like a physical weight, making his breath catch completely. He did not even wait to process the sudden heat in his face before his fingers flew to the next page, pulling out the note on Page 9.
I have to go to Hakone tomorrow because my parents are making me, but I don't really want to go. I keep thinking about how our birthdays are only separated by a single night. It feels unfair that I have to spend the beginning of my day on a train away from here. But anyway, happy birthday, Jo. I wish I were spending it with you. :)
Jo stood up so fast his wooden stool shrieked loudly against the floorboards, the sharp sound cutting through the stillness of the empty shop. He stared down at the cloth-bound book, his chest tightening as he closed it with careful precision, making sure the small yellow flags did not bend.
I have liked you for a long time, Jo.
The line burned behind his eyes, and suddenly, the full weight of it hit him all at once. Jo clapped both hands over his face, his palms doing nothing to hide the blistering flush that crawled rapidly from his neck up to his cheeks and the tips of his ears.
"He likes me," Jo muttered into his hands, his voice a breathless, disbelieving scramble. "Nicholas likes me—he actually…"
He dropped his hands, pacing a restless three-step circle behind the counter, his mind spinning out of control. He looked down at his reflection in the glass of the display case—dark hair slightly messy from his fingers running through it, a plain linen apron, and a face that he considered ordinary.
"What does he even see in me?" Jo mumbled to the empty shop, a helpless laugh bubbling up in his throat. Nicholas was the definition of sharp, neat, incredibly talented, and striking in many aspects. Yet, Nicholas had been sitting in his corner aisle, month after month, memorizing the way Jo looked when he smiled, tracking the smudge of rust on his nose, and carrying a half-forgotten summer complaint in his head for an entire year.
The realization turned his panic into a sudden, clear surge of adrenaline. He glanced up at the clock—6:25 PM. He had less than six hours before his own birthday ended and Nicholas's began. Nicholas had walked out under the assumption that his quiet admission was safe, tucked away until he was already on an express train to Hakone.
Jo was not about to let him spend the eve of his birthday alone in the quiet apartment, surrounded by half-packed suitcases and laundry. But he could not just show up at his door empty-handed—not after what Nicholas had left on his counter.
He dropped to his knees behind the front desk, pulling open the heavy bottom drawer where he kept his personal inventory—the items too delicate or rare to expose to casual browsers. His hands moved quickly past marble-edged ledgers and vintage sketchbooks until his fingers brushed against a thick, textured spine.
He pulled it out—it was a blank, leather-bound journal from the late 1970s. The cover was a rich, oiled espresso brown that smelled faintly of cedar oil and old workshop shelves. When he cracked it open, the heavy, unlined cotton pages stayed flat. It was perfect for architectural sketches, ink drafts, or thoughts.
Jo pulled the fountain pen from his pocket, the cool metal steadying his grip as he twisted off the cap. Sitting back down under the yellow pool of light from the desk lamp, he stared at the blank journal. His fingers were still trembling from the residual shock of Nicholas's words, but the moment he pressed the gold nib to the first sheet of cream-colored paper, he forced his posture to settle. He owed Nicholas the same deliberate, unhurried precision that had been left on the pages of Kokoro.
He bypassed the opening leaves entirely, thumbing deep into the heart of the journal until he reached Page 8.
With slow pressure, he let the black ink bleed into the fibrous cotton grain, thinking of every afternoon that had anchored his past year:
I used to think this shop was just a place to keep vintage things from falling apart. I didn't realize it was just waiting for someone to walk in and bring it to life. Thank you for remembering the rain, the radiator, and my smile. I've been looking at you too, Nicholas—every single time.
He waited a few seconds, watching the gloss of the wet ink dull as the paper drank it in. He turned the leaf to Page 9, his eyes tracking the blank space where he was about to lay down everything he had been too cowardly to say aloud over convenience-store coffee and lukewarm ramen.
Happy 24th birthday, Nicholas. You asked me not to open your gift in the shop, but I think you already knew I would have run after you the second I read it. You don't ever have to choose your words carefully around me, or worry about finding the right ones. I like the rhythm of your voice exactly how it is, and I understand everything you're trying to say. I think I need to say this as well—I like you too, Nicholas, so much more than you realize.
Jo capped the pen, the small plastic click echoing sharply against the cedar shelves. He closed the leather cover, smoothed a fresh square of brown butcher paper over the hide, and pulled a length of black cotton ribbon from the wrapping station, tying it off with a tight, double-knotted bow.
By the time he threw his keys into his pocket and turned the heavy brass deadbolt of the tiny shop, the summer twilight had dissolved into a thick, ink-blue night. The city streetlamps cast a hazy glow over the asphalt as Jo broke into a brisk walk down the main avenue. His mind was spinning, calculating the distance to the northern residential district, the internal dialogue running on a loop against the sound of his boots.
Don't look at the time, Jo. Just keep moving—he's still there. He has to be.
Halfway there, he skidded to a brief halt at the corner near the train station line, his eyes catching the glowing glass storefront of the small patisserie. It was the place Nicholas always paused at whenever they walked home together after dark, pretending to check his phone while actually eyeing the pastry displays.
Jo stepped inside, the blast of air conditioning hitting his flushed face. He stood before the glass, his eyes darting across the shelves. Something small, he thought, something he doesn't have to pack into the fridge. He settled on a simple strawberry shortcake, watching the clerk slide it into a small white cardboard box and loop a coarse red string around the top. As he took the box, threading the twine around his index finger, he could not help but stare at the plastic fork tucked into the side.
Two forks, he wanted to ask, but his voice caught. This was impulsive and uncharacteristic of him, but the sheer thrill of it kept his feet moving.
Two doors down, the late-night flower stall was throwing its leftover buckets onto the pavements. Jo stopped, his eyes skimming past the bright, multi-colored arrangements until they landed on a single, unadorned stem of a white lily sitting in a pale green bucket. Its heavy, pale petals looked clean, smelling faintly of cold water and crushed stems.
It's simple, Jo reasoned, counting out the coins into the florist's calloused palm. Nicholas likes clean lines, and he likes things that don't need a lot of decoration to be beautiful.
With the leather journal tucked safely into the deep pocket of his tote bag, the cake box balanced by its string, and the cool stem of the lily held loosely in his right hand, Jo lengthened his stride, cutting away from the main avenue into the quieter, narrower side streets. The humidity seemed to cling to his shirt, but he barely noticed the sweat at his collar. All he could think about was those confessions that he read in the small yellow notes.
The clock on his phone screen read 11:45 PM by the time his boots hit the concrete steps of Nicholas's building. The outdoor metal staircase creaked under his weight as he climbed to the third landing, the ambient roar of the distant highway traffic fading into the background, replaced by the heavy thud of his own pulse in his ears.
Exactly fifteen minutes until midnight, until the calendar rolled over and separated their days.
Jo stood outside the dull, olive-colored metal door, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. He shifted the string of the cake box to his left hand, cleared his throat to dispel the tightness there, and knocked three times, firm and clear, against the metal.
For a long, tense moment, the only sound on the concrete landing was the metallic hum of the air conditioning units lining the balcony wall. Jo tightened his grip on the smooth green stem of the white lily, his pulse hammering an erratic rhythm directly against the leather-bound journal hidden in his jacket pocket.
Inside the apartment, there was a sudden, sharp clatter—the sound of a plastic hanger or something heavy dropping onto the floorboards—followed by the hurried, uneven friction of bare feet sliding across linoleum.
The security chain rattled, and the lock turned with a heavy, definitive scrape, and the dull metal door swung outward.
Nicholas stood in the doorway, completely frozen. He was wearing an oversized, faded black t-shirt, his hair thoroughly disheveled as if his fingers had been tearing through it for hours, and his eyes were wide with an unshielded shock. Behind him, the small entryway was absolute chaos—a half-zipped canvas duffel bag sat skewed on the floor, surrounded by neat piles of folded shirts and a stray roll of clear packing tape.
"Jo?" Nicholas breathed. The careful, rounded precision he usually maintained when speaking Japanese failed him, his voice cracking on the syllable. He stared down at the small cardboard box hanging from Jo's finger, then at the single lily, before his eyes flew back up to lock onto Jo's face, tracing the dark fringe damp with sweat and the burning red flush on his cheeks. "What… why are you here? It's almost midnight."
"You left your book," Jo said, his voice coming out a little rough from the run but incredibly clear, cutting right through the heavy summer air.
Nicholas blinked, his throat moving as he swallowed. A defensive, guarded look instantly crossed his sharp features, his jaw tightening as his shoulders braced against the doorframe. "Jo, I… you weren't supposed to open that package until I left. If the notes made you uncomfortable, you could have just thrown them away. You didn't have to walk all this way just to—"
"I'm not here to tell you no, Nicholas," Jo interrupted, his voice rising enough to snap the older boy out of his spiral.
Nicholas went rigid, his dark eyes unblinking as he stuck fast to the threshold.
"I ran the whole way here because you're a coward," Jo continued, taking a decisive step forward until his boots were right at the edge of the entryway, his tone dropping into a breathless cadence. "You wrote all those things in the book, and then you planned to hide away in Hakone for three days because you assumed I was going to turn you down. You thought I didn't see you? You thought I didn't notice how you take your coffee, or the exact way your profile changes when you look at the old blueprints, or how the tips of your ears turn pink when you're flustered?"
Nicholas stared at him, his lips parting slightly, completely overwhelmed by the sudden, torrential velocity of Jo's words. He looked bare under the yellow porch light, stripped of his usual cool, quiet composure.
"I ordered some foreign design magazines because I wanted a reason to keep you sitting at my desk," Jo confessed, his chest heaving as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the espresso-brown leather journal, thrusting it forward alongside the cake box and the lily. "And I stayed up past closing to fill this for you—I'm not letting you go to the mountains thinking you're alone. I like you, Nicholas. I like you so much that it makes me stupid. I've liked you since the day the wind broke your umbrella, and you came dripping onto my rug."
The silence that followed was breathless, thick with the scent of crushed lily stem between them. Nicholas looked down at the bundle of gifts in Jo's hands—the single flower, the strawberry shortcake from the shop he always lingered outside of, and the meticulously wrapped leather.
A sudden, sharp breath hitched in Nicholas's chest. The rigid line of his shoulders broke, and he let out a low, shaky laugh that sounded close to a sob. He reached out, his long fingers trembling as he carefully took the string of the cake box and the flower from Jo's hand, setting them down blindly on the shoe cabinet inside the entryway without ever taking his eyes off Jo.
"I was so terrified," Nicholas murmured, his voice thick, the foreign, elegant lilt of his words unraveled by the weight of it. He stepped right across the threshold into the humid night air, his hands reaching out to catch the lapels of Jo's jacket, pulling him close until there was not a single inch of space left between them. "I was so afraid that you'd reject me, Jo. I packed my bag three times tonight because I didn't know what I'd do if I walked into the shop on Tuesday and you wouldn't look at me. That's the only reason I agreed to go with my family—I just needed an excuse to run away before you could tell me no."
"I'm looking at you right now," Jo whispered, his wide, bright smile finally breaking through his exhaustion, his eyes crinkling into those dark crescents as his arms wrapped firmly around Nicholas's waist, pulling the older boy down into his space. "I always had my eyes on you, and I could never say no to you. You know that, Nicholas,"
Somewhere down by the tracks, a distant train horn echoed, and the screen of Jo's phone lit up inside his pocket, the clock silently flipping to 12:00 AM.
July 9th.
Nicholas leaned down, burying his face into the crook of Jo's neck, his shoulders shaking slightly as he held on as if Jo were the only solid thing left in the city. "Happy birthday, Jo," he whispered against his skin, his breath warm and uneven.
Jo tightened his grip around Nicholas's back, pressing a soft, lingering kiss against the damp hair at his temple. "Happy birthday, Nicholas."
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