Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

February had emptied most of the park before evening properly settled.

The path was still damp from old snow, the edges of it dark where boots and paws had pressed the frost into the ground, and the bare trees stood close together beneath a pale sky that seemed to lose colour by the minute. Lamps had already begun glowing along the wider paths, though their light did little more than catch on branches, metal railings, and the thin mist of breath that appeared whenever Sanemi exhaled.

He walked with one hand buried deep in the pocket of his coat and the other wrapped around the dog’s leash, his phone held in front of him at an angle that showed Mitsuri more of his shoulder than his face whenever the dog changed direction without warning.

Mitsuri did not seem bothered by it.

Her face remained bright on the screen beneath the warm light of the room she shared with her husband, her long pink hair gathered loosely over one shoulder while she sat at a small desk with several folders spread around her laptop. She had brought work home again, though judging by the mug near her elbow and the untouched stack of papers beside it, Sanemi doubted she had made much progress since calling him.

Behind her, the room looked lived-in in a way Sanemi’s apartment rarely did. A blanket had been left folded over the end of the sofa, two mismatched mugs sat on the low table, and one of Iguro’s black sweaters hung over the back of a chair even though Mitsuri had complained more than once that he never put anything in the laundry basket unless she reminded him.

The dog stopped again.

Sanemi’s arm pulled forward before he caught the tension in the leash and looked down. The animal had planted all four paws beside the trunk of a tree, nose pressed close to a patch of frozen grass as though the entire walk had been leading to that exact place.

Sanemi waited.

The dog kept sniffing.

“Come on,” he said, giving the leash a small tug that was patient only because he had already wasted the energy required to become annoyed at the previous six trees. “You were here yesterday.”

The dog did not move.

On the screen, Mitsuri leaned closer, trying to see what had stopped them.

“Is he refusing to walk again?”

Sanemi turned the camera down for a moment, showing her the dog planted stubbornly beside the tree.

“He’s been standing there forever.”

Mitsuri’s expression softened as she watched the animal’s nose move intently over the frozen ground.

“He must have found something interesting.”

“It’s dirt.”

She laughed quietly, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear while Sanemi turned the camera back toward himself.

“He still looks happy.”

Sanemi glanced down again. The dog’s ears lifted briefly at the sound of Mitsuri’s voice, though he did not abandon whatever scent had caught his attention.

“Yeah, well, he can be happy while moving.”

He gave the leash another gentle pull. This time the dog finally took one reluctant step, looked back at the tree as though leaving unfinished business behind, then followed him toward the wider path.

Mitsuri was still smiling when a door opened somewhere behind her.

She turned her head before Sanemi could see who had entered, and the change in her face was immediate but small, the kind of softness that came from recognising someone without needing to think about it.

Iguro stepped into view wearing dark pyjama trousers and a loose shirt, his hair slightly flattened on one side as though he had only recently got up from the sofa. He carried two mugs, one in each hand, and paused when he noticed Sanemi on the screen.

“Sanemi,” he said, his voice still rough with sleep as he lifted one mug in greeting.

Sanemi shifted the phone higher and looked at him properly for a moment.

“You look half-dead.”

Iguro took a slow sip of coffee without reacting to the insult. His eyes moved over Sanemi’s coat, then down toward the bare hand holding the leash.

“You’re outside without gloves again,” he said, looking unimpressed.

Sanemi glanced at his hand as though he had only just noticed it himself, then looked away instead of answering.

Mitsuri watched the two of them with a smile she was trying not to make too obvious. She had long stopped expecting their greetings to sound friendly, even when they were.

Iguro came closer and set the second mug beside her laptop. Mitsuri’s attention dropped to it, her eyes brightening when she recognised what he had made.

“You made mine too?” she asked, wrapping both hands around the cup before she had even taken a sip.

Iguro rested one hand on the back of her chair and looked over the papers spread across the desk.

“You’ve been sitting here long enough to forget it yourself,” he said, though his tone held no irritation.

Mitsuri tipped her face up toward him, a little sheepish now.

“I was almost done.”

Iguro looked at the untouched stack beside her elbow, then back at her.

He did not say anything.

The silence was enough.

Mitsuri’s shoulders lifted with a quiet laugh, and she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“I’m closer than I was before.”

Iguro’s expression softened despite himself. He leaned down and pressed a brief kiss to her temple, his fingers brushing lightly over her shoulder before he straightened again.

Mitsuri caught the sleeve of his shirt before he could move away and turned her face toward him. Iguro bent down once more, allowing her to kiss him properly this time.

Sanemi watched the whole thing with a flat expression.

“You know I’m still here.”

Mitsuri looked back at the screen, her cheeks warming slightly, though she did not let go of Iguro’s sleeve.

“I know,” she said, smiling into the rim of her mug.

Iguro glanced toward the phone again, one hand still resting on the back of her chair.

“You could look away.”

“I shouldn’t have to.”

Mitsuri laughed softly between them, lowering her head for a moment as though that might hide how amused she was.

Iguro gave Sanemi a small nod, then brushed his thumb once over Mitsuri’s shoulder.

“Don’t stay up too late,” he said to her, his voice quieter now.

Mitsuri looked up at him with an expression that made it clear she had heard the same request many times before and rarely followed it.

“I won’t.”

Iguro’s gaze moved once more over the papers.

Mitsuri took a sip of coffee and avoided looking at him.

He let the promise pass without comment, though the corner of his mouth tightened in faint disbelief. Before leaving, he bent down and pressed one last kiss near her hairline.

“Good night, Shinazugawa,” he said over his shoulder as he walked out of the room.

Sanemi adjusted the leash when the dog wandered toward the edge of the path.

“Night.”

Mitsuri kept watching the doorway for a second after Iguro disappeared, both hands resting around the warm mug.

When she turned back to the screen, the smile had not quite left her face.

Sanemi noticed.

“You’re ridiculous.”

Mitsuri lowered her eyes toward the coffee, still smiling as she traced one thumb over the side of the cup.

“He remembered the cinnamon.”

Sanemi gave a quiet sound and looked ahead again.

“You’ve been married long enough. He should know how you drink it.”

“He does,” she said, her voice warm with simple satisfaction rather than excitement. “That’s why I like it.”

Sanemi glanced back at the screen.

Mitsuri had already picked up her pen again, though one hand remained curled around the mug Iguro had brought her.

He shook his head once and kept walking.

The affection in Mitsuri’s expression did not fade. She took a careful sip and settled back into her chair, one leg folding beneath her as she returned her attention to Sanemi.

“He still makes it better than I do.”

Sanemi gave a quiet sound that could have meant anything, though the corner of his mouth moved slightly before he looked away from the screen.

Their conversations often settled into this rhythm without either of them working for it. Mitsuri told stories with her whole face, her hands moving even when the camera caught only part of the gesture, while Sanemi answered more through tone than words. She never seemed bothered by the difference. She filled what she wanted to fill and left the rest alone.

“How was the meeting after I left?” she asked, placing the mug beside her laptop before reaching for the pen tucked between two folders.

Sanemi started walking again once the dog finally stopped looking back toward the tree.

“Long.”

Mitsuri glanced up from the document she had begun marking.

“Was Hinata still arguing about the deadline?”

“He spent most of the meeting explaining why the timeline needs another week.”

Her mouth curved with quiet amusement, though she tried to hide it by lowering her attention to the page.

“He did say the presentation needed more impact.”

“He said ‘impact’ fourteen times.”

That made her look up.

“Did you count?”

“Well…I had nothing else to do.”

Mitsuri’s shoulders shook with a soft laugh, and she covered her mouth when Iguro called something indistinctly from the other room, apparently asking why she was making noise instead of working.

“I’m working,” she called back, though her smile made the claim unconvincing.

Sanemi waited until she looked at the screen again.

“You’re doing a great job.”

She narrowed her eyes at him without losing the smile, then returned to her notes while he followed the path toward the pond.

The dog had finally stopped looking back toward the tree and moved ahead with more purpose now, nose lowered near the edge of the path as though the next few metres required his full attention. Sanemi let him take the lead, keeping the leash loose between two fingers while Mitsuri turned a page on her desk and began marking something near the bottom with quick strokes of her pen.

For a little while, neither of them said anything.

The silence did not feel empty. Mitsuri worked with her lower lip caught lightly between her teeth, glancing up every few seconds to make sure Sanemi had not disappeared from the call, while Sanemi watched the pale mist of his breath drift past the phone screen and listened to the soft scratch of her pen through the speaker. The quiet suited him better than conversation did most evenings, and Mitsuri had known him long enough not to mistake that for boredom.

The path widened as it approached the pond.

The lamps stood farther apart there, leaving long stretches of pavement in shadow, and the water beyond the railing looked almost black beneath the fading sky. A few ducks moved near the reeds, their bodies cutting slow lines through the surface, while an older couple passed on the opposite side with their arms linked close together against the cold.

Mitsuri looked up from her papers.

“Are you still near the pond?” she asked, her voice softer now that she had settled back into work, and she leaned slightly toward the screen as though trying to recognise the dark shapes behind him.

Sanemi turned the phone a little, showing her the path ahead and part of the water before bringing it back toward his face.

“Yeah,” he said, then glanced down when the dog wandered close to the railing. “He always drags me this way.”

Mitsuri smiled at the small glimpse of the dog’s back near the bottom of the screen.

“He likes it there,” she said, resting the pen against her cheek while she watched them walk. “You do too, even if you pretend you don’t.”

Sanemi looked at her for a second, his mouth pulling into a faint line that was not quite annoyance.

“I like it when no one else is here,” he said, shifting the leash around his wrist as the dog changed direction again. “That’s different.”

Mitsuri’s smile widened, though she did not argue with him. She only lowered her eyes toward the page and resumed writing, apparently satisfied with having heard something close enough to agreement.

The cold had begun settling more heavily into Sanemi’s hands.

He flexed the fingers around the leash and pushed his free hand deeper into his coat pocket, feeling the shape of his keys against his knuckles. The pressure behind his eyes had not become worse yet, but it lingered near his temples with enough weight to remind him that the tablets were still sitting untouched beside the sink.

Mitsuri noticed the way he squinted at the screen.

Her pen stopped moving.

“Is your head starting again?” she asked, concern slipping into her face before she could soften it, and her brows drew together as she studied him through the poor park lighting.

Sanemi lowered the phone slightly, more to avoid her stare than because he needed to see the path.

“It’s fine,” he said, rolling one shoulder beneath his coat as though discomfort could be shifted somewhere less obvious. “I’ll take something when I get back.”

Mitsuri watched him for a moment, her fingers still wrapped around the pen, then let out a small breath and nodded.

“Okay,” she said quietly, choosing not to press further, though the concern did not leave her eyes. “Just don’t forget again.”

Sanemi gave a short sound of agreement and kept walking.

The dog slowed near the fork in the path.

Usually, he turned toward the water without hesitation, pulling Sanemi along the curve that led to the old benches near the reeds. This time, he stopped so abruptly that the leash snapped taut between them.

Sanemi’s arm shifted forward.

He lowered the phone and looked down.

The dog no longer sniffed the ground. His head had lifted, ears drawn forward, while every part of his body seemed fixed on the older section of the park where the lamps stood farther apart and the trees grew closer to the path.

Sanemi followed his gaze.

At first, he saw nothing that explained the reaction.

A row of benches sat beneath the bare branches, most of them empty and silvered with frost. A lamp flickered near the far end of the path, its weak light catching on the edge of the pond and the metal arm of a waste bin.

“What is it?” Sanemi asked, his voice dropping without him meaning it to, and he shortened the leash when the dog took a careful step forward.

Mitsuri looked up immediately.

“What happened?” she asked, turning slightly in her chair as though the change in his voice had pulled her attention away from everything else.

Sanemi kept his eyes on the dog.

“He’s staring at something,” he said, frowning as the animal’s tail went still behind him.

Mitsuri leaned closer to the screen, though the angle showed her little more than Sanemi’s coat and the dark path near his shoulder.

“Can you see what it is?” she asked, her voice cautious now, the earlier ease fading as she watched his attention move away from her.

Sanemi did not answer at once.

The dog made a low sound deep in his chest.

It was not a growl. Sanemi would have recognised that. This was thinner, almost strained, a whine held back as though the animal did not know whether to run forward or stay where he was.

Sanemi lifted the phone slightly and looked farther down the path.

That was when he noticed the figure on the bench.

Someone sat beneath the tree nearest the water, far enough away that the shape remained blurred by distance and weak light. Dark coat. Dark hair. Both hands held loosely between the knees.

There was nothing unusual about it.

People sat alone in parks all the time.

Still, something in Sanemi’s body tightened before his mind had formed a reason.

The person’s shoulders curved forward in a way he knew.

Not recognised exactly. Recognition required memory, and Sanemi had none he could reach. It was closer to the uneasy certainty of hearing a familiar song through a wall, too muffled to name but impossible to mistake for something new.

Mitsuri said his name again.

“Sanemi?” she asked, and the concern in her voice sharpened when he remained still.

He barely heard her.

The figure shifted on the bench.

One hand moved over the opposite wrist, fingers rubbing slowly against the skin before settling again.

Sanemi’s breath caught.

He had seen that gesture before.

He knew he had.

A pressure spread beneath his ribs, sudden enough that he had to take a deeper breath through his nose. The leash tightened as the dog moved forward another step, nails scraping softly against the pavement.

Mitsuri’s face remained on the screen, but Sanemi was no longer looking at it.

“Can you hear me?” she asked, sitting straighter now, the pen forgotten in her hand while her eyes searched the small view of his face.

Sanemi began walking.

He did not decide to.

His feet simply moved toward the bench, first one slow step and then another, while the dog matched him with a tense, quick pace.

The figure remained turned toward the pond.

The closer Sanemi came, the more details separated themselves from the dark.

Black hair brushing the collar.

Bare hands pale beneath the lamp.

A face angled slightly downward.

Sanemi’s heartbeat began beating hard enough that he felt it in his throat.

He had not arranged to meet anyone.

There was no reason for anyone to be waiting there.

Yet the distance between them felt wrong, as though it should already have been closed.

Mitsuri’s voice sounded smaller through the speaker now, partly because Sanemi had lowered the phone and partly because his attention had narrowed until the rest of the park seemed far away.

“Sanemi, slow down,” she said, the words gentle but firm, and he could see from the corner of his eye that she had risen from her chair. “Just tell me what you’re looking at.”

He still did not answer.

The dog pulled harder.

A broken sound escaped him, louder than before, and the figure on the bench finally reacted.

His head turned.

Blue eyes found them.

Sanemi stopped.

The man on the bench went completely still.

For one suspended moment, neither of them moved.

Shock crossed the man’s face too openly to hide. His shoulders drew back, his fingers closing around the edge of the bench, while his lips parted as though Sanemi’s presence had taken the air from him.

Sanemi stared.

The face was familiar in a way that made no sense.

Not vaguely familiar. Not like someone he might have passed in a hallway or seen years ago in a crowded room. Sanemi knew the line of his jaw, the slight tension between his brows, the way his hair fell unevenly near one eye.

He knew the silence that sat inside that expression.

The name left him before he understood where it had come from.

“Giyuu?”

Mitsuri stopped breathing for a second.

Sanemi heard it through the call, the sudden absence of sound, then a quiet inhale that seemed too sharp for the room she stood in.

On the screen, her face changed.

Her eyes widened, not with ordinary surprise but with something closer to confusion, and one hand tightened around the edge of her desk as she stared at Sanemi through the camera.

The man on the bench rose slowly.

He looked as though he had forgotten how to move and was forcing his body through each part of it. His gaze stayed fixed on Sanemi, wide and disbelieving, while the dog strained against the leash hard enough to make Sanemi’s hand ache.

Giyuu looked down at the animal.

The shock in his face shifted.

Something softer moved through it, so quick and unguarded that Sanemi felt it catch beneath his ribs.

The dog made another sound, low and almost hurt, then lunged forward.

Sanemi barely caught the leash before it slipped from his hand.

“Easy,” he said automatically, tightening both hands around the strap as the dog pulled toward Giyuu with frantic, uneven movements.

Giyuu lifted one hand.

He stopped before reaching the dog.

His fingers remained suspended between them, trembling slightly in the cold air.

“Sanemi,” Mitsuri said.

Her voice had become careful now, every word controlled in a way that did not fit the conversation they had been having a minute earlier. She stepped closer to the camera, one hand braced against the desk while she watched him.

Sanemi glanced down at the screen as though he had forgotten she was there.

Mitsuri’s face looked pale beneath the warm light.

“I need to go,” he said, his attention already pulling back toward Giyuu.

Mitsuri’s lips parted.

“Wait,” she said quickly, then softened the word when she saw his expression. “Sanemi, don’t hang up yet.”

He looked at her more fully.

She had moved away from the desk now. The papers remained scattered behind her, pen abandoned near the laptop, while her free hand pressed against the sleeve of her cardigan as though she needed something to hold.

“Why?” Sanemi asked, frowning at the fear he could not understand in her face.

Mitsuri hesitated.

The pause lasted only a second, but something complicated passed through her expression before she managed to speak.

“Because you don’t look well,” she said, lowering her voice as though calm might reach him more easily that way. “Just stay on the call while you walk home, okay?”

Sanemi looked past the phone.

Giyuu had not moved from beside the bench.

He watched Sanemi with the same stunned expression, though there was more pain in it now, something quiet and restrained that only made the pressure in Sanemi’s chest worse.

“I’m not going home yet,” Sanemi said, his brows drawing together while he moved the phone closer to his face.

Mitsuri stared at him.

“What do you mean?” she asked, and her fingers tightened against her sleeve.

Sanemi turned the screen slightly without thinking, though the angle did not show enough of the path for Mitsuri to see anyone clearly.

“He’s here,” he said.

Mitsuri’s face went still.

Sanemi noticed the reaction but did not understand it. He only saw concern deepen into something she was trying very hard not to show.

“Who is?” she asked, though she had already heard the name.

Sanemi looked toward Giyuu again.

The dog pulled in short, desperate jerks between them.

“Giyuu,” he said, and the certainty in his voice seemed to hurt Mitsuri more than confusion would have.

She closed her eyes briefly.

When she opened them, they looked wet beneath the light.

“Sanemi,” she began, then stopped, her mouth tightening as though the next words had become too difficult to choose.

Sanemi’s patience thinned.

“He’s right there,” he said, irritation entering his voice now because she was looking at him as though he had said something impossible. “I’ll call you later.”

Mitsuri shook her head at once.

“No, please,” she said, and one hand lifted toward the camera in a helpless motion before falling again.

Sanemi’s jaw tightened.

The dog pulled again, and Giyuu’s gaze moved between him and the phone.

Sanemi could not bear the distance any longer.

“I’m fine,” he said, the words firmer this time, and he lowered the phone before Mitsuri could answer. “I’ll call you.”

Her mouth moved around his name.

The call ended before the sound reached him.

The screen went dark in his hand.

Sanemi remained still for a moment, staring at his own reflection in the black glass. His face looked strained beneath the park light, eyes too wide, breath coming faster than it should have.

Then the dog pulled again.

Sanemi slipped the phone into his coat pocket and loosened his grip on the leash.

The animal surged forward.

Giyuu dropped into a crouch before the dog reached him, the movement instinctive and familiar enough that Sanemi’s chest tightened. His arms opened, then hesitated, hands stopping just above the dog’s neck while the animal circled him with frantic energy.

The dog whined and pressed its body close, tail striking hard against the ground.

Giyuu’s face changed completely.

The shock remained, but tenderness moved through it now, mixed with something so sad that Sanemi had to look away for a second.

Giyuu lowered one hand toward the dog’s head.

His fingers passed over the fur.

For an instant, Sanemi thought the coat did not shift beneath the touch.

He blinked.

The dog turned quickly, wrapping part of the leash around one leg, and the strange impression disappeared beneath the movement.

Giyuu looked up.

His eyes met Sanemi’s again.

Neither of them spoke.

Sanemi stood a few steps away with both hands empty now, one still shaped around the absence of the leash. The distance between them was short enough to cross easily, yet his body refused to move closer.

He did not know whether he wanted to touch Giyuu or demand an explanation from him.

The anger came first.

It rose because relief was harder to survive.

“Where the hell have you been?” Sanemi asked, his voice rougher than he intended, and his shoulders tightened beneath his coat while he searched Giyuu’s face for some sign that would make the past year fall into place.

Giyuu went still.

His hand remained near the dog’s head, fingers curled slightly as though he had forgotten what he had been doing.

For several seconds, he only looked at Sanemi.

He seemed to be studying him carefully, not with suspicion but with fear, as though trying to work out what Sanemi remembered before giving him an answer.

“I didn’t think you’d come here,” Giyuu said at last, his voice quieter than Sanemi expected, and he looked toward the path behind him before returning his gaze.

Sanemi frowned.

“That isn’t what I asked,” he said, stepping closer while irritation pulled at his mouth.

Giyuu’s shoulders drew inward.

The dog moved between them, pressing its side against his leg as though trying to close the space on Sanemi’s behalf.

“I know,” Giyuu said, lowering his eyes toward the animal.

Sanemi waited.

Giyuu did not continue.

The silence pressed harder against him than an excuse would have.

“You disappear for a year,” Sanemi said, his voice kept low now because anger felt easier to control when he did not raise it, “and that’s all you’ve got?”

Something shifted across Giyuu’s face.

Pain, perhaps. Guilt. Sanemi could not tell, because Giyuu turned toward the pond before it settled into anything clear.

“I wasn’t sure you wanted to see me,” Giyuu said, his hands drawing together near his coat as though the cold had finally reached them.

The answer did not satisfy Sanemi.

It did, however, feel familiar.

Too familiar.

A pressure began building behind his eyes again.

Sanemi looked at the line of Giyuu’s profile, the lowered gaze, the slight tension through his jaw, and the certainty that he had seen him like this before became almost unbearable.

“You could’ve called,” Sanemi said, the anger loosening into something more tired while he rubbed his thumb against the side of his hand. “You could’ve sent one message.”

Giyuu’s eyes closed briefly.

When he opened them, he did not look at Sanemi.

“I couldn’t,” he said.

Sanemi’s brows drew together.

“What does that mean?” he asked, shifting his weight forward as the headache sharpened near one temple.

Giyuu took too long to answer.

His fingers moved against one another, thumb rubbing slowly over the side of his hand in the same gesture Sanemi had noticed from across the path.

“It means I didn’t know how,” Giyuu said eventually, his voice controlled but thin around the edges.

Sanemi stared at him.

The answer sounded possible enough that he did not question it immediately. Giyuu had always been bad at saying anything when it mattered, though Sanemi could not remember a single clear example of it now. The knowledge existed without the memory, settled deep in him as naturally as knowing which side Giyuu slept on or how he took his tea.

The absence of detail frightened him.

He pushed the feeling down before it could become a question.

“You look exactly the same,” Sanemi said.

Giyuu turned toward him.

For the first time since standing, the caution in his face gave way to something openly startled.

Sanemi noticed and frowned.

“What?” he asked, rubbing two fingers near his temple again.

Giyuu’s gaze moved over him slowly.

Sanemi became aware of the lines beneath his own eyes, the scar near his eyebrow that had not been there a year ago, the way his hair had grown slightly longer at the back because he kept putting off cutting it.

Giyuu looked untouched by time.

His hair sat exactly where Sanemi expected it to. The dark coat fit the same way across his shoulders. Even the faint mark beneath his jaw remained unchanged.

“I don’t know,” Giyuu said, though his voice sounded as though he knew exactly what Sanemi meant. He looked away first. “You look tired.”

Sanemi let out a short, humourless breath.

“So does everyone keep telling me,” he said, sliding both hands into his coat pockets because the trembling had begun again and he did not want Giyuu to see it.

Giyuu’s gaze dropped toward the movement.

Concern softened his face.

“You’re shaking,” he said, shifting one step closer before stopping himself.

“It’s cold,” Sanemi replied, though the air did not explain the weakness in his fingers.

Giyuu glanced down at his own bare hands.

Something unreadable passed over his expression.

Sanemi followed his gaze.

“Where are your gloves?” he asked, irritation returning more easily than concern because concern would have required admitting how much the sight of him affected him.

“I didn’t bring any,” Giyuu said.

“You never bring anything you actually need,” Sanemi muttered, pulling one hand from his pocket and nodding toward the bench. “Sit down before you freeze.”

Giyuu looked at him strangely.

Not offended. Not amused.

For a second, he looked close to crying.

The expression vanished before Sanemi could decide whether he had imagined it.

“I’m not cold,” Giyuu said, his voice quieter now.

Sanemi stared at him.

Giyuu looked toward the dog, whose body remained pressed against his leg.

“Not really,” he added, fingers hovering near the animal’s fur again.

The answer made no sense, but Sanemi did not have enough patience left to untangle it.

He moved toward the bench and sat down, the old wood cold even through his coat.

Giyuu remained standing for several seconds.

Sanemi looked up at him.

“Well?” he asked, his brows raised while one arm rested along the back of the bench.

Giyuu’s mouth moved as though he almost smiled.

He sat beside him.

Not close enough for their coats to touch.

The dog circled once before settling between their feet, leaning heavily against Giyuu’s legs. Giyuu lowered one hand, resting it near the dog’s neck, though his fingers barely seemed to press into the fur.

Sanemi watched the movement from the corner of his eye.

The silence that followed should have felt awkward after a year apart.

It did not.

That unsettled him more than anything else had.

The pond stretched dark in front of them. The older couple had disappeared from the opposite path, leaving only the faint scrape of the jogger’s shoes somewhere beyond the trees and the distant sound of traffic.

Sanemi leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees.

Giyuu sat straighter beside him, both hands gathered loosely in his lap whenever he was not touching the dog. Every few seconds, his gaze moved toward Sanemi and then away again, quick enough that he might have hoped not to be noticed.

Sanemi noticed.

“You keep looking at me,” he said, turning his head slightly without lifting it.

Giyuu’s posture stiffened.

He looked toward the water.

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” he said after a pause, and his fingers closed more tightly together in his lap.

Sanemi felt the words land somewhere deeper than they should have.

“A year,” he said.

Giyuu turned toward him.

The shock was brief but unmistakable.

Sanemi frowned.

“What?” he asked, straightening slightly.

Giyuu looked down again.

“Nothing,” he said, though the word came too carefully.

Sanemi watched him for another moment.

Normally, he would have pressed.

He knew that about himself.

Instead, the pressure behind his eyes eased little by little, and the anger that had carried him across the path began draining into something tired and quiet.

Giyuu was there.

For the moment, that seemed to matter more than the gaps around it.

Sanemi leaned back against the bench, shoulders finally loosening beneath his coat.

Beside him, Giyuu released a slow breath and looked toward the pond.

Neither of them spoke again for several minutes.

The dog rested its chin across Giyuu’s shoe.

Giyuu’s hand remained near its head.

Sanemi watched the water without seeing much of it, aware only of the person beside him and the strange relief spreading through his body.

He did not ask why Giyuu had returned that night.

He did not ask where he had been.

He did not ask why Mitsuri had looked frightened when she heard his name.

The questions were there, but none of them seemed urgent enough to disturb the quiet.

For the first time in months, Sanemi’s head no longer hurted.

For several minutes, neither of them spoke.

The pond lay dark beyond the path, disturbed only by the slow movement of water near the reeds, and the lamps reflected in broken lines across its surface whenever the wind passed through. Sanemi sat forward with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped loosely between them, while Giyuu remained straighter beside him, shoulders held with the kind of quiet tension that made it seem as though he had not yet decided whether he was allowed to relax.

The dog had no such uncertainty.

He pressed himself against Giyuu’s legs and stayed there, occasionally lifting his head to look at him before settling again with a deep breath. Giyuu’s hand hovered near the animal’s neck for a moment before lowering carefully, fingers resting over the thick fur without quite sinking into it.

Sanemi watched from the corner of his eye.

He could not stop looking.

Each time he turned toward the pond, some small detail drew his attention back: the line of Giyuu’s wrist beneath the coat sleeve, the way he rubbed his thumb across the side of one finger when he was uncomfortable, the slight downward tilt of his head when he knew someone was studying him and did not know what to do about it.

There was familiarity everywhere and nothing solid enough to hold.

Sanemi tried to remember the last time they had sat together like this.

The effort brought the pressure behind his eyes back almost immediately.

He saw the shape of a doorway for less than a second, dark beyond a brightly lit room. He heard a voice, his own perhaps, raised enough that the words had lost their meaning. Then the memory slipped away before he could reach it, leaving only a tightness in his chest and the sense that he had been angry.

Giyuu looked over when Sanemi pressed his fingers against his temple again.

“You should go home if you’re unwell,” he said quietly, and his hand stopped moving against the dog’s fur while concern pulled his brows together.

Sanemi lowered his hand and gave him a tired look.

“You’ve been gone a year, and the first thing you tell me is to go home?”

Giyuu’s expression tightened.

Sanemi saw the reaction and immediately felt a small, unpleasant twist of regret, though he did not take the words back. He had spent too long sitting beside questions that Giyuu seemed unwilling to answer, and every vague response made the anger return.

Giyuu looked down at the dog again.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said after a moment, his voice subdued rather than defensive. “You look tired.”

“I am tired.”

Sanemi leaned back against the bench and stretched one leg out before him, trying to ease the stiffness that had settled into his body. Giyuu followed the movement with his eyes, then looked away when Sanemi noticed.

The silence returned.

This time it felt less peaceful.

Sanemi turned his head and studied him openly.

“Where were you?”

Giyuu’s shoulders shifted beneath his coat.

He did not answer immediately, though the pause did not feel like calculation so much as hesitation, as if he had several possible truths and did not know which one Sanemi would accept.

“With my mother,” he said eventually.

Sanemi’s face remained still.

The answer seemed simple enough, but something about the way Giyuu said it made him continue watching.

“You went to see her?”

Giyuu nodded, gaze lowering toward his hands.

“For a while.”

Sanemi tried to remember the last thing he knew about Giyuu’s mother.

Nothing came.

Not even a face.

He knew there should have been one. A quiet woman, perhaps, or someone whose absence had shaped the way Giyuu spoke about family. The knowledge moved at the edge of his thoughts without becoming clear enough to trust.

“How is she?” Sanemi asked, his tone losing some of its sharpness when Giyuu’s expression grew more distant.

Giyuu’s fingers stilled in his lap.

“She’s the same.”

The reply was soft enough that Sanemi nearly missed it.

Giyuu looked toward the pond, his face calm but his eyes fixed on something beyond the water that Sanemi could not see. There was no smile, no visible grief either, only the quiet withdrawal Sanemi somehow recognised as a sign that the subject had reached somewhere private.

Sanemi let it go.

He turned toward the pond again and rubbed both hands together against the cold.

“You could’ve told me,” he said after a while, less accusing now. “You could’ve said you were leaving.”

Giyuu remained silent long enough for the dog to shift against his leg.

“I thought you knew,” he said eventually, and his voice carried so much uncertainty that Sanemi looked back at him.

“Knew what?”

Giyuu’s eyes lifted.

For a second, something changed in his face.

The question appeared to catch him off guard, and the careful restraint he had held since Sanemi approached nearly slipped. His lips parted, though no answer came, while his hand tightened over his own wrist.

Sanemi frowned.

Giyuu looked away first.

“That I needed time,” he said, the explanation arriving too late to sound entirely natural.

Sanemi stared at the side of his face.

There were several things he could have said. He could have told Giyuu that a year was not time, it was disappearance. He could have demanded to know why every answer felt like something arranged around a truth he refused to share.

Instead, he noticed how tense Giyuu had become and allowed the argument to settle before it began.

“I would’ve given you time,” Sanemi said, his voice lower now. “You didn’t have to vanish.”

Giyuu closed his eyes briefly.

The expression that crossed his face looked almost like pain.

When he opened them again, he kept them on the dog.

“I know.”

Sanemi had expected resistance, perhaps another excuse, and the quiet agreement left him with nothing to push against.

The anger did not disappear, but it became harder to use.

He sat back and looked toward the water, jaw tightening while he tried to make sense of the relief that had been growing beneath everything else. Giyuu was there. He was alive, close enough to touch, wearing the same dark coat Sanemi remembered without remembering where from.

That should have been enough for one night.

The dog lifted his head and nudged Giyuu’s hand.

Giyuu looked down, surprise flickering through his face before a small smile appeared.

It was not broad. Giyuu had never smiled broadly, Sanemi thought, though again he did not know where the certainty came from. It showed mostly around his eyes, a softness that changed his whole face before fading almost as soon as it arrived.

Sanemi stared.

Giyuu noticed.

“What?” he asked, his hand remaining near the dog’s head while his gaze moved uncertainly toward Sanemi.

Sanemi looked away.

“Nothing.”

The word sounded rougher than he intended.

Giyuu did not question him. He only lowered his head and continued resting his fingers against the dog’s fur.

Sanemi felt the familiar shape of the silence between them and, for the first time since seeing him, stopped trying to break it.

They sat until the cold began to settle through the bench and into Sanemi’s legs.

The older couple had disappeared from the opposite path, and the jogger passed them once more in the other direction, breathing harder now with his hands pulled into his sleeves. The park had grown darker while they talked, the sky above the trees fading from grey to a deep blue that made the lamps seem brighter than before.

Sanemi checked the time.

He had been there longer than he realised.

The missed call notification from Mitsuri remained near the top of the screen, followed by a message asking whether he was all right. Sanemi did not open it yet.

He slipped the phone back into his pocket and stood.

The dog rose immediately, shaking himself before looking toward Giyuu as though expecting him to follow.

Giyuu stayed seated.

Sanemi looked down at him.

“You coming?”

Giyuu’s eyes moved toward the path.

“Where?”

Sanemi shrugged one shoulder and adjusted the leash around his hand.

“Nowhere. I’m not sitting here until I freeze.”

Giyuu glanced toward the pond once more before standing.

The movement was slow, and for a moment he seemed unsteady, one hand brushing the edge of the bench before he straightened. Sanemi noticed but did not comment. Giyuu had always moved quietly enough that small hesitations looked deliberate until one watched closely.

They started along the path together.

The dog walked between them at first, turning his head every few steps to check that Giyuu remained nearby. Sanemi kept the leash loose, allowing the animal to choose the pace while he adjusted to the simple strangeness of having Giyuu beside him.

Their shoulders did not touch.

They walked close enough that they could have.

The path curved along the edge of the pond before passing beneath a row of trees that narrowed the view ahead. Frost cracked softly beneath their shoes where the ground had not fully thawed, while traffic moved beyond the park in a steady, distant rush.

Sanemi kept expecting the awkwardness to return.

It did not.

Walking beside Giyuu felt easier than speaking to him. The quiet matched the pace of their steps, and Sanemi’s body seemed to remember where to place itself without instruction, slowing when Giyuu did, moving slightly closer whenever another person passed.

Giyuu noticed the first time Sanemi shifted between him and a cyclist approaching from behind.

His gaze moved toward Sanemi’s shoulder, then lowered.

Sanemi did not notice the look.

They passed the old railing near the shallow end of the pond. The dog moved toward it at once, pulling until Sanemi followed with a reluctant sigh.

“He always does this,” Sanemi said, watching the animal inspect the reeds through the gaps in the metal. “Doesn’t matter if there’s anything there.”

Giyuu stood beside him.

“He used to be afraid of the ducks.”

Sanemi turned.

The answer came too naturally for Giyuu to take it back.

Giyuu seemed to realise it only after Sanemi looked at him. His posture tightened slightly, though he did not avoid the question that had already formed on Sanemi’s face.

“You remember that?”

Giyuu’s expression softened.

“He barked at one until it came toward him,” he said, looking down at the dog with a faint trace of amusement. “Then he hid behind you.”

Sanemi tried to picture it.

For a moment, the park shifted.

Warm sunlight spread across the water. The dog was smaller, legs too long for the rest of him, pulling against a red leash while a duck moved toward the path with more confidence than any bird had a right to possess.

Someone laughed beside Sanemi.

Not loudly.

Giyuu.

The image disappeared almost at once.

Sanemi stopped breathing for half a second.

Giyuu turned toward him.

“What is it?”

Sanemi looked at the railing, unsettled by how real the fragment had felt.

“Nothing,” he said, then rubbed the side of his neck as the pressure behind his eyes returned faintly. “I just remembered part of it.”

Giyuu went very still.

Sanemi did not see the fear that crossed his face because he was still staring toward the reeds.

“What part?” Giyuu asked, his voice controlled but quieter than before.

“The duck.”

Sanemi looked at the dog, who had grown bored and started sniffing the base of the railing instead.

“He was tiny.”

Giyuu’s mouth curved.

“Not so tiny.”

“He was all legs.”

“That has not changed much.”

Sanemi laughed under his breath.

The sound came naturally enough to surprise both of them.

Giyuu turned toward him, and the small smile remained on his face longer this time. Sanemi saw it and felt something in his chest loosen, warmth moving through the tension before he had time to stop it.

Neither said anything else.

They continued walking.

Near the end of the path, an old vending machine stood beneath a narrow shelter. Its fluorescent light flickered at the top, illuminating rows of canned coffee, tea, and soup behind the scratched plastic panel.

Sanemi stopped in front of it.

“I need something hot.”

Giyuu stood a short distance away, gaze moving over the selection.

Sanemi dug through his pocket for coins. His fingers were stiff from the cold, and he nearly dropped one before pushing it into the slot.

Without thinking, he pressed two buttons.

A black coffee for himself.

Sweet milk tea for Giyuu.

The cans dropped one after another into the tray.

Sanemi froze with his hand still near the machine.

He looked at the second can.

He did not remember deciding.

Giyuu stared at it too.

Sanemi bent and collected both drinks, then held the tea out.

“You still drink this, right?”

Giyuu’s eyes moved from the can to Sanemi’s face.

A complicated softness appeared there.

“Yes,” he said, reaching for it with both hands. “I do.”

Their fingers nearly touched.

Sanemi felt no warmth from Giyuu’s skin.

The contact was too brief to be certain, and the metal can was already cold enough on the outside that he dismissed the thought before it settled.

They resumed walking, each holding a drink.

Sanemi opened his immediately and took a cautious sip, wincing when the coffee burned his tongue. Giyuu kept his unopened between his hands.

For several minutes, Sanemi said nothing about it.

They passed beneath another lamp, and he glanced toward the can again.

“You’re not drinking it.”

Giyuu looked down as though he had forgotten he was carrying it.

“It’s still hot.”

“So is mine.”

“You always drink things too quickly.”

Sanemi looked at him.

There was no sharpness in Giyuu’s answer. It sounded more like an old observation, one he had made often enough that neither of them needed to question how he knew.

Sanemi’s mouth twitched.

“You used to complain when I stole yours.”

Giyuu’s eyes widened slightly.

The memory came out of Sanemi before he consciously found it.

A paper cup. Giyuu’s hands wrapped around it. Sanemi taking it away because his own drink tasted terrible. Giyuu staring at him with quiet offence while Sanemi laughed.

The image faded, but the feeling remained.

Giyuu lowered his gaze toward the unopened tea.

“You said mine tasted better.”

“It did.”

“You ordered the same thing the next time.”

“And it tasted worse.”

Giyuu gave him a small, almost disbelieving look.

Sanemi saw it and laughed again, quieter this time.

The familiarity between them had begun returning in pieces.

Not memories exactly. Habits. Reactions. The knowledge of where Giyuu would look when embarrassed and which remarks would make the corner of his mouth move before he tried to hide it.

Sanemi did not question why the details came without context.

The relief of having them back was stronger than the fear of what was missing.

They followed the outer path toward the park entrance, though neither seemed in a hurry to reach it.

Giyuu continued holding the tea.

The can remained unopened.

Sanemi noticed but did not mention it again.

By the time they reached the section where the trees thinned, the night had settled completely. The air had grown colder, and the dog’s pace slowed as his earlier excitement gave way to tiredness.

Sanemi looked toward the street beyond the gates.

“You can stay at mine.”

Giyuu stopped walking.

Sanemi took two more steps before noticing and turning back.

The change in Giyuu’s face was immediate. His shoulders had stiffened, and both hands closed around the can as though Sanemi had asked something far more difficult than spending the night.

Sanemi’s own posture tightened in response.

“What?”

Giyuu looked toward the park behind them.

“I can’t.”

Sanemi stared.

The answer was so quick and final that irritation returned before he could stop it.

“You can’t, or you don’t want to?”

Giyuu’s eyes closed briefly.

When he opened them, he looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with the hour.

“I can’t.”

Sanemi waited for an explanation.

None came.

The dog moved closer to Giyuu, pressing against his leg again, while Giyuu kept his gaze on the dark path rather than Sanemi.

“You show up after a year,” Sanemi said, keeping his voice low because raising it felt too much like repeating something he could not remember, “then refuse to tell me where you’ve been, and now you won’t even come home.”

Giyuu’s fingers tightened around the tea can.

“I’m sorry.”

Sanemi laughed once without humour.

“That doesn’t explain anything.”

“I know.”

The quiet agreement made the anger worse for a moment.

Sanemi stepped closer.

Giyuu did not move away, though his expression became guarded, pain settling around his eyes while he waited for whatever Sanemi would say next.

The sight stopped Sanemi before he could become cruel.

He knew that look.

He had caused it before.

The certainty came with no memory attached, only the unpleasant awareness of words said in anger and regretted too late.

Sanemi looked away.

“What, then?” he asked, rubbing one hand over the back of his neck. “You have somewhere else to be?”

Giyuu hesitated.

“Yes.”

The answer was soft.

Sanemi watched the pavement between them.

“Work?”

Giyuu looked at him, startled by the offered excuse.

After a second, he nodded.

“Work has been busy.”

The hesitation was obvious.

Sanemi heard it.

He also chose to accept it because the alternative was another argument, and Giyuu had only just returned.

“All right,” he said, though disappointment roughened the words.

Giyuu’s face softened with relief and guilt at once.

Sanemi hated both.

They continued toward the gate more slowly.

The dog kept drifting toward Giyuu, as if he understood that the time beside him had become limited. Giyuu lowered his hand several times, fingers brushing lightly over the fur, while his other hand held the untouched tea close to his chest.

At the entrance, Sanemi stopped.

The street beyond was brighter than the park, headlights passing across the pavement while people moved between shops and the nearby station. The ordinary noise made the quiet between them feel more fragile.

Giyuu remained on the park side of the gate.

Sanemi stepped onto the pavement beyond it, then turned when Giyuu did not follow.

“You going the other way?”

Giyuu looked past him toward the street.

“Yes.”

Sanemi frowned.

“You said you were working.”

“I am.”

“At this hour?”

Giyuu’s expression shifted, and Sanemi saw him search for another answer.

The irritation returned, but exhaustion arrived with it.

Sanemi no longer wanted to spend what remained of the night pulling explanations from someone who had always struggled to give them.

He stepped back toward Giyuu.

The dog stood between them again.

For a moment, neither spoke.

Giyuu looked at Sanemi as though he were trying to memorise every change in his face, his eyes moving over the scar near his brow, the shadows beneath his eyes, the wind-reddened skin across his cheeks.

Sanemi became uncomfortable beneath the attention.

“What?”

Giyuu lowered his gaze.

“You look different.”

Sanemi glanced at his reflection in the dark glass of the park noticeboard.

“A year does that.”

Giyuu’s mouth tightened.

“Yes.”

The way he said it carried something Sanemi could not identify.

He shifted his weight and looked toward the road, then back at Giyuu.

“Are you coming back?”

Giyuu went still.

The question sounded simpler than it felt.

Sanemi kept his expression flat, though his hand tightened around the leash while he waited.

Giyuu looked toward the park behind him.

His eyes appeared darker beneath the lamp.

“I’ll come back,” he said.

Sanemi studied him.

“When?”

Giyuu’s lips parted.

No answer came for several seconds.

“Next time,” he said at last, his voice quiet enough that traffic nearly covered it.

Sanemi’s jaw tightened.

“That could mean anything.”

“I know.”

Giyuu looked down at the tea in his hands.

Then, before Sanemi could argue again, he lifted his gaze and said it more firmly.

“I will come back.”

There was enough feeling in the promise to quiet Sanemi for a moment.

He did not know why Giyuu looked as though the words hurt him.

Sanemi stepped closer.

For one second, he considered touching him.

The thought felt natural, almost necessary, but he did not know whether they had parted with enough damage between them to make it welcome.

Giyuu seemed to feel the same uncertainty.

His hand moved slightly at his side before stopping.

The dog settled the matter by pushing between them and pressing his head beneath Giyuu’s hand.

Giyuu looked down, and the tension in his face softened.

Sanemi watched him stroke the dog’s head, though the fur barely moved.

“Don’t disappear again,” Sanemi said, his voice quieter now.

Giyuu’s hand stopped.

He did not look up immediately.

“I’ll try.”

The answer was not what Sanemi wanted.

Before he could say so, a group of people passed between the park gate and the street, laughing loudly as they moved toward the station. Sanemi stepped aside to keep the dog from being jostled, looking down when the leash wrapped briefly around his ankle.

It took only a few seconds to free it.

When he looked up, Giyuu was already several steps back inside the park.

Sanemi frowned.

“Giyuu.”

Giyuu stopped beneath the nearest lamp.

The distance made his expression difficult to read, but Sanemi saw him turn, the unopened tea still held in one hand.

For a moment, neither moved.

Then Giyuu gave him a small nod.

Not a wave.

Not a smile.

Something closer to acknowledgment, quiet and heavy enough that Sanemi felt the strange urge to call him back.

Before he could, the lamp above Giyuu flickered.

A bus passed along the street, filling Sanemi’s view with reflected light and dark windows.

When it moved on, the path was empty.

Sanemi stared.

The dog pulled toward the gate and whined.

Sanemi looked farther into the park, expecting to see Giyuu walking beneath the next lamp.

There was no one.

Irritation rose quickly enough to cover the unease.

“Of course,” he muttered, tightening the leash around his hand. “Still can’t say goodbye properly.”

The dog remained turned toward the dark path.

Sanemi waited another minute.

Giyuu did not reappear.

Eventually, the cold forced him to leave.

The walk home took longer than usual because the dog kept looking behind them. Every few streets, he slowed and turned his head toward the park, ears lifted as though listening for footsteps that never came.

Sanemi did not hurry him.

By the time they reached the apartment, the headache had begun returning, though it no longer felt as heavy as before. He unlocked the door, stepped into the dark hallway, and waited while the dog entered behind him.

The apartment was silent.

The silence felt different now.

Not smaller exactly. More noticeable.

Sanemi switched on the light and removed his coat, hanging it beside the door. The empty hook next to it caught his attention for reasons he could not explain.

He stared at it.

A dark coat should have been hanging there.

The certainty passed through him with enough force that he reached toward the hook before stopping.

Nothing was there.

Sanemi lowered his hand.

The dog walked into the living room, then turned back toward the entrance and sat.

“You saw him leave,” Sanemi said, though the dog only watched the door.

Sanemi removed his shoes and went into the kitchen.

The tablets remained beside the sink where he had left them, a foil packet placed near a half-empty glass of water. He picked up the box and read the printed words without thinking.

Prescription sleeping tablets.

Take one in the evening.

Do not combine with alcohol.

The instructions had become familiar enough that he barely saw them anymore.

His phone vibrated in his pocket.

Mitsuri.

Home?

Sanemi leaned against the counter and typed with one hand.

Yeah.

The reply came quickly.

Everything okay?

Sanemi looked toward the hallway.

The dog still sat near the door.

He thought about Giyuu on the bench, the shock in his face, the unopened tea held between his hands.

Met someone I haven’t seen in a long time. We talked.

Three dots appeared, disappeared, then returned.

Mitsuri’s answer came after a longer pause.

Okay. I’m glad you’re home. Did you take your medicine?

Sanemi looked down at the box in his hand.

Taking it now.

A small heart appeared beneath the message, followed by:

Sleep well. Message me tomorrow :)

Sanemi put the phone on the counter and pushed one tablet through the foil.

He swallowed it with the water left in the glass, then stood in the kitchen for several seconds while the apartment settled around him.

The dog finally left the entrance and came to lie near his feet.

Sanemi looked down.

“He said he’d come back.”

The dog’s ears lifted.

Sanemi rubbed one hand over the back of his neck, already irritated with himself for saying it aloud.

“He’d better.”

The medication began working slowly.

By the time Sanemi went to bed, his limbs felt heavier and the thoughts that had crowded him since the park had started losing their edges. He lay on one side, facing the empty half of the mattress, and stared at the pillow beside him.

There was a faint indentation near the centre.

He reached across and pressed his fingers into it.

The fabric was cold.

Sanemi closed his eyes.

For once, he did not dream of headlights.

He dreamed of summer.

A younger dog ran ahead of him through the park while someone walked close at his side, shoulder brushing his whenever the path narrowed. Sanemi never saw the person’s face, but he heard a quiet laugh when the dog barked at a duck and hid behind his legs.

When he woke, he remembered only the sound.

For the next few days, Sanemi expected Giyuu to call.

He checked his phone more often than he admitted, looking through recent calls before remembering there would be nothing there. Giyuu had not used his phone in the park. Sanemi did not have a new number for him.

That annoyed him.

He went back to the park three evenings later.

The bench was empty.

Frost covered the entire backrest, including the place where Giyuu had sat.

Sanemi stood in front of it for several minutes while the dog pulled toward the tree and sniffed the ground nearby.

There were no footprints.

Sanemi did not notice.

He returned the following week.

Then again near the end of the month.

Each time, the park looked ordinary.

The days lengthened gradually. Frost disappeared from the paths, the trees gathered pale green leaves, and the pond filled again with children, families, cyclists, and people eating from paper bags while the dog watched them with shameless hope.

Giyuu did not return.

Sanemi became irritated first.

Then quieter.

He told himself that Giyuu had always been bad at reaching out. The knowledge existed in him with enough certainty that he did not question where it came from. Giyuu needed time, then more time, and perhaps he had returned to his mother or become buried in work again.

Sanemi could have searched harder.

He did not know where to begin.

Whenever he tried to remember an address, workplace, or phone number, the headache returned. He would see small pieces instead: Giyuu standing near a kitchen counter, hair still damp from the shower; Giyuu asleep with one hand tucked beneath his face; Giyuu sitting in the passenger seat while streetlights moved across the window.

The memories never lasted.

By summer, Sanemi stopped returning to the park every week.

He went only when the dog led him there.

The tablets remained beside the sink.

Some nights they worked. Others left him awake until morning, staring toward the empty side of the bed while the shape of someone’s body seemed to remain beneath the sheets.

Autumn passed.

Then winter came again.

Sanemi noticed the cold before he noticed anything else.

It settled into the city during the final weeks of January, hardening puddles near the pavement and turning every breath visible beneath the streetlights. Work grew busier after the holidays, and most evenings Sanemi left the office after dark with his shoulders aching from sitting too long and his patience worn thin.

One night, instead of going home, he stopped at a café several streets from the station.

The place had remained almost unchanged for years. The same dark wooden tables stood near the windows, the same uneven shelves held second-hand books no one seemed to buy, and the heater near the back made a faint ticking noise whenever it turned on.

Sanemi ordered coffee and took the table in the far corner.

He did not know why he always chose it.

The seat faced the door while remaining partly hidden behind a tall plant, allowing him to watch the room without feeling watched himself. The habit had begun long enough ago that he no longer remembered its reason.

He removed his coat and draped it over the chair beside him.

The waitress set down his coffee with a small dish of sugar he would not use, then left him alone.

Sanemi opened his phone.

Several work messages waited. One from Mitsuri asked whether he had remembered to send a report before leaving. Another from Iguro contained only a picture of the report already sitting on Sanemi’s desk, followed by a question mark.

Sanemi ignored both for the moment.

He drank slowly and watched people move beyond the window.

Snow had started falling, light enough to melt against the pavement but visible beneath the streetlights.

The café door opened.

Cold air moved through the room.

Sanemi did not look up immediately.

Someone paused beside his table.

He noticed the dark coat first.

Then the hand resting near the back of the empty chair.

Sanemi lifted his eyes.

Giyuu stood there.

For one second, Sanemi did not react.

Relief struck too quickly, followed by anger so familiar that it nearly felt rehearsed.

Giyuu looked much as he had in the park.

The same coat.

The same black hair falling near his eyes.

The same careful expression, though the shock was smaller this time, replaced by something that looked almost like hope.

Sanemi placed his cup down.

“Where have you been again?”

The question came out flat, but his fingers tightened around the handle hard enough that the ceramic pressed into his skin.

Giyuu glanced toward the empty chair.

“Can I sit?”

Sanemi stared at him for another moment.

Then he pulled his coat from the seat and dropped it over the back of his own chair.

Giyuu sat.

He moved carefully, lowering himself opposite Sanemi while keeping both hands near his lap. The table between them seemed too wide.

Sanemi watched him settle.

“You vanished.”

Giyuu looked down.

“I know.”

“You said you’d come back.”

“I did.”

Sanemi gave him a hard look.

“A year later.”

Giyuu’s gaze lifted.

The pause that followed was brief, but Sanemi saw the same surprise that had crossed his face in the park when he heard how much time had passed.

Then Giyuu looked toward the window.

“I’m sorry.”

Sanemi leaned back.

He had imagined this conversation several times during the first few months. In every version, he demanded answers and refused to let Giyuu leave until he had them.

Now that Giyuu sat in front of him, all the prepared anger felt strangely difficult to reach.

The waitress approached with a small notepad in one hand, slowing beside the table while Sanemi lifted his eyes from the coffee.

“Would you like anything else?” she asked, her expression polite but tired after what had clearly been a long shift.

Sanemi looked across the table at Giyuu.

The waitress followed the movement almost automatically, her gaze passing toward the opposite chair for a brief second before returning to Sanemi. Nothing in her face changed, and the glance was ordinary enough that Sanemi did not question it.

“Sweet milk tea,” he said, resting one hand around the warm cup in front of him. “Not too hot.”

Giyuu looked at him, surprise softening his features.

The waitress wrote the order down, gave a small nod, and moved away toward the counter.

“You remembered,” Giyuu said quietly once she was gone, his hands still hidden beneath the table while he watched Sanemi with an expression that seemed caught between warmth and disbelief.

Sanemi rubbed his thumb along the handle of his coffee cup and looked away from him.

“Apparently.”

A few minutes later, the waitress returned carrying the tea on a small tray.

Sanemi shifted his cup aside and nodded toward the space opposite him. The waitress followed the gesture and set the drink near the far edge of the table, placing it exactly where Giyuu’s hands were already resting without showing any sign that she had noticed him there.

To Sanemi, it looked completely natural.

He assumed she had simply understood who the drink was for.

Giyuu watched her walk away, then slowly wrapped both hands around the cup.

Sanemi noticed the way his fingers settled around the porcelain, careful and almost hesitant, but said nothing.

Giyuu wrapped both hands around the cup.

He did not drink.

Sanemi watched him.

This time, he said nothing about it.

So their conversation moved slowly at first.

Giyuu asked about work, and Sanemi complained about Hinata changing a presentation at the last minute because it lacked “aesthetic.” Giyuu listened with his head slightly lowered, occasionally looking toward Sanemi when a detail amused him.

Sanemi spoke more than he intended.

He told Giyuu about the dog stealing half a sandwich from the kitchen counter, about Mitsuri accidentally sending a private message to the office group, about Iguro appearing at work on his day off because Mitsuri had forgotten her lunch.

Giyuu smiled more easily than he had in the park.

The tension in his shoulders lessened.

At one point, Sanemi described Uzui arriving at a meeting in a silver jacket that reflected the projector light into everyone’s eyes, and Giyuu laughed.

The sound was quiet.

Sanemi stopped speaking.

Giyuu looked at him, the laughter fading when he noticed the stare.

“What?”

Sanemi shook his head.

“Nothing.”

He looked down at his coffee.

He had missed that sound.

The realisation arrived without warning and left him uncomfortable enough that he changed the subject.

“How’s your mother?” Sanemi asked, easing back in his chair while his thumb moved slowly along the rim of his coffee cup. The question sounded casual, but his eyes remained on Giyuu, watching for the same hesitation that seemed to appear whenever the past came too close.

Giyuu’s hands tightened around the tea. His gaze dropped to the pale surface of the drink, and for a moment he seemed to forget the warmth gathered beneath his palms.

“She’s well,” he said quietly, though the answer came with a distance in his expression that made it sound less simple than the words themselves.

Sanemi studied him for another second before looking toward the window, giving him room without fully letting the subject go.

“You still staying with her?” he asked, his voice softer now, almost absent-minded as he watched snow gather along the edge of the pavement outside.

Giyuu hesitated. His fingers shifted against the cup, one thumb rubbing slowly over the porcelain while he kept his eyes lowered.

“Sometimes,” he said at last, and the small pause before the word made Sanemi glance back at him, though Giyuu had already turned his attention toward the window.

The answer made little sense, but Sanemi accepted it.

Outside, the snow grew heavier.

By the time they left the café, the pavement had begun turning white near the edges.

Giyuu carried the untouched tea in a paper cup.

Sanemi noticed only when they had already reached the park.

He glanced toward the paper cup in Giyuu’s hands and saw that the lid was still untouched, the drink sitting exactly as it had when they left the café. Giyuu carried it close to his chest, more like something he had been given to hold than something he intended to drink.

“You didn’t drink it again,” Sanemi said, looking from the cup to Giyuu’s face. There was no real accusation in his voice, only the tired disbelief of someone noticing the same small habit twice.

Giyuu lowered his eyes. His fingers shifted against the cardboard sleeve, tightening slightly before he looked toward the dark path ahead.

“It got cold,” he said quietly, as though the explanation had only just occurred to him.

Sanemi gave him a sideways look and adjusted his pace to stay beside him.

“You held it for an hour,” he said, the corner of his mouth pulling faintly as if he could not decide whether to be annoyed or amused.

Giyuu looked down at the cup again. For a second, his expression went blank with thought, then softened into something almost embarrassed.

“I forgot,” he said, rubbing one thumb over the lid while avoiding Sanemi’s eyes.

That sounded enough like Giyuu that Sanemi let it pass. He gave a small breath through his nose and looked ahead again, while Giyuu continued carrying the cold tea between both hands.

They walked through the same gate they had used the previous winter.

The park was quieter than the café, snow softening the usual sounds beneath the trees. Sanemi had not brought the dog that evening, and the absence made the space between them more noticeable.

Giyuu walked closer than before.

Their shoulders touched once when the path narrowed.

Neither moved away immediately.

Sanemi felt the contact through both coats, light but real enough to make him turn.

Giyuu was already looking at him.

The lamp above them cast pale light across his face, catching in his eyes and along the edge of his hair.

Sanemi stopped.

Giyuu did too.

Neither spoke.

The silence between them shifted.

It was no longer the quiet of two people trying to recover old familiarity. Something deeper had moved into it, something Sanemi’s body recognised before his mind could name.

He lifted one hand.

Giyuu’s eyes followed the movement.

Sanemi touched the side of his face.

Giyuu felt cold.

Not winter cold.

Colder.

Sanemi’s thumb rested near his cheekbone while Giyuu remained completely still, eyes wide with an emotion Sanemi could not read.

“You’re freezing,” Sanemi murmured, his brows drawing together.

Giyuu’s lips parted.

“I’m all right.”

Sanemi nearly argued.

Instead, he leaned closer.

The kiss was brief.

Careful at first, uncertain enough that either of them could have pulled away.

Giyuu did not.

His hand rose toward Sanemi’s coat, fingers closing lightly near the collar while Sanemi pressed closer and felt the old familiarity of him return in a way no memory had managed.

For a few seconds, the year between them disappeared.

Giyuu’s mouth was cold, but the way he kissed him was not.

There was longing in it, held back so tightly that Sanemi felt it more in the hesitation than the contact itself. Giyuu moved as though every second mattered and frightened him at once.

Sanemi drew back only far enough to breathe.

Giyuu’s eyes remained closed.

When he opened them, grief passed through his face too quickly to hide.

Sanemi frowned.

“What?”

Giyuu released Sanemi’s coat.

“Nothing.”

Sanemi studied him.

The answer bothered him, but before he could question it, Giyuu looked toward the path and started walking again.

Sanemi followed.

They reached the bench near the pond but did not sit.

Snow gathered lightly over the wood, and Giyuu stopped beside it, looking toward the place where Sanemi had first seen him the previous winter.

Sanemi stopped close enough that the sleeves of their coats brushed whenever either of them shifted.

“Come home with me,” he said, keeping his voice low while he watched Giyuu’s face for some sign of agreement.

Giyuu went rigid beside him. The change was slight, no more than a tightening through his shoulders and a pause in his breathing, but Sanemi felt it before he fully saw it.

Giyuu lowered his gaze to the paper cup in his hands. His fingers pressed deeper into the cardboard sleeve, bending it slightly near the rim.

“I can’t,” he said, the words quiet and immediate, as though he had already been dreading the question.

Sanemi’s jaw tightened. He looked away toward the path for a second, then back at Giyuu, disappointment settling more heavily across his face.

“Work again?” he asked, though the flatness in his voice made it clear he did not believe the answer before it came.

Giyuu hesitated. His thumb moved once over the lid of the cup, and when he finally nodded, he still did not look up.

“Yes,” he said, too softly and a little too late.

Sanemi studied him for a moment, his expression hardening at the edges without becoming cruel.

“You’re a terrible liar,” he said, the words restrained, but the hurt beneath them gave them more weight than anger would have.

Giyuu closed his eyes briefly. His shoulders lowered with a quiet exhale, as if there was no point pretending Sanemi had not seen through him.

“I know,” he admitted, still holding the cup between both hands while he kept his gaze on the ground.

Sanemi looked away toward the pond.

Snow moved across the dark water and disappeared as soon as it touched.

“We lived together,” Sanemi said, the certainty rising from somewhere beneath the gaps in his memory. “You don’t have to act like coming back is some favour.”

Giyuu’s face changed.

Sanemi saw recognition, pain, and something close to fear settle into it at once.

“You remember that?”

Sanemi looked at him.

“Of course I remember.”

The answer came too quickly.

He did not remember the apartment clearly. He remembered Giyuu’s shoes near a door, a blue mug in the cupboard, dark hair left in the shower drain, and someone sleeping beside him with their back pressed against his chest.

Enough pieces existed for him to believe the rest was whole.

Giyuu watched him for several seconds, and the longer the silence lasted, the more Sanemi felt the answer settling between them before it was spoken. Something in Giyuu’s face had closed again, not coldly, but with the same quiet strain he carried whenever the conversation came too close to wherever he had been.

Then Giyuu lowered his gaze. His fingers shifted around the paper cup, pressing into the soft cardboard until the rim bent slightly beneath his grip.

“I can’t come home tonight,” he said, his voice low and careful, as though speaking more gently might lessen the hurt of the refusal.

Sanemi’s shoulders tightened beneath his coat. He looked away toward the pond for a moment, jaw set, then turned back to Giyuu with disappointment already hardening his expression.

“Then when?” he asked, keeping his voice even, though the question came out heavier than he intended.

Giyuu’s grip on the cup became unsteady. One thumb slipped against the lid before he caught it again, and for a second he seemed unable to look anywhere except at his own hands.

“Next time,” he said at last, the answer barely rising above the wind moving through the trees.

A quiet laugh left Sanemi, empty of amusement. He lowered his head and rubbed his tongue against the inside of his cheek, trying to keep frustration from turning sharper.

“You said that before,” he reminded him, lifting his eyes again while the hurt remained visible in the tight line of his mouth.

Giyuu looked at him then. His expression softened with something close to guilt, though he did not step nearer.

“I came back,” he said, and the words carried a quiet insistence, as though returning at all should mean more than the time it had taken.

“A year later,” Sanemi replied, his voice dropping as the disappointment finally outweighed the anger. He held Giyuu’s gaze for another moment, waiting for an explanation that might make the distance feel less deliberate.

Giyuu did not answer.

His eyes lowered once more, and his hands stilled around the cup while the silence between them filled with everything he either could not or would not say.

Sanemi looked at him, anger and hurt pressing together beneath his ribs.

“We’ll meet again,” he said, though the words sounded closer to a demand than a question. “You’re not disappearing again.”

Giyuu lifted his eyes.

Snow had begun settling in his hair without melting.

Sanemi did not notice.

“Yes,” Giyuu said softly. “We’ll meet again.”

The promise seemed to cost him something.

Sanemi reached for his hand.

Giyuu let him take it.

His fingers were cold and strangely light in Sanemi’s grip, but they closed around his in return.

They stood that way for a while beneath the trees.

Then Giyuu stepped back.

Sanemi released him reluctantly.

Giyuu looked at him once more, his expression quiet and full of words he did not say.

“I’ll come back,” he murmured.

Sanemi watched him leave along the path.

This time, he did not disappear behind a passing bus.

He simply walked beneath the lamps until the snow and darkness made him difficult to see.

Sanemi remained there long after the last shape of him was gone.

************************

Another year passed.

By then, the meetings had become something Sanemi thought about more often than he admitted.

He did not understand why Giyuu refused to call, why he appeared without warning, or why every attempt to ask where he lived ended with another vague answer. He told himself Giyuu had always been difficult. Private. Too willing to carry things alone until they became impossible to explain.

The excuses annoyed him.

They also gave him something to believe.

On February seventh, Sanemi sat at a table with Mitsuri, Iguro, Rengoku, and Shinobu after work.

The date had been printed at the top of every document he signed that day.

He did not notice it.

They had gathered in a small restaurant near the office, mostly because Mitsuri had insisted they had not all eaten together in months. Iguro sat beside her with one arm resting along the back of her chair, while Rengoku spoke enthusiastically about a project he wanted to begin in spring.

Sanemi listened only in pieces.

His attention kept drifting toward the window.

Snow had not started yet, but the air outside looked heavy enough for it.

Shinobu noticed first.

She sat across from him with one hand around her glass, watching him glance toward the street for the fourth time in several minutes.

“You’ve been somewhere else all evening,” she said, her voice light enough that the others did not immediately stop speaking, though her eyes remained fixed on him.

Sanemi looked back at the table.

“Work.”

Shinobu’s expression did not change.

“You left work three hours ago.”

Sanemi shrugged and reached for his drink.

Mitsuri looked toward him then.

Concern moved through her face, quieter than it had been during the video call two years earlier, though Sanemi did not notice the difference.

“You haven’t been sleeping again, have you?” she asked, turning slightly in her chair while Iguro’s hand lowered from the backrest to rest near her shoulder.

Sanemi took a drink.

“I sleep.”

No one answered immediately.

Rengoku’s earlier enthusiasm faded into a more attentive silence, while Shinobu looked down at the table as if deciding how much to say.

Iguro studied Sanemi from across the plates.

“You look distracted,” he said, his voice calm rather than accusing.

Sanemi rubbed one thumb over the condensation on his glass.

“Sanemi rubbed one thumb over the condensation on his glass, following the water as it slid down toward the table. For a few seconds he seemed to forget the others were waiting for an answer, his attention fixed on the window and the dark street beyond it.

“Giyuu,” he said at last, the name leaving him more quietly than the rest of the conversation had.

The effect around the table was small enough to miss if someone had not been looking for it.

Mitsuri’s fingers stopped against the edge of her napkin, the fabric caught lightly between them while the warmth in her expression faded into something more careful. Across from her, Shinobu lifted her eyes from her glass and held them on Sanemi’s face, her posture remaining composed even as her hand tightened slightly around the stem.

Rengoku had been leaning forward a moment earlier, ready to continue whatever he had been saying, but he settled back without speaking. Iguro did not move much at all. Only his gaze shifted toward Mitsuri, brief and quiet, checking her expression before returning to Sanemi.

Sanemi noticed none of it.

He was still looking through the window, watching the first flecks of snow catch in the streetlights while irritation slowly returned to his face.

“I don’t get why he keeps leaving,” he continued, his thumb pressing harder against the glass now. “He shows up, acts like nothing happened, and then he’s gone again before morning.”

The words came out tired rather than angry, though the frustration beneath them was easy to hear.

Shinobu’s lips parted as if an answer had risen before she could stop it.

For one moment, she looked ready to say something.

Then her eyes moved across the table toward Mitsuri, and whatever she had intended to say remained there, unspoken. She closed her mouth, lowered her gaze to the glass in front of her, and drew a slow breath through her nose while the silence around the table grew heavier.

Mitsuri lowered her hand into her lap, fingers curling together beneath the table where Sanemi could not see them.

Rengoku looked toward his untouched drink.

Sanemi turned back and found all of them quieter than before.

“What?”

Mitsuri’s expression softened quickly.

“Nothing,” she said, though she did not smile. “I’m listening.”

Sanemi leaned back in his chair.

“He says work’s busy,” he continued, shaking his head with tired frustration. “Won’t tell me where he’s staying. Won’t give me a number that works. Then he says he’ll come back like that’s supposed to fix it.”

Shinobu looked at him for a long moment.

There was grief in her face, but Sanemi read it as concern.

“You’ve seen him more than once?” she asked carefully, her fingers tightening around the stem of her glass.

Sanemi frowned.

“Yeah,” Sanemi answered, his fingers still curled around the glass while he looked toward the window instead of anyone at the table.

Shinobu drew in a slow breath. The movement was controlled, but her shoulders rose slightly beneath her blouse before settling again, and when Mitsuri looked across at her, the two women held each other’s gaze for less than a second.

It was enough.

Sanemi caught it from the corner of his eye and turned back toward them, irritation tightening his expression.

“What’s that look for?” he asked, his voice quieter now, which only made the tension beneath it more obvious.

Shinobu lowered her eyes to the drink in front of her. Her thumb moved once along the stem of the glass before she answered.

“No reason,” she said, the words careful and too restrained to sound convincing.

Sanemi’s mouth hardened.

“You all do that,” he said, looking from Shinobu to Mitsuri and then toward Rengoku, who had gone unusually still.

Iguro’s brows drew together. He shifted slightly in his chair, one arm still resting behind Mitsuri while his attention settled fully on Sanemi.

“Do what?” he asked, not challenging him, only giving him room to say what had clearly been bothering him for some time.

Sanemi leaned back and let out a tired breath through his nose. His hand left the glass and fell to the table, fingers spreading briefly against the wood.

“Look at each other every time I mention him,” he said, his gaze moving across their faces as if he expected one of them to finally admit what he was seeing.

The table grew quieter.

Mitsuri moved before anyone else could answer. She folded one hand over the other near her plate, using the small gesture to steady herself while she held Sanemi’s attention.

“We know it’s complicated,” she said, her voice gentle and even. The sadness around her eyes remained, but she kept the rest of her expression soft enough that he would not feel cornered. “That’s all.”

Sanemi looked at her for a moment.

Mitsuri did not look away. She seemed tired rather than suspicious, and the sympathy in her face was easy enough for him to understand in the way that hurt least.

“Yeah,” he muttered, turning back toward the window while one shoulder lifted in a small, defeated shrug. “I know.”

No one corrected him.

Shinobu lowered her gaze again. Rengoku reached for his glass without drinking from it, and beneath the edge of the table, Iguro’s hand shifted over Mitsuri’s, his fingers closing gently around hers while the conversation moved on around what none of them could bring themselves to say.

Rengoku resumed speaking after a while, though his voice was less energetic than before. Shinobu barely touched the rest of her drink. Mitsuri leaned closer to Iguro, and his hand settled over hers beneath the edge of the table.

Sanemi remained with them until the meal ended.

Then he put on his coat and left alone.

Outside, the first snow had begun to fall.

He did not know where Giyuu would appear.

He only knew, with the quiet certainty of habit, that he would.

_________________

The classroom had been too warm for early spring.

Sunlight pressed through the tall windows along the left wall, falling in pale rectangles across the desks, while the old radiator beneath them continued giving off heat no one needed. Several students had already loosened their ties despite the teacher’s repeated warnings, and someone near the back kept opening the window only for the girl beside it to close it again a few minutes later.

Sanemi sat with his chair tilted onto two legs, one hand around the edge of his desk while the teacher read through the new seating arrangement in a voice that suggested she had already accepted the complaints that would follow.

He had stopped listening after hearing Rengoku’s name assigned to the opposite side of the room.

That alone had irritated him.

Rengoku was loud enough during class without needing to shout across three rows whenever he wanted to borrow something, and Sanemi had already begun considering whether ignoring the new arrangement entirely would be worth the detention when the teacher called his name.

“Shinazugawa, front row. The empty desk beside Tomioka.”

The rear legs of Sanemi’s chair struck the floor.

Several people turned toward him.

Sanemi looked toward the front of the room, then at the teacher as though she might realise the mistake if he gave her enough time.

The desk beside Tomioka stood near the windows, close enough to the board that Sanemi would no longer be able to sleep through half of literature without being noticed. Tomioka himself remained facing forward, one hand resting beside an open notebook while the other held a pen that had stopped moving.

He did not look at Sanemi.

That somehow made it worse.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Sanemi muttered, his mouth tightening while he pushed himself out of the chair.

The teacher continued reading names without acknowledging him.

Rengoku caught Sanemi’s eye from across the room and gave him an encouraging smile, apparently interpreting the move as something positive.

Sanemi ignored him.

He carried his bag toward the front, dropped it beside the empty chair, and sat down with enough force to make the desk shift slightly across the floor.

Tomioka looked at it.

Then at Sanemi.

His expression did not change, though his pen moved away from the edge before Sanemi’s elbow could knock it down.

Sanemi waited for him to say something.

He did not.

The teacher reached the end of the list and began passing out a worksheet, while the room settled into the usual movement of chairs, papers, and quiet complaints. Sanemi leaned back and looked toward Tomioka again.

The boy sat too straight.

His uniform was neat except for the collar, which had folded beneath itself on one side. Dark hair fell unevenly near his eyes, and the notebook in front of him was filled with small, careful handwriting that made Sanemi’s own notes look like threats scratched into paper.

Tomioka kept his gaze on the board.

Sanemi watched him for several seconds.

“You always this talkative?” he asked under his breath, keeping his attention loosely on the teacher in case she turned around.

Tomioka’s eyes shifted toward him.

He seemed to consider the question seriously, which was not the reaction Sanemi had expected.

“No,” he said quietly, then returned his attention to the board.

Sanemi stared at the side of his face.

The reply made no sense.

Or perhaps it did, and Tomioka simply had no interest in explaining it.

Sanemi let out a breath through his nose and reached for the worksheet being passed along the row. The student beside Tomioka handed over only one copy without looking, apparently forgetting there were now two people at the desk.

Tomioka placed the sheet between them.

Sanemi glanced down.

“You sharing?” Sanemi asked, glancing from the worksheet to Tomioka while one hand remained near the edge of the desk.

Tomioka looked toward the front of the classroom, where the stack had already been emptied, then slid the paper a little farther between them so neither of them had to lean across the other.

“There aren’t enough,” he said quietly, keeping his voice low enough not to draw the teacher’s attention.

Sanemi followed his gaze toward the empty desk at the front and let out a small breath through his nose. When he looked back, Tomioka had already lowered his pen to the first line.

“You could’ve mentioned that,” Sanemi muttered, shifting his chair closer so he could see the page properly.

Tomioka paused with the tip of the pen resting above the paper. His eyes moved briefly toward Sanemi, calm and slightly puzzled, as though he had not realised anything else needed to be said.

“I thought it was obvious,” he replied, then angled the worksheet a little more in Sanemi’s direction before turning back toward the board.

Sanemi watched him for a second, waiting for some sign that the answer had been meant to annoy him, but Tomioka had already begun listening to the teacher again, one hand resting lightly beside the page.

For some reason, that bothered him less than it should have.

The teacher began explaining the assignment.

They were supposed to read a passage, underline references to the setting, then discuss the final question with the person beside them. Sanemi read the first paragraph, lost interest halfway through the second, and leaned back again.

Tomioka continued reading.

His eyes moved steadily over each line while one finger rested near the bottom of the page.

Sanemi tapped the end of his pen against the desk, lightly at first, while his eyes remained on the worksheet between them.

Tomioka kept reading.

Sanemi waited a few seconds, then tapped the pen again, this time closer to the hand resting near the bottom of the page.

Tomioka’s finger stopped.

He turned his head slightly, dark hair shifting near his eyes as he looked at Sanemi with quiet confusion rather than annoyance.

“What is it?” he asked, lowering his voice so the teacher would not hear them.

Sanemi pointed toward the final line with the pen.

“Your hand’s in the way,” he said, leaning a little closer to the worksheet without looking directly at him.

Tomioka glanced down, seemed to notice where his fingers had settled, and moved them at once. He shifted his wrist to the edge of the desk, leaving the line fully visible.

Sanemi read it, though he had already caught most of the sentence before saying anything.

Tomioka returned to the passage without comment, his posture settling back into the same quiet concentration as before.

And so, another minute passed.

Tomioka began underlining a sentence.

“You missed one,” Sanemi said, pointing toward the previous paragraph with the end of his pen.

Tomioka followed the point of Sanemi’s pen and read the sentence again, his eyes moving over it more slowly this time.

“That’s only describing the room,” he said after a moment, keeping his voice low while the teacher continued speaking at the front.

Sanemi leaned closer to the worksheet and tapped the same line once.

“That still counts as setting,” he replied, his brows drawing together as though the answer should have been obvious.

Tomioka glanced at him, then back at the page.

“It’s describing the furniture.”

“The furniture’s in the room,” Sanemi said, resting his forearm against the desk while he waited for Tomioka to argue the point.

Tomioka looked at him for a second, expression calm and unreadable. Then he returned to the sentence, considered it again, and drew a line beneath it with one careful stroke.

“All right,” he said, shifting the worksheet slightly back toward the centre before continuing to read.

Sanemi stopped tapping the desk.

He had not expected that either.

Most people either argued back because of his tone or agreed too quickly just to end the conversation. Tomioka had done neither. He had considered the point, decided it made sense, and changed the answer without making anything of it.

The simplicity left Sanemi oddly without direction.

When the teacher instructed them to discuss the final question, the room filled with voices around them. Tomioka reread the prompt while Sanemi turned the worksheet slightly in his direction.

“What did the ending mean?” Sanemi asked, resting one forearm along the edge of the desk while he glanced between the final paragraph and Tomioka’s notes.

Tomioka turned his head toward him, his pen still held loosely between his fingers. He seemed surprised that Sanemi had asked at all, though nothing in his expression suggested he meant to make fun of him for it.

Sanemi raised his brows when the silence stretched.

“You read it,” he said, tilting the worksheet slightly in Tomioka’s direction.

Tomioka’s gaze moved down to the page, then back to Sanemi.

“So did you,” he replied quietly, his posture remaining straight even as a faint hint of confusion crossed his face.

Sanemi leaned back a little and rolled the pen between his fingers.

“I stopped caring halfway through,” he admitted, looking toward the front of the classroom as though the story itself were responsible for losing him.

Something shifted around Tomioka’s mouth.

It was not quite a smile, and he looked down before it could become one, but Sanemi noticed it anyway.

“The character didn’t want to leave,” he said, looking down at the final paragraph again. “He wanted the other person to ask him to stay.”

Sanemi glanced over the final lines again, following the exchange between the two characters before his expression tightened with impatience.

“He could’ve just said that,” he muttered, tapping the end of his pen once beside the paragraph as though the entire problem could have been avoided with one straightforward sentence.

Tomioka kept his eyes on the page. His fingers rested near the margin, still and careful, while the noise of the classroom carried on around them.

“He didn’t know if he was wanted,” he said after a moment, his voice quiet enough that Sanemi had to lean slightly closer to hear him.

Sanemi looked at the side of his face, unconvinced.

“That’s stupid,” he said, though the words came out more puzzled than cruel.

Tomioka’s gaze remained lowered. A small tension passed through his jaw before he answered, and one thumb moved slowly along the edge of the worksheet.

“Probably,” he said, without defending the character or looking up.

Sanemi looked at him for a second longer.

There was something in the quiet answer that made the conversation feel less like an argument than it had begun.

By the end of the lesson, Sanemi had learned three things about Tomioka.

He rarely spoke unless someone asked him directly.

He understood more than his expression showed.

And when he disagreed, he did not seem to realise that most people expected him to soften it.

That became clear during lunch.

Sanemi had intended to eat with Rengoku outside, but rain began before the bell and drove most of the students into the cafeteria. By the time he reached it, every table near the windows had filled, and Rengoku had been pulled into a conversation with three members of the athletics club on the other side of the room.

Sanemi took his tray toward the quietest corner he could find.

Tomioka was already sitting there alone.

He had placed his bag on the chair beside him and was eating rice from a small lunch box, attention fixed on a book propped against the napkin dispenser.

Sanemi stopped beside the table.

Tomioka looked up.

“Move your bag,” Sanemi said, shifting the tray slightly when someone brushed past him from behind.

Tomioka closed the book around one finger and moved the bag to the floor.

Sanemi sat.

They ate without speaking for several minutes.

It was easier than Sanemi expected.

Tomioka did not ask why he had chosen the table, did not try to force conversation, and did not look uncomfortable with the silence. He simply reopened the book and continued reading between bites.

Sanemi glanced toward the cover.

“What’s that?”

Tomioka turned it slightly.

“A book.”

Sanemi looked at him.

Tomioka seemed to realise only after answering that the question had probably meant something else.

His eyes dropped briefly toward the cover.

“It’s about marine life,” he added, his fingers resting near the page as though uncertain whether more explanation was required.

Sanemi took another bite.

“You like fish?”

“Yes.”

The directness made Sanemi’s mouth pull faintly at one corner.

Tomioka noticed the expression but did not ask about it.

A group of students passed their table, one of them calling Tomioka’s name in a tone that sounded less friendly than curious. Tomioka looked up, then back down when the boy continued walking without saying anything else.

Sanemi watched him.

“You know them?”

Tomioka shook his head.

“Then why’d he call you?”

“I don’t know.”

He sounded genuinely uncertain.

Sanemi looked toward the group and saw them glancing back.

The tallest boy whispered something that made the others laugh.

Tomioka continued eating.

Sanemi’s grip tightened around his chopsticks.

He did not know Tomioka well enough to care.

That was what he told himself while he stared until the boys looked away.

When he turned back, Tomioka was watching him.

“What?” Sanemi asked, irritation rising mostly because he had been caught.

Tomioka lowered his eyes.

“Nothing.”

This time, Sanemi understood the answer.

The memory shifted.

Rain against classroom windows became sunlight across a school gate. Tomioka stood beneath it with his bag over one shoulder, dark hair lifting in the wind while he looked down at a dog sitting near his shoes.

The dog was smaller then, still growing into his legs, with paws too large for the rest of him and a red leash looped around Sanemi’s hand.

Tomioka crouched.

The puppy moved forward cautiously, sniffed his fingers, then pressed his nose into his palm.

Sanemi watched from several steps away.

“He doesn’t usually like people.”

Tomioka looked up.

The puppy had already placed one paw on his knee.

“He likes me.”

Sanemi gave him an unimpressed look, though the certainty in Tomioka’s voice almost made him laugh.

“You’ve known him thirty seconds.”

Tomioka lowered his gaze to the dog again, fingers moving carefully through the fur near his ears.

“He still likes me.”

The puppy wagged hard enough to lose his balance.

Sanemi caught the leash before it tangled around Tomioka’s shoe.

The scene changed again.

A convenience store after dark.

Giyuu stood beneath the bright lights near the drinks refrigerator, reading the ingredients on two nearly identical bottles of tea while Sanemi waited beside him with his hands in his pockets.

“You’ve been looking at those for five minutes,” Sanemi said, leaning one shoulder against the glass door.

Giyuu compared the two labels again, holding one bottle in each hand while his eyes moved carefully over the small print near the bottom. The refrigerator’s cold light caught across his face, making the concentration in his expression look far more serious than the decision required.

“This one has less sugar,” he said, lifting the bottle in his left hand slightly as though that settled the matter.

Sanemi remained beside him with one shoulder resting against the refrigerator door, watching the comparison with growing impatience.

“You’re buying sweet tea,” he pointed out, his brows drawing together while he glanced from one nearly identical bottle to the other.

Giyuu turned his head toward him. His expression stayed calm, though there was a faint crease between his brows now, as if Sanemi had misunderstood something obvious.

“That doesn’t mean it needs that much,” he replied, then looked back at the labels and placed the sweeter bottle carefully onto the shelf.

Sanemi reached past him, took one bottle at random, and placed it in the basket.

Giyuu watched the movement, then quietly returned the other bottle to the shelf.

The next image came warmer.

Summer near the park pond.

The dog barked at a duck until it turned and waddled toward the path, wings lifting slightly as it came closer. The puppy immediately backed into Sanemi’s legs, almost knocking him over.

Giyuu laughed.

Not loudly. Just enough for Sanemi to turn.

Giyuu had one hand near his mouth, eyes bright in the sunlight while the sound escaped before he could stop it.

Sanemi forgot the duck.

Forgot the dog trying to climb behind him.

For several seconds, he only looked at Giyuu.

The dream loosened around the edges.

The park dissolved into darkness, and the laughter followed Sanemi as he woke.

His eyes opened slowly.

Grey morning light filled the room through a gap in the curtains, soft enough that he did not immediately recognise the bedroom. The blanket had twisted around one leg during the night, and his hand rested across the empty space beside him as though he had reached for someone in his sleep.

Sanemi remained still.

The dream had felt different from the others.

There had been no headlights, no cold room, no smell of disinfectant that clung to the back of his throat after waking. The memory had been warm, ordinary, filled with details too small for his mind to have invented.

He knew that day.

Not all of it, but enough.

The classroom.

The worksheet.

Giyuu sitting beside him because the teacher had assigned the seats.

Sanemi closed his eyes again and saw the uneven fold of Giyuu’s collar, the book about fish, the puppy pressing his nose into Giyuu’s palm.

A quiet breath left him.

“I remember.”

The words disappeared into the empty room.

He turned his head toward the clock.

It was earlier than he expected.

The other side of the bed remained untouched, though for a moment Sanemi felt as though someone had been lying there only seconds earlier. He pressed one hand against the sheet.

Cold.

The sensation left an odd weight in his chest.

Sanemi sat up, rubbing both hands over his face before looking toward the window. The sky outside was pale and heavy, the kind that usually meant snow before evening.

He did not notice the date on the clock display.

He went to work.

The dream stayed with him through the morning.

It returned while he waited for the lift, while he poured coffee in the office kitchen, and again during a meeting when Uzui began explaining why a presentation needed a different opening. Sanemi found himself staring at a blank space in his notes, remembering the way Giyuu had said, *He likes me*, as if the dog’s affection had been a settled fact from the moment they met.

Mitsuri noticed his distraction before lunch.

She sat across from him in the break room with a container of food Iguro had packed that morning, watching Sanemi stir coffee he had stopped drinking several minutes earlier.

“You’ve been smiling at that cup,” she said, her voice carrying quiet amusement while she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

Sanemi looked up.

“I’m not smiling.”

Mitsuri lowered her eyes toward his mouth, then back to his face.

The expression became more obvious only because he tried to remove it.

She did not argue.

Instead, she opened her container and shifted a piece of fruit toward one side with her fork.

“Did something good happen?” she asked, keeping her tone light enough that he could ignore the question if he wanted.

Sanemi looked down at the coffee.

“I remembered something.”

Mitsuri’s hand stopped.

Only for a moment.

Sanemi did not notice because he was watching the faint movement of the liquid beneath the spoon.

“From school,” Sanemi continued, turning the spoon once through his coffee while his attention stayed on the faint swirl near the surface. “The day I got stuck sitting beside Giyuu.”

Mitsuri’s expression softened at once.

Something sad moved through her eyes, brief enough that Sanemi missed it when she lowered her gaze toward the lunch container in front of her. Her fingers adjusted the lid even though it was already lying flat beside her elbow, giving herself a small task before she looked back up.

“What did you remember?” she asked, her voice quieter now, with none of the earlier teasing left in it.

Sanemi leaned back in his chair and folded one arm across his stomach, the memory still clear enough to pull faint irritation into his face.

“He barely spoke,” he said, looking past Mitsuri for a moment as though he could still see the classroom and the desk pressed against his own.

A small laugh escaped her before she could stop it. Mitsuri lowered her head slightly, smiling into the edge of her sleeve.

“That sounds like him,” she said, warmth returning to her voice as she pictured it.

Sanemi’s mouth tightened, though the expression did not quite hide the fondness underneath it.

“He was irritating,” he said, rubbing his thumb over the side of the cup while his eyes drifted back toward the coffee.

Mitsuri’s smile remained while she looked at him over the edge of her container.

“You just said he barely spoke.”

“That was the irritating part.”

She laughed again, softer this time, and Sanemi shook his head as though the memory had annoyed him rather than followed him warmly through the entire morning.

“He shared the worksheet without asking,” he added, turning the spoon once more through the coffee. “Then he told me I was wrong about the ending.”

“Was he right?”

Sanemi looked at her.

Mitsuri’s smile widened.

He lowered his gaze again.

“Maybe.”

She did not ask anything else.

That evening, Sanemi left work later than planned.

Snow had begun falling during the final hour, soft flakes gathering along the parked cars and the edges of shop windows while the pavement remained dark beneath passing shoes. He could have taken the direct route home.

Instead, he turned toward the old shopping street near the river.

He had no reason for it.

The place had changed over the years. Several shops had closed, replaced by brighter cafés and small stores that seemed to survive mostly through tourists, though one narrow bookshop remained near the corner where the road curved toward the bridge.

Sanemi stopped across from it.

The display window was fogged near the bottom, crowded with second-hand novels, postcards, and a ceramic fish painted blue along the spine.

Something in his chest tightened.

He remembered standing there after school.

Giyuu beside him

A shared umbrella that did not cover either of them properly.

The dog pulling toward the river.

Sanemi crossed the street.

A small covered walkway ran beside the shop, leading toward an old riverside viewing platform where people sometimes stopped to watch the water. It had been one of the quietest places in the area before newer restaurants opened farther down.

Sanemi walked beneath the awning.

Giyuu stood near the railing.

He faced the river with both hands resting against the cold metal, snow settling across the shoulders of his dark coat without seeming to melt. The streetlight behind him cast a faint outline through his hair.

Sanemi slowed.

This time, the shock did not stop him completely.

Relief came first.

It moved through him so quickly that the anger arrived several seconds late, weaker than it had been during the previous meetings.

“Giyuu.”

Giyuu turned.

His eyes widened, though the surprise in his face softened almost immediately when he recognised Sanemi. One hand left the railing and fell to his side, fingers curling loosely as if he had nearly reached toward him.

“You came here,” Giyuu said, his voice quiet beneath the sound of the river and traffic beyond the bridge.

Sanemi approached until only a few steps remained between them.

“You sound surprised,” Sanemi said, slowing near the railing while he watched Giyuu’s expression.

Giyuu looked toward the bookshop window across the street. Snow had begun gathering along the lower edge of the glass, blurring the old display behind it.

“I wasn’t sure you still came here,” he said, keeping his voice quiet while one hand settled against the cold metal railing.

Sanemi followed his gaze.

The place looked different from when they were younger, but not enough to hide what it had been to them. He could still picture Giyuu standing beneath the narrow awning with a book tucked beneath his coat, waiting for the rain to ease while Sanemi complained about the umbrella being too small.

“We used to spend half our time here,” Sanemi said, a faint smile pulling at his mouth as the memory settled more clearly.

Giyuu’s expression softened. His shoulders eased slightly beneath his coat, and he looked back toward the river before the emotion in his face became too visible.

“You always said you hated waiting outside the shop,” he murmured, though the warmth in his voice suggested they both knew Sanemi had kept coming anyway.

“I hated waiting for you to choose a book,” Sanemi corrected, resting one hand against the railing while his eyes remained on Giyuu. “That’s different.”

A small smile appeared on Giyuu’s face.

“You still waited,” he said, letting the words sit between them without turning them into a challenge.

Sanemi looked toward the water, but the smile at the corner of his mouth remained.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I did.”

Giyuu turned fully toward him.

The snow continued settling in his hair, and Sanemi felt the urge to brush it away before remembering how cold Giyuu had been the last time they touched.

“I dreamed about school,” Sanemi said, looking toward the water as he spoke. “The teacher made me sit beside you.”

A faint smile moved across Giyuu’s face as he looked toward the river, the memory settling into his expression before he spoke.

“You were angry,” he said, and there was quiet amusement in his voice rather than accusation.

Sanemi glanced at him, one brow lifting.

“I wasn’t angry,” he replied, though the denial came too quickly to sound convincing.

Giyuu turned his head slightly, the smile still there.

“You dragged the desk across the floor when you sat down,” he reminded him, his fingers curling loosely around the railing.

Sanemi looked back toward the bookshop window and rubbed one hand along the back of his neck.

“The floor was uneven,” he said, delivering the excuse with enough confidence that it almost sounded prepared.

Giyuu’s smile became clearer.

Sanemi caught it from the corner of his eye, and some of the defensiveness left his face before he could stop it.

“You wouldn’t talk to me,” he continued, shifting his weight against the railing while the old classroom returned in small pieces. “Then, somehow, you still found a way to start correcting everything I wrote.”

Giyuu lowered his gaze for a moment, visibly trying not to laugh.

“Well..you had corrected me first,” he said, the warmth in his voice making it clear he had remembered the exchange just as well.

Sanemi remembered the underlined sentence.

He looked at Giyuu.

“You remember the worksheet?”

Giyuu’s expression faltered.

For a second, his gaze moved away, as though he had realised too late how quickly he had answered.

“Yes,” he said, fingers drawing together near the front of his coat. “I remember.”

Sanemi watched him but did not press.

The memory had left him in too good a mood to look for another argument.

“You were reading some book about fish during lunch,” he said, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. “I asked what it was, and you said it was a book.”

Giyuu lowered his gaze.

“I thought you were asking what I was holding.”

“I could see it was a book.”

“You didn’t ask what it was about.”

Sanemi stared at him.

Giyuu kept his face serious for another moment before his mouth shifted.

Sanemi laughed.

The sound surprised him, warm and unguarded, and Giyuu looked up as though he had been waiting years to hear it again.

The look stayed on Sanemi a little too long.

Sanemi’s laughter faded, though the warmth remained between them.

Sanemi looked toward the snow gathering along the path, another piece of the dream returning with enough clarity to make the corner of his mouth lift.

“And the dog,” he said, glancing back at Giyuu. “He followed you around like he’d known you for years.”

Giyuu’s expression softened immediately. His eyes dropped toward the pavement, though the small smile remained.

“He liked me,” he said, and there was a quiet certainty in his voice that made the memory feel close again.

Sanemi gave him a look, leaning one shoulder more comfortably against the railing.

“You were way too pleased with yourself about that.”

Giyuu turned toward him, the smile deepening slightly.

“He did like me.”

Sanemi let out a soft breath that was almost a laugh.

“He likes anyone who gives him food.”

“I didn’t give him anything that first day,” Giyuu reminded him, his brows lifting faintly while his fingers loosened around the railing.

“That’s because I took the treats away from you,” Sanemi said, and the amusement in his voice became harder to hide as he remembered Giyuu crouched beside the dog with one hand already reaching toward the open packet.

Giyuu looked down, the expression on his face turning mildly offended in the way Sanemi knew too well.

“You said he needed time to get used to me.”

“He had known you only for thirty seconds.”

“And… he still chose me.”

Sanemi shook his head, but the smile stayed as he looked back toward the river.

Giyuu looked at him with quiet disbelief.

“You gave me the treats.”

“I was trying to get him to stop climbing you.”

“He still liked me.”

Sanemi shook his head, though he could no longer hide the smile pulling at his mouth.

They remained near the river for a while, speaking in small pieces about the memories Sanemi had recovered.

Giyuu filled in details when Sanemi could not. He remembered the teacher’s name, the colour of the puppy’s leash, the rain that had started during lunch. Each answer brought another fragment close enough for Sanemi to recognise.

He did not wonder how Giyuu remembered everything so clearly after years apart.

He was simply grateful someone did.

When the cold began working through Sanemi’s coat, they left the railing and followed the river path.

Giyuu walked beside him without the distance he had kept during their first reunion. Their shoulders brushed several times, and neither adjusted away.

Sanemi told him about work.

Giyuu listened with the same quiet attention he had shown at sixteen, head turned slightly toward him while Sanemi complained about Uzui changing half a project two days before the deadline. He did not offer a reply to every sentence. Sometimes he only smiled. Sometimes his expression tightened in sympathy, or his eyes shifted toward Sanemi when the frustration in his voice became sharper.

The lack of interruption made Sanemi speak more.

By the time they reached the bridge, the conversation had moved from work to Mitsuri and Iguro, then to the dog, who had begun sleeping beside the front door again for reasons Sanemi could not understand.

Giyuu looked down at the pavement when he heard that.

His mouth tightened.

Sanemi noticed the change.

“He misses you.”

Giyuu’s steps slowed.

Snow gathered over the dark pavement between them.

“I miss him too,” he said quietly, keeping his gaze lowered.

Sanemi watched him for a second.

“And me?”

Giyuu stopped.

The question had come out before Sanemi decided whether to ask it.

He stopped as well, turning back.

Giyuu looked at him.

There was no hesitation in the answer this time, only a depth of feeling that changed his whole face.

“Yes,” he said, his voice almost lost beneath the wind. “More than I should.”

Sanemi’s brows drew together.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Giyuu looked toward the river, as though he regretted the second half the moment it left him.

“Nothing.”

Sanemi could have pushed.

Instead, he stepped closer.

Giyuu looked back when the distance between them shortened.

Sanemi lifted one hand and brushed the snow from his hair. The dark strands remained cold and dry beneath his fingers, and Giyuu closed his eyes briefly at the touch.

“You’re doing it again,” Sanemi murmured, letting his hand settle near the side of Giyuu’s face.

Giyuu opened his eyes.

“What?” Giyuu asked, though his voice had already softened beneath Sanemi’s touch. He kept his eyes on Sanemi’s face, but his posture had drawn inward slightly, as if some part of him had begun preparing for the distance before it happened.

Sanemi’s thumb moved once near his temple, brushing away a small patch of snow that had caught in his hair.

“You’re looking at me like you’re about to leave,” he said quietly, watching the way Giyuu’s expression changed at the words.

Something painful passed through Giyuu’s face. His lips parted, but no denial came, and his gaze slipped briefly toward the river before returning to Sanemi.

Sanemi let his hand remain against the side of his face.

“Come home with me,” he said, the request low and direct, though the slight tension in his jaw showed how carefully he was waiting for the answer.

Giyuu became still beneath his hand. His shoulders stopped moving with his breath, and for several seconds he only looked at Sanemi, caught between wanting to stay and whatever had always made him leave.

Sanemi felt the tension return through the line of his jaw and the slight withdrawal of his shoulders, though this time Giyuu did not look away immediately.

For several seconds, he studied Sanemi’s face.

The last two years seemed to exist between them in the silence: refusals, vague excuses, promises that took an entire winter to keep.

Sanemi waited.

He did not repeat himself.

Giyuu lowered his gaze toward the front of Sanemi’s coat, fingers moving once at his side as if resisting the urge to hold on.

“All right,” Giyuu said after a long pause, his voice so quiet beneath the wind that Sanemi almost thought he had imagined it.

His hand remained against Giyuu’s face while he searched his expression, waiting for the hesitation to return or for the answer to change.

“What?” Sanemi asked, his brows drawing together as he leaned slightly closer.

Giyuu lifted his eyes to him again. The uncertainty was still there, but it no longer looked like refusal. His shoulders eased by a fraction, and one hand rose to rest lightly around Sanemi’s wrist.

“I’ll come home with you,” he said, holding Sanemi’s gaze this time.

Relief crossed Sanemi’s face before he could stop it. The tension around his eyes loosened, and the corner of his mouth lifted faintly before he looked toward the path ahead, trying to make the reaction less obvious.

“Good,” he said, lowering his hand from Giyuu’s cheek while clearing his throat. “I wasn’t planning to ask again.”

Giyuu watched him turn away, the smallest smile appearing at the edge of his mouth as he fell into step beside him.

A small smile appeared.

They walked home together.

The apartment building looked exactly as Giyuu remembered it.

Sanemi did not know that.

He unlocked the front door and stepped aside while Giyuu remained in the corridor, staring beyond him into the dim entrance hall. The light above the kitchen sink had been left on, casting a warm strip across the floor, while the dog’s bed lay near the living-room doorway and two coats hung beside the entrance.

An empty hook remained between them.

Giyuu looked at it.

His face went still.

Sanemi followed his gaze.

“You coming in?”

Giyuu’s attention moved slowly from the hook to Sanemi.

“Yes.”

He crossed the threshold.

The dog heard them before the door closed.

Paws struck the living-room floor, quick and uneven, and then the animal came around the corner so fast that he slid against the hallway rug. He stopped when he saw Giyuu.

For one second, the whole body went still.

Then he ran forward.

Giyuu dropped to his knees.

The dog pressed into him with a broken whine, tail hitting the wall while Giyuu wrapped both arms around his neck. His face lowered into the fur, and Sanemi saw his shoulders tremble once before he steadied them.

Sanemi closed the door quietly.

“He’s going to knock you over.”

Giyuu did not look up.

“That’s fine,” he said, his voice muffled against the dog’s neck while one hand moved carefully through the fur.

The dog continued whining, pushing closer as if no amount of contact was enough.

Sanemi watched them.

Something in his chest tightened, but this time the feeling was warm.

He removed his coat and hung it beside the door, leaving the empty hook between his and Giyuu’s old place.

Giyuu eventually stood.

The dog remained pressed against his leg.

The apartment seemed to hold him still.

His gaze moved from the hallway to the kitchen, then toward the living room where an old blue mug sat on the shelf beside the television. A folded sweater remained over one end of the sofa. A pair of shoes stood beneath the bench by the wall, untouched beneath a thin layer of dust.

Giyuu recognised everything.

Sanemi mistook the look for surprise.

“I didn’t throw your stuff out,” he said, his tone becoming defensive before Giyuu had accused him of anything. He moved past toward the kitchen and set his keys in the small dish beside the counter. “Never got around to it.”

Giyuu looked toward the shoes again.

His mouth pressed into a thin line.

“All of it?”

Sanemi opened a cupboard.

“Most of it.”

The blue mug stood inside, though another remained in the living room because Sanemi had carried it there weeks earlier and forgotten to return it. He took both mugs out, rinsed one beneath the tap, and filled the kettle.

Giyuu entered the kitchen slowly.

He stopped near the counter where he used to stand while Sanemi cooked.

Sanemi moved around him without thinking, reaching for tea from the shelf above Giyuu’s shoulder. Their bodies came close enough that Giyuu drew a quiet breath.

Sanemi looked at him.

“What?”

Giyuu’s gaze rested on the tea box in his hand.

“You still buy that.”

“You drink it.”

The answer left Sanemi naturally.

Only afterward did he realise how strange it sounded when Giyuu had not lived there for years.

Giyuu looked away, but not before Sanemi saw his eyes glisten.

“You all right?” Sanemi asked, watching him more carefully now. Giyuu had gone quiet in a different way than before, his gaze moving slowly across the kitchen as though each small detail required more attention than it should have.

Giyuu nodded, though the movement came a little late. He placed both hands against the edge of the counter, fingers spreading over the familiar surface while he looked toward the cupboards, the sink, and the narrow space beside the refrigerator where they used to leave grocery bags.

“I forgot what it looked like here,” he said softly. His voice carried no surprise, only a subdued kind of distance, and his thumb moved once against the counter as though testing whether it felt the way he remembered.

Sanemi glanced around the kitchen, taking in the same worn cabinet handles, the dish towel hanging crookedly from the oven, and the stack of unopened mail near the wall.

“Nothing changed much,” he said, giving one shoulder a small shrug before looking back at Giyuu.

Giyuu’s expression tightened for a moment. He lowered his eyes to his hands, and when he answered, the words came with a quiet certainty that Sanemi did not understand.

“I know.”

The kettle began to heat behind them, filling the pause with a low mechanical hum while neither of them moved away from the counter.

Sanemi leaned back against the opposite counter and studied him.

Giyuu wore the same dark coat he had worn at every meeting. Snow had melted nowhere across the shoulders, leaving the fabric dry.

“Take that off,” Sanemi said, nodding toward it. “You’re inside.”

Giyuu hesitated before unfastening the buttons.

Beneath it, he wore a plain dark sweater.

Sanemi recognised the sweater almost immediately.

He had seen it folded inside one of the bedroom drawers only a few weeks earlier, tucked beneath two shirts he rarely wore but had never bothered moving. His gaze stayed on the dark fabric for a moment before lifting to Giyuu’s face.

“Is that mine?” he asked, the confusion in his voice sharpening slightly as his eyes dropped once more to the familiar sleeves.

Giyuu followed his gaze. He looked down at the sweater as though he had forgotten what he was wearing, one hand brushing lightly over the cuff before his expression grew distant.

“It was,” he said quietly.

Sanemi frowned.

The answer settled strangely between them, too final for something as ordinary as an old sweater. He watched Giyuu’s face, waiting for the explanation that did not come at once.

Giyuu seemed to hear the weight of his own words a moment later. His fingers stilled against the sleeve, and he raised his eyes again, correcting himself before Sanemi could ask what he meant.

“You gave it to me,”

Sanemi searched for the memory.

He saw winter sunlight, Giyuu standing in the kitchen with sleeves covering half his hands, Sanemi complaining that he stretched everything he borrowed.

The image faded quickly.

“Right,” he murmured.

Giyuu removed the coat and held it uncertainly.

Sanemi took it from him.

The fabric felt almost weightless.

He looked down at it, unsettled for only a moment, then carried it toward the hallway and hung it on the empty hook.

When he returned, Giyuu was staring at the place it now occupied.

Neither mentioned it.

They drank tea in the living room.

Or Sanemi did.

Giyuu held the mug between both hands and occasionally lifted it near his mouth without drinking. Sanemi sat at the opposite end of the sofa at first, one leg drawn slightly beneath him while the dog lay across Giyuu’s feet.

The distance narrowed gradually.

Not through any clear decision.

Sanemi shifted closer when he showed Giyuu a photograph of the dog asleep inside a laundry basket. Giyuu leaned toward him to see the screen. Their shoulders touched and remained that way after Sanemi lowered the phone.

They spoke about school again.

Sanemi remembered more as the night continued: Rengoku trying to force them both into a sports club, Giyuu waiting at the school gate with the puppy, their first visit to the riverside bookshop.

“You bought me the fish book,” Giyuu said, his gaze drifting toward the dark window while one hand rested near the dog’s head. His fingers moved slowly through the fur, and the small smile on his face suggested the memory had stayed clearer for him than most things had for Sanemi.

Sanemi leaned back against the sofa and searched for it, brows drawing together as he tried to place the shop, the shelf, the cover.

“I thought you already had it,” he said after a moment, sounding more uncertain than he meant to.

Giyuu turned his head toward him.

“You saw me reading it in the shop,” he said, his voice quiet and matter-of-fact, though there was warmth beneath it.

Sanemi lifted one shoulder.

“And?”

Giyuu looked down at the dog again, the smile at the corner of his mouth becoming a little more visible.

“You went back the next day,” he said, letting the answer settle without adding anything else.

The fragment returned then: Sanemi standing at the counter with the book held awkwardly beneath one arm, pretending he had only bought it because he was tired of seeing Giyuu borrow the same worn library copy.

Sanemi standing at the register, embarrassed enough to tell the cashier it was for his younger brother.

He rubbed the back of his neck.

“I probably wanted you to stop borrowing library copies.”

Giyuu’s mouth curved.

“You wrote your name inside it.”

Sanemi turned toward him.

“Why would I do that?”

“So I would remember who gave it to me.”

The quiet certainty in Giyuu’s voice made Sanemi’s chest tighten.

He looked down at the mug in his hands.

“Did it work?”

“Yes.”

Giyuu’s eyes remained on him.

“I remembered everything.”

The room became quiet.

Sanemi lifted his gaze.

Giyuu sat close enough that the warmth of the lamp softened the shadows beneath his eyes, though his skin remained pale and his hands still looked cold around the untouched tea.

Sanemi set his mug down.

“You keep talking like that,” Sanemi said, watching the faint smile leave Giyuu’s face while the dog remained stretched across their feet.

Giyuu’s fingers tightened slightly in the fur beneath his hand. He did not look at Sanemi at first, his attention settling instead on the untouched tea and the familiar room around them.

“Like what?” he asked, keeping his voice quiet even as his shoulders drew in.

Sanemi turned toward him more fully, one arm resting along the back of the sofa.

“Like this is the last time you’ll see any of it,” he said, studying the way Giyuu’s expression closed at the words.

Giyuu lowered his gaze.

His hand stopped moving near the dog’s head, and the silence that followed lasted long enough to give Sanemi an answer he had not wanted.

Sanemi shifted closer until his knee brushed Giyuu’s.

“Look at me,” he said, his voice losing its earlier sharpness.

Giyuu remained still for another moment before lifting his eyes.

Sanemi reached out and rested one hand against the side of his face, his thumb settling beneath Giyuu’s eye while he searched his expression for something Giyuu had not yet said.

Giyuu leaned into the contact before seeming to realise what he had done. His eyes closed for a moment, and his hand rose to rest lightly around Sanemi’s wrist.

Sanemi’s thumb moved beneath his eye.

“You came home,” he said, voice lower now.

Giyuu opened his eyes.

“Yes.”

“Then stay.”

The word came out softer than Sanemi intended.

Giyuu looked at him as if the request had reached somewhere painful.

He did not answer.

Sanemi leaned closer.

The first kiss was slow, almost cautious despite the years between them. Giyuu’s hand tightened around his wrist, while Sanemi held his face and waited for any sign that he wanted to pull away.

Giyuu kissed him back.

The restraint between them did not disappear immediately. It gave way in pieces, each touch recalling something their memories had not managed to return.

Giyuu’s fingers moved from Sanemi’s wrist to the front of his shirt, gripping the fabric when Sanemi deepened the kiss. Sanemi shifted closer until one knee pressed into the sofa beside Giyuu’s thigh, his free hand settling against Giyuu’s waist.

He was cold beneath the sweater.

Sanemi noticed.

Then Giyuu kissed him again with enough quiet desperation that the thought disappeared.

They paused only when breathing became difficult.

Giyuu kept his forehead against Sanemi’s, eyes closed while his fingers remained gathered in his shirt.

Sanemi studied him from the small distance.

“You’re shaking.”

Giyuu released a breath that did not warm the air between them.

“So are you.”

Sanemi looked down at his own hand against Giyuu’s side.

He was.

The dog lifted his head from the floor, watching them with mild confusion before settling again.

Sanemi laughed softly.

The tension in Giyuu’s face loosened.

Sanemi kissed the corner of his mouth.

Then his cheek.

Giyuu turned toward him, and the next kiss was gentler, carrying less urgency and more familiarity.

They moved toward the bedroom without discussing it.

The room was dim, lit only by the lamp near the bed. Sanemi stopped near the doorway when Giyuu looked inside and went completely still.

His gaze moved across the untouched side of the mattress, the books near the wall, the drawer that still held folded clothes.

Sanemi stood behind him.

“You can leave if you changed your mind.”

Giyuu turned.

“No.”

The answer came quickly.

He stepped closer and placed one hand against Sanemi’s chest, fingers spreading over the fabric as though checking that he was there.

“I don’t want to leave.”

Sanemi looked at him for several seconds.

Then he covered Giyuu’s hand with his own.

Their intimacy remained slow.

There was no hurry in the way Sanemi drew him closer or the way Giyuu rested his face near Sanemi’s neck, breathing him in as though relearning something he had feared was gone. They kissed until words no longer fit between them, stopping now and then only to look at each other.

Giyuu’s eyes filled once.

Sanemi wiped beneath them with his thumb before the tears could fall.

“What’s wrong?”

Giyuu shook his head.

His hands held tightly to Sanemi’s shoulders.

“Nothing.”

Sanemi knew it was not true.

He did not force an answer.

Instead, he kissed him again and held him until the tension slowly left his body.

Later, they lay beneath the blankets with the room dark around them.

Giyuu rested on his side facing Sanemi, one hand near the centre of his chest while Sanemi’s arm lay around his waist. The shape of him felt familiar against the mattress, though he gave off almost no warmth.

Sanemi pulled the blanket higher.

“You’re still freezing.”

Giyuu looked at him through the darkness.

“I’m all right.”

Sanemi tightened his arm around him.

“That wasn’t a question.”

Giyuu’s mouth softened.

He moved closer, resting his forehead beneath Sanemi’s chin.

For a while, neither spoke.

The dog settled outside the bedroom door with a quiet sigh.

Sanemi’s eyes began growing heavy.

Before sleep took him, Giyuu lifted his head.

“Sanemi.”

The way he said the name made Sanemi open his eyes again.

Giyuu watched him with an expression too full to understand.

“What?”

Giyuu’s fingers shifted lightly against his chest.

“I love you.”

Sanemi stared at him.

The words did not feel new.

They felt returned.

He touched Giyuu’s face.

“I love you too.”

Giyuu closed his eyes.

Sanemi felt something wet against his chest a moment later, but exhaustion had already begun pulling him under.

____________________________________

He slept

When he woke, morning had filled the room.

The curtains remained partly open, allowing pale winter light across the floor and the empty side of the bed.

Sanemi reached for Giyuu before opening his eyes fully.

His hand met cold sheets.

He became still.

Then he sat up.

“Giyuu?”

No answer came from the bathroom or hallway.

The dog lay near the bedroom door, awake and watching him.

Sanemi pushed the blanket aside and stood.

Giyuu’s clothes were gone.

So was the dark coat from the hook beside the entrance.

The apartment held no sign that anyone else had slept there except for the second mug on the table and the faint crease in the pillow beside Sanemi’s.

A folded note rested near the lamp.

Sanemi picked it up.

The handwriting was neat and familiar.

I’m sorry I left before you woke up.

Beneath it, after a small space:

I hope I’ll see you soon.

There was no explanation.

No number.

Only Giyuu’s name written at the bottom.

Sanemi sat on the edge of the bed with the note held between both hands.

Irritation came first, brief and tired, but it did not last. The memory of the previous night remained too warm, the sound of Giyuu’s voice too close.

Sanemi ran his thumb carefully across the final line.

“I hope so too,” he murmured into the quiet room.

The dog lifted his head.

Sanemi folded the note along its original crease and placed it inside the drawer beside the bed.

He would read it often during the year that followed.

At first, he expected Giyuu to return within days.

Then weeks.

He checked the park, the café, the riverside platform, and the old shopping street near the bookshop. Each place held traces of memory but no Giyuu.

The note became an answer whenever the silence stretched too long.

I hope I’ll see you soon.

Sanemi read it whenever anger began outweighing patience.

He read it after nights when sleep would not come, after dreams of school corridors and Giyuu’s cold hands, after waking with the feeling that someone had just left the room.

Months passed.

Winter softened into spring, then summer, then the first hard cold of another year.

Giyuu did not call.

He did not send another note.

Sanemi continued waiting anyway

▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎

By the fourth winter, Sanemi had learned how to look occupied even when his mind had gone somewhere else.

He kept a pen in his hand during meetings, turned pages at the right moments, and looked toward whoever was speaking often enough that most people assumed he was listening. If someone asked for his opinion, he could usually piece together the last few sentences and give an answer that sounded irritated but useful, which was close enough to normal that no one questioned it twice.

Mitsuri had begun questioning it twice.

She sat across from him in the conference room with her laptop open and one hand resting near the trackpad, watching while Uzui moved through the revised presentation at the front. The lights had been dimmed so the screen could be seen clearly, leaving most of the room in shadow except for the cold blue glow that caught across faces, folders, and the half-empty cups scattered around the table.

Sanemi had not written anything for several minutes.

His pen remained pressed against the same place on the page, the tip leaving a small dark mark where the ink had begun soaking through.

Hinata changed slides.

A large photograph appeared behind him, followed by a title Sanemi had already read three times without taking in a single word.

He looked down at the notebook again, though the words in front of him had already blurred into lines he was no longer reading.

Near the lower corner of the page, beneath an unfinished note about deadlines, he had written a date.

Sanemi stared at it for a moment, pen still resting between his fingers. He did not remember writing it, and the numbers looked strangely deliberate compared with the hurried notes around them, pressed into the paper hard enough to leave a faint mark on the page beneath.

Across the table, Mitsuri’s attention dropped briefly toward his notebook.

Her eyes lingered on the date for no more than a second before lifting to his face, and although she quickly returned her focus to the presentation, the concern that passed through her expression did not disappear fast enough for Sanemi to miss it.

Sanemi drew one line through the numbers.

The gesture was quick enough that it might have looked like a correction, though the pressure of the pen nearly tore through the page.

Mitsuri said nothing.

She shifted in her chair instead, tucking one foot beneath the other leg while she waited for Hinata to finish explaining why the new opening needed more energy. Her expression stayed attentive, but every few seconds her eyes moved back toward Sanemi with the quiet patience of someone waiting for him to notice he had already been noticed.

He ignored her.

The note was still inside the drawer beside his bed.

He had read it the previous night.

Again.

The paper had begun softening along the fold, the crease no longer sharp from being opened and closed too many times. Giyuu’s handwriting had not changed, though Sanemi sometimes thought the words looked different depending on when he read them.

I hope I’ll see you soon.

Some nights, the sentence sounded like a promise.

Other nights, it felt like an apology.

Sanemi had slept badly afterward.

Not because of the note, he told himself, though he had kept it on the bedside table until morning and woken twice with his hand resting over it.

The second time, there had been headlights in the dream.

Bright enough to erase everything else.

He remembered the sound of tyres across wet pavement and a sharp white glare through darkness, then nothing until he woke with his throat tight and the room cold around him.

No faces.

No road.

Only the feeling remained that someone had been trying to return and had never made it.

Hinata’s voice stopped.

The sudden quiet pulled Sanemi back into the room so abruptly that he lifted his head before he fully understood why. Everyone around the table had turned toward him, some openly, others only glancing up from their notes.

Sanemi looked at the slide first, trying to work out which part of the presentation he had missed, then shifted his attention toward Hinata.

“What?” he asked, his brows drawing together while he straightened slightly in his chair.

Hinata stood beside the screen with one hand still raised toward a line of text. His expression sat somewhere between strained patience and mild offence, as though he had already repeated himself once and was deciding whether Sanemi had ignored him deliberately.

“I asked whether you thought the revised timeline was realistic,” he said, lowering his hand while he studied Sanemi more closely. “Twice.”

Sanemi glanced at the figures.

He read them quickly, more irritated with himself than with the question.

“No,” he said, leaning back in his chair as he capped the pen. “You’ve cut two weeks from production and added another approval stage. That isn’t a timeline. It’s wishful thinking.”

Hinata looked toward the screen.

His mouth tightened slightly, though not because Sanemi was wrong.

Rengoku, seated near the far end of the table, lowered his coffee and gave a small nod as if the answer had confirmed something he had been thinking himself.

Mitsuri kept her eyes on Sanemi.

Hinata moved back to the earlier slide.

“All right,” he said, the confidence in his voice remaining intact even as he began changing the dates. “We’ll put the week back.”

Sanemi opened his notebook again.

The mark where he had crossed out the date remained darker than everything around it.

He covered it with his hand.

The meeting continued for another twenty minutes.

Sanemi answered when spoken to, though the effort required more concentration than it should have. Twice, he caught himself looking toward the windows along the far wall, where evening had already darkened the city beyond the glass.

Snow had been forecast.

The sky had carried the weight of it since morning, pale and low over the rooftops, though nothing had fallen yet.

He had checked several times.

He did not know why.

When the meeting finally ended, chairs moved back at once and conversation loosened around the table. Hinata stayed near the screen to discuss changes with Rengoku, while two others gathered their papers and left without much delay.

Sanemi closed his notebook and stood.

His head felt heavy, not quite painful yet, but close enough that he could sense the ache waiting behind his eyes.

Mitsuri remained seated.

She pretended to be reorganising the files on her laptop until the room had mostly emptied, then closed the screen and looked up at him.

“You didn’t hear most of that,” she said, keeping her voice quiet so it would not carry toward hinata and Rengoku.

Sanemi reached for his coat from the back of the chair and pulled it free with one hand, already turning slightly toward the door.

“I heard enough,” he said, slipping one arm into the sleeve while keeping his eyes on the papers he had gathered against his chest.

Mitsuri watched him without moving from her seat. One brow lifted faintly, not in disbelief so much as recognition, as though she had expected him to dismiss the concern before she even raised it.

“You answered one question,” she pointed out, her voice calm and lightly amused despite the tiredness still visible around her eyes.

Sanemi tugged the coat higher over his shoulder and glanced back at her.

“It was the only useful one,” he said, the corner of his mouth tightening with the dry certainty he usually used when he did not want to admit he had been distracted.

A small smile touched Mitsuri’s face.

It faded almost at once.

Sanemi noticed the change while pushing his other arm into the coat. He paused with one hand still near the collar and looked at her more directly, irritation giving way to a quieter kind of attention.

“What?” he asked, his expression sharpening slightly as he waited for her to explain the concern she had tried to hide.

Mitsuri hesitated only long enough to make the question feel considered rather than rehearsed. She folded her hands near the closed laptop, fingertips pressing lightly together while she studied the tiredness around his eyes.

“Did you sleep last night?”

Sanemi looked toward the door.

“A little.”

Her expression changed at once, concern settling more openly across her face.

“How little?”

He picked up the notebook and tucked it beneath one arm.

“I don’t know.”

Mitsuri leaned back slightly, not blocking him or turning the conversation into an argument, though she did not look away either.

“That usually means almost none,” she said softly.

Sanemi’s mouth tightened.

He could have denied it.

Instead, he looked toward the window again.

The glass reflected most of the room now, turning the city outside into a dark blur behind their own shapes.

“I had another dream,” Sanemi said, his hand still resting near the collar of his coat while his gaze shifted toward the dark windows.

Mitsuri became still.

The change was easy to miss, no more than a pause in the way her thumb had been moving over one knuckle, but Sanemi caught it this time. Her eyes lowered briefly toward the table, and the concern that crossed her face looked sharper than ordinary worry about lost sleep.

He frowned.

“You keep doing that,” he said, watching her more closely now.

Mitsuri’s gaze returned to his face. She straightened a little in her chair, though her hands remained folded near the closed laptop.

“Doing what?” she asked, her voice gentle, with a small note of caution beneath it.

“Going quiet whenever I mention the dreams,” Sanemi said. The irritation in his tone was restrained, but his expression had tightened as he waited for an honest answer.

Mitsuri drew in a careful breath. Her fingers pressed together once before loosening again, and for a moment she looked as though she were deciding how much she could say without making him pull away.

Mitsuri drew in a careful breath.

The answer did not come immediately. She glanced toward Rengoku and Uzui, both still occupied near the screen, then turned back to Sanemi with a gentleness that made him more uneasy than defensiveness would have.

“I’m trying to work out whether you want me to ask about them,” she said, her voice even while one hand settled over the other on the table.

Sanemi looked at her for another moment.

That sounded reasonable.

It did not entirely remove the strange feeling that everyone around him knew something he had missed.

He shifted the notebook beneath his arm.

“There wasn’t much to ask about,” Sanemi said, lowering his gaze while he tried to sort through the fragments without bringing the headache back. “Headlights. Rain, maybe. I woke up before anything happened.”

Mitsuri’s expression shifted, but only slightly. The concern already present around her eyes deepened for a moment before she looked down and began sliding her laptop into its case, giving her hands something to do while she listened.

Sanemi watched her pull the zipper halfway across, then stop to straighten the strap.

“You all right?” he asked, his voice less guarded now.

Mitsuri looked back up and gave him a small, reassuring smile. It was not quite as bright as usual, but it did not look forced either.

“Yeah,” she said, resting one hand over the closed case. “I’m just tired too. That meeting took more out of me than I thought.”

Sanemi studied her for another second, then let the explanation stand.

Sanemi did not believe her.

He also did not have enough energy to push.

Mitsuri stood, smoothing one hand over the front of her skirt before lifting the laptop bag onto her shoulder. She looked smaller beneath the conference-room lighting than she usually did at home, where warm lamps and Iguro’s quiet presence seemed to soften every edge around her.

“Are you going straight home?” she asked.

Sanemi gave one shoulder a small shrug.

“Probably.”

Mitsuri adjusted the strap of her bag.

For a moment, she seemed about to say something else, then stopped herself. Her fingers tightened once around the strap before relaxing.

“Obanai and I are getting dinner with Shinobu and Rengoku,” she said, keeping the invitation light. “You could come with us.”

Sanemi glanced toward Rengoku, who had begun helping Uzui disconnect the projector despite not being asked.

“No.”

Mitsuri did not look surprised.

She only gave a faint nod.

“All right.”

Sanemi looked toward her again.

The disappointment in her face was mild, not enough to pressure him, though the concern remained.

He sighed.

“Maybe next time.”

The answer seemed to matter more than he expected.

Mitsuri’s expression brightened slightly, though she did not make too much of it.

“I’ll remember you said that,” she replied, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she moved toward the door.

Sanemi followed more slowly.

They had nearly reached the corridor when Rengoku called after them.

“Shinazugawa.”

Sanemi turned.

Rengoku had left Uzui beside the projector and was walking toward them with his coat folded over one arm. The usual energy remained in his posture, though his expression had become more thoughtful now that they were no longer discussing work.

“You’ve been leaving late all week,” he said, stopping close enough that he did not need to raise his voice. “If the workload is too heavy, we can move some of it.”

Sanemi stared at him.

Rengoku did not look away.

There was no pity in his face, which made the offer easier to tolerate.

“I’ve got it,” Sanemi said, shifting the notebook to his other hand.

Rengoku studied him for a second longer, then nodded once.

“I know you do,” he said, his voice steady rather than challenging. “That does not mean you have to do all of it alone.”

Sanemi’s jaw tightened.

Beside him, Mitsuri kept quiet.

She did not add to the concern or look toward Rengoku for support. She only waited with both hands resting around the strap of her bag.

Sanemi looked from one of them to the other.

“You two plan this?”

Mitsuri’s eyes widened.

“No,” she said, clearly startled by the accusation, though she immediately softened when she realised he was not truly angry. “You just look tired.”

Rengoku gave a small nod.

“Very tired.”

Sanemi let out a breath through his nose.

The concern pressed against him from both sides, gentle enough that he could not fight it without feeling unreasonable.

“I’m sleeping badly,” he admitted, rubbing one hand over the back of his neck. “That’s it.”

Mitsuri’s posture eased slightly at the honesty.

Rengoku’s expression did not.

“For how long?”

Sanemi looked toward the corridor.

“On and off.”

Rengoku waited.

Sanemi did not offer more.

The silence lasted several seconds before Mitsuri stepped closer, not touching him but bringing her voice down as though the quieter tone might keep him from closing himself off again.

“You don’t have to tell us everything,” Mitsuri said, shifting her laptop bag higher on her shoulder while she kept her voice soft. “Just don’t bury yourself in work because you don’t know what else to do.”

Sanemi looked at her.

The words reached somewhere deeper than he expected, and for a moment the corridor around them seemed to fall away beneath the image of the folded note inside his bedside drawer, Giyuu’s handwriting pressed into paper softened by being opened too many times, the untouched half of the mattress, and a dark coat disappearing farther down a snowy path.

He broke eye contact first.

“I’m not burying myself in anything,” he said, pulling his coat more firmly around his shoulders as irritation returned to cover the discomfort.

Mitsuri’s expression softened. She seemed to regret how closely the words had landed, but she did not rush to take them back or explain herself away.

“I know,” she said after a moment, giving him a small nod while her fingers tightened briefly around the strap of her bag.

Sanemi adjusted the notebook beneath his arm and headed toward the lift.

Mitsuri remained where she was, watching him leave without calling after him, while Rengoku stood a short distance behind her and let the silence hold instead of adding another reason for Sanemi to turn defensive.

The doors opened before he reached them, revealing Iguro standing inside with two takeaway cups in one hand and his phone in the other. He looked up, first at Mitsuri, then at Sanemi and Rengoku behind her.

His gaze settled on Sanemi’s face for a moment.

“You look worse than you did this morning,” he said, stepping aside so they could enter.

Sanemi walked past him.

“Good to see you too.”

Iguro handed one of the cups to Mitsuri without needing to ask which one belonged to her. She accepted it with both hands, her expression warming despite the concern that had not fully left her face.

“Thank you,” she said, looking up at him while he leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to her temple.

Iguro’s hand rested briefly near the back of her neck before he straightened.

He looked toward Sanemi again.

“Are you coming to dinner?”

“No.”

Iguro gave him a long look, then pressed the lift button for the ground floor.

“Fine.”

Sanemi glanced at him, mildly surprised by how easily he let it go.

Iguro kept his eyes on the closing doors.

“You would ruin the mood anyway,” he added, his voice dry while one hand settled near Mitsuri’s waist.

Sanemi gave a tired breath that was almost a laugh.

“That’s better.”

Mitsuri smiled into the rim of her cup, though her eyes still moved toward Sanemi in the lift’s mirrored wall.

No one spoke again until they reached the lobby.

Outside, the first snow had begun to fall.

Sanemi stopped just beyond the glass doors.

The flakes were small, barely visible until they crossed the streetlights, but the sight of them pulled something tight inside his chest.

He looked toward the darkening city.

A feeling had been following him all day.

Not quite anticipation.

Something closer to remembering that he had forgotten an appointment.

Rengoku said something behind him about the restaurant reservation. Mitsuri answered. Iguro opened an umbrella even though the snow was too light to require one.

Sanemi barely heard them.

His hand moved toward the pocket where his phone rested.

No message waited.

He already knew that before checking.

Still, he looked.

Nothing from Giyuu.

Nothing for months.

The disappointment came quickly, familiar enough that he barely reacted to it anymore.

Mitsuri stepped beside him.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” she asked, holding the warm cup near her chest while snow caught in the pink strands near her shoulders.

Sanemi locked the phone and returned it to his pocket.

“Yeah.”

She watched him for a moment.

Then she nodded.

“Message me when you get home.”

Sanemi gave her a brief look.

“You sound like my mother.”

Mitsuri smiled, though sadness touched the expression again.

“Then do it so I don’t have to keep asking.”

Sanemi turned away before she could see the faint shift at the corner of his mouth.

“All right.”

He left them near the entrance and walked toward the station alone.

The snow fell more steadily as the distance grew between them.

He did not go home.

At the first crossing, Sanemi turned away from the route that would have taken him back to the apartment, following the line of shops that ran parallel to the station instead. Most were already closing for the evening. Metal shutters covered half the windows, employees dragged signs in from the pavement, and warm light spilled briefly through doorways before each one shut against the cold.

He kept his hands inside his coat pockets and walked without deciding where he was going.

That was what he told himself, at least.

He passed the café where he had seen Giyuu the previous winter.

The lights were still on, the corner table visible through the fogged glass, though another man sat there now with a laptop open and a scarf folded beside his cup. Sanemi slowed only slightly before continuing.

There was no reason for Giyuu to be there.

There had never been an agreement that he would be.

The disappointment came anyway.

Sanemi lowered his head against the wind and kept walking, irritation settling beneath his ribs at the ease with which one empty chair could affect him. He had spent most of the year telling himself he was no longer waiting. The note remained in his drawer because throwing it away would have been pointless, not because he read it whenever sleep refused to come. He returned to the park because the dog liked the pond, not because some part of him checked every bench before allowing himself to relax.

The explanations had become familiar enough that he no longer tested them.

Snow caught in his hair and melted near his temples. Sanemi brushed it away, his fingers grazing the place where the headache usually began, though for now there was only a dull heaviness left by the dream.

Headlights moved through the back of his mind, white and shapeless against the dark, followed by the faint sound of rain striking glass.

Sanemi tried to hold on to the image long enough to understand it, but the moment he focused, it slipped out of reach. All that remained was the uneasy sense of someone turning back toward him and never arriving.

He reached the end of the shopping street and stopped beneath the awning of a closed bakery. Across the road, partly hidden between a pharmacy and a narrow restaurant, stood the old cinema.

Its sign had lost two letters years ago. One of the bulbs above the entrance flickered unevenly, and the posters inside the display cases had begun curling at the corners from damp that had found its way beneath the glass. Larger cinemas had opened closer to the city centre, with reclining seats and screens twice the size, but this one remained where it had always been, surviving through cheap tickets, old films, and the small number of people who preferred a room that rarely filled.

Sanemi stared at it from beneath the awning.

A memory moved somewhere behind his eyes.

Giyuu sitting beside him in the dark, one hand buried in a paper carton of popcorn he had insisted he did not want. Sanemi whispering that the film was terrible, then staying through the credits because Giyuu had not moved.

The image lasted only a moment, but it left warmth behind.

Sanemi crossed the road.

A handwritten card near the ticket window advertised a late showing of an old film. He recognised the title before he could remember the plot.

They had seen it together.

He knew that much.

The woman behind the glass looked up from a paperback when he approached. Her reading glasses had slipped near the end of her nose, and she pushed them back with one finger while Sanemi read the start time.

The film had begun six minutes earlier.

“One,” he said, reaching for his wallet while snow melted along the shoulders of his coat.

The woman tore a ticket from the roll and slid it beneath the opening in the glass.

“You’ll miss the beginning,” she told him, though her voice held no real concern as she returned his change.

“I’ve seen it.”

The answer came naturally.

Sanemi stared at the ticket for a second after taking it.

He could not remember the film clearly enough to know whether the statement was true, yet the certainty remained.

The woman had already returned to her book.

Sanemi entered.

The lobby smelled faintly of old carpet, coffee, and the butter used for popcorn. Only one employee stood behind the counter, leaning against the register while watching something on his phone. Sanemi bought nothing. He had never liked eating during films, and the idea of carrying a drink into the dark while his head still felt heavy did not appeal to him.

The corridor beyond the lobby was lined with framed posters from films that had stopped showing years ago. Several had faded until the actors’ faces were nearly colourless.

Sanemi passed them slowly.

One poster near the final door caught his attention.

A coastline at night. Two figures standing beneath a railway sign.

He remembered Giyuu stopping in front of it once, studying the image longer than he had studied the film itself.

Sanemi had asked whether he planned to stand there all evening.

Giyuu had said the sea looked familiar.

Sanemi could not remember what he had answered.

The door to the screening room opened with a low scrape.

Darkness met him first, followed by the sound of rain coming through the speakers. The screen showed a road shining beneath streetlights, a car moving alone through the night.

Sanemi stopped just inside.

His stomach tightened.

For one second, the white light from the screen became headlights through wet glass, too bright and too close, and the ache behind his eyes sharpened enough that he pressed two fingers to his temple.

Then the scene changed.

A house appeared on the screen, and the sensation loosened before it could become anything he understood.

Sanemi let out a quiet breath and moved farther into the room.

There were fewer than twenty people inside. Most sat near the centre, leaving the back rows almost entirely empty. Sanemi climbed the narrow steps carefully, one hand brushing the seat backs as his eyes adjusted.

He knew where he was going.

The second row from the back.

Two seats from the aisle.

He reached them and stopped.

Giyuu was sitting in the seat beside his.

The screen light moved across his face in pale, shifting colours, catching briefly in his eyes before the room darkened again. He sat with both hands resting loosely in his lap, attention turned toward the film, though something in his posture suggested he had known Sanemi was there before he arrived beside him.

For several seconds, Sanemi did not move.

The anger he had expected to feel was slow to come.

Relief arrived first, deep enough that it weakened his knees before he could hide it. His hand tightened around the ticket, folding one corner between his fingers.

Giyuu turned.

The surprise in his face was quiet this time. His eyes widened slightly, then softened as soon as they settled on Sanemi.

Neither spoke immediately.

A woman several rows below shifted in her seat, the rustle of her coat sounding unnaturally loud in the pause.

Sanemi sat down.

He removed his coat and placed it across his knees, keeping his attention on the screen for several seconds before looking toward Giyuu again.

“You could’ve told me you were coming,” he murmured, his voice kept low for the room, though the tired reproach beneath it remained clear.

Giyuu’s gaze moved toward the film. His fingers drew together in his lap, one thumb rubbing slowly over the side of the other hand.

“I didn’t know if I could,” he said after a moment, the words quiet enough that the sound of rain from the speakers nearly covered them.

Sanemi watched the side of his face.

He assumed Giyuu meant that he had been uncertain whether he wanted to see him, or whether returning would reopen whatever had kept them apart for most of the year.

Either explanation irritated him.

“You keep saying things like that,” Sanemi whispered, leaning slightly closer so he would not need to raise his voice. “Like someone else decides where you go.”

Giyuu’s expression tightened, though he did not look away from the screen.

For a moment, Sanemi thought he might answer.

Instead, Giyuu lowered his gaze to his hands.

“I’m here now,” he said.

The reply was not enough.

It should not have been enough.

Sanemi still felt some of the tension leave his shoulders as he settled farther into the seat.

“Yeah,” he muttered, turning toward the film again. “You are.”

They let the conversation end there.

The room darkened as the film moved into another night scene. On the screen, two characters sat opposite each other in an almost empty restaurant, neither speaking while a waitress cleared tables around them.

Sanemi remembered none of it.

He became aware instead of the space between his hand and Giyuu’s on the shared armrest.

Only a few centimetres separated them.

Giyuu’s fingers lay still near the edge, his smallest finger curled slightly inward as if he were making a deliberate effort not to cross the distance.

Sanemi watched without turning his head.

The caution annoyed him.

They had slept in the same bed. They had kissed in the park, walked home together, and spent one night fitting back into the old shape of their life as if the years between them had been no more than a badly remembered argument.

Now Giyuu sat beside him like touching would require permission.

Sanemi moved his hand across the armrest.

His knuckles brushed Giyuu’s fingers.

Giyuu went still.

The reaction was so immediate that Sanemi looked toward him.

Giyuu remained facing the screen, but his attention was no longer on the film. His breathing had changed, becoming shallower while the muscles along his jaw tightened.

Sanemi left his hand there.

He did not close the distance any further.

After several seconds, Giyuu turned his palm upward.

The movement was small, almost hidden beneath the coat sleeve gathered near his wrist, but Sanemi saw it.

He slid their hands together.

Giyuu’s fingers closed around his carefully.

Sanemi looked back toward the screen before Giyuu could see the relief in his face.

The film continued.

They did not speak through the next several scenes.

Giyuu watched quietly, though Sanemi caught him looking over more than once. Each time, Giyuu returned his attention to the screen before Sanemi could turn fully, as if he had only glanced toward the aisle or the row below them.

On the fourth time, Sanemi did not let him avoid it.

“What?” he whispered, shifting his head toward Giyuu while their hands remained joined between the seats.

Giyuu’s eyes settled on him.

The moving light from the film passed over his face, making his expression difficult to read for a moment.

“Nothing,” he said, though there was no dismissal in his voice. He looked almost embarrassed to have been caught.

Sanemi’s thumb moved once across his knuckles.

“You’ve watched me more than the film.”

A faint crease appeared between Giyuu’s brows.

“I’ve seen it before.”

“So have I.”

Giyuu looked toward the screen again.

Sanemi waited, but no answer came.

The silence might have irritated him on another night. Here, in the dark, with Giyuu’s hand resting in his and the old film moving across the room, it felt too familiar to disturb.

Near the middle of the film, the two characters stopped beneath an awning while rain struck the pavement beyond them, the sound filling the cinema in a soft, steady rush.

The memory returned before Sanemi could prepare for it.

Not the dream this time, and not another broken image that vanished as soon as he reached for it.

A real evening, years earlier.

He had been sitting in this same cinema, younger and far less patient, with one ankle resting over the opposite knee while he shifted every few minutes against a seat he had already complained was uncomfortable. Giyuu had been beside him, quiet through most of the film, his hands folded loosely in his lap and his attention fixed on the screen even as exhaustion began to pull at him.

At first, his head dipped only slightly.

Then again.

Each time, Giyuu straightened before he could fully fall asleep, blinking at the screen as though concentration alone might keep him awake. Sanemi had noticed long before Giyuu finally leaned far enough for the side of his head to brush against Sanemi’s shoulder.

He had also pretended not to.

Sanemi kept his eyes on the film and his body deliberately still, even when the weight settled more fully against him and Giyuu’s breathing softened near his neck. He could have nudged him awake. He could have made some quiet remark about paying for a ticket only to sleep through half the movie.

Instead, he shifted his shoulder just enough to make the position easier for him and said nothing.

By the time the final act began, Giyuu was asleep against him, hair brushing Sanemi’s neck while one hand remained loosely closed around an untouched paper cup.

Sanemi had stayed still for almost forty minutes.

His shoulder had gone numb.

He had not moved him.

The memory settled over the present so clearly that Sanemi glanced toward Giyuu.

Giyuu was already watching him.

“You fell asleep,” Sanemi murmured, the corner of his mouth lifting faintly as the old ache in his shoulder seemed to return through memory alone.

Giyuu blinked.

“During this?”

“The first time.”

His expression softened with recognition.

“I was tired.”

“You drooled on me.”

Giyuu’s eyes narrowed slightly, though there was more suspicion than offence in the look.

“I didn’t.”

Sanemi leaned closer, lowering his voice further when someone in the row below shifted.

“You did.”

Giyuu watched him for another second, then looked toward the screen with a small movement at the corner of his mouth.

“You didn’t wake me.”

Sanemi’s expression changed.

The memory held that detail too: the weight of Giyuu’s head, the slow warmth spreading through Sanemi’s chest, and the ridiculous care he had taken not to move whenever Giyuu shifted.

“You looked exhausted,” he said, his thumb continuing its slow path across Giyuu’s hand.

Giyuu lowered his gaze toward where their fingers were joined.

“Thank you.”

Sanemi glanced at him.

“For letting you sleep through a film?”

“For staying.”

The words were quiet.

They carried more weight than the memory required.

Sanemi’s faint smile disappeared.

Giyuu kept his eyes lowered, perhaps realising too late how the answer sounded.

Sanemi studied him, but the darkness concealed enough that he could not decide whether the sadness in Giyuu’s face was real or something the film light had created.

He tightened his hand slightly.

“I’m still here,” he said, the words restrained and almost rough, though the pressure of his fingers made the meaning gentler.

Giyuu looked at him.

For a moment, he appeared close to saying something.

Then the screen brightened, and a voice in the film broke across the room, pulling the silence apart before either of them filled it.

They watched the rest without speaking.

Giyuu’s hand remained in Sanemi’s.

When the credits began, the few people in the lower rows stood almost immediately. Coats rustled, seats lifted, and conversation returned in low voices as everyone moved toward the aisle.

Sanemi stayed where he was.

Giyuu did too.

The credits cast a steady wash of white light across the room now, making the empty seats more visible. Sanemi watched the last few names rise over the screen while the door opened and closed behind the departing audience.

“You always made us sit through the credits,” Sanemi said, keeping his gaze on the screen even after the final names had disappeared.

Giyuu’s hand loosened slightly in his, though their fingers remained linked between the seats.

“You said leaving early was rude.”

“That was you.”

“You agreed.”

Sanemi leaned farther back, one shoulder pressing into the worn fabric of the seat as he glanced toward him.

“I wanted to avoid the crowd.”

A small smile touched Giyuu’s face, quiet and familiar enough that Sanemi felt something in his chest ease before he could stop it.

He noticed the expression and kept looking at him for a moment longer than necessary, though he said nothing.

The final music faded.

The screen went dark, taking the last moving light with it.

For several seconds, the room was lit only by the dim lamps running along the aisle. In the softer darkness, Giyuu’s face became harder to read, though Sanemi could still feel the warmth of his hand and the slight movement of his thumb near Sanemi’s knuckle.

The door opened behind them.

A strip of light fell across the back row as an employee stepped into the room and paused near the entrance, glancing over the remaining seats before beginning the quiet check for cups and wrappers left behind.

Sanemi released Giyuu’s hand reluctantly and reached for his coat.

“We should go,” he murmured, slipping one arm into the sleeve while Giyuu stood beside him.

They left the screening room together.

The employee near the door gave Sanemi a distracted nod and stepped aside. His gaze passed briefly in Giyuu’s direction as the two of them moved into the corridor, though his attention had already returned to the rubbish left between the seats.

Sanemi saw nothing unusual in it.

The lobby was almost empty now. The young man behind the counter had begun cleaning the coffee machine, while the woman at the ticket window remained absorbed in her book.

Giyuu slowed near one of the old framed posters.

It showed the same coastline Sanemi had noticed on his way in, dark water beneath a cloudy sky and two figures standing near the tracks.

Sanemi stopped beside him and followed his gaze toward the dark stretch of sea printed across the poster.

“You always liked that one,” he said, his voice quieter now that they were alone in the corridor.

Giyuu’s expression shifted as he looked at it. The softness that had remained after the film faded into something more distant, and his eyes stayed on the two figures near the tracks.

“I liked the ending.”

Sanemi studied the image more closely, trying to pull the story back into focus.

“I don’t remember it.”

“They missed the train.”

Sanemi glanced toward him, one brow drawing in.

“That doesn’t sound like a good ending.”

A small smile touched Giyuu’s mouth, though sadness lingered beneath it.

“They stopped waiting for it.”

Sanemi turned fully toward him.

For a second, Giyuu kept looking at the poster, as though the answer belonged more to the figures beneath the railway sign than to either of them. Something about the words felt pointed, but Sanemi could not tell whether Giyuu meant to say something about them or whether he was only remembering the film.

Before Sanemi could ask, Giyuu lowered his gaze and stepped away from the frame.

Giyuu seemed to notice the attention and stepped away from the poster, drawing his coat more closely around himself as he moved toward the exit.

Outside, the snow had thickened.

It covered the pavement in a thin white layer and softened the edges of parked cars, benches, and rubbish bins along the street. The station lights shone through it in blurred halos, while people passed with their heads lowered beneath hoods and umbrellas.

Sanemi stopped beneath the cinema awning.

Giyuu stood beside him, watching the snow.

For a moment, neither moved.

The warmth of the cinema remained trapped inside Sanemi’s coat, though cold air had already begun finding the gap near his neck.

He looked toward Giyuu.

“You hungry?”

Giyuu’s eyes shifted toward him.

“No.”

“You always say that.”

A faint trace of amusement moved through Giyuu’s face.

“I’m still not hungry.”

Sanemi let the answer pass.

He pushed both hands into his coat pockets, then nodded toward the quieter street running away from the station.

“Walk with me.”

Giyuu looked at the falling snow before returning his gaze to Sanemi.

“All right.”

They left the shelter of the awning.

The street beyond the cinema had emptied more quickly than the main road. Only a few shop windows remained lit, their reflections stretching across the wet pavement wherever the snow had not yet settled. Sanemi walked close enough that their sleeves brushed, though this time Giyuu did not leave space between them.

For several minutes, they spoke about the film.

Or rather, Sanemi complained about parts he still thought made no sense, while Giyuu listened with the quiet patience that had always encouraged him to continue longer than he intended. He did not answer every criticism. Sometimes he only glanced toward Sanemi with a small smile, or tilted his head when Sanemi contradicted something he had apparently said the first time they watched it.

“You hated the main character then too,” Giyuu said as they crossed beneath a row of trees, his voice carrying mild amusement while he watched the snow gather near Sanemi’s shoulders.

“He spent half the film refusing to say what he wanted.”

“You said that was unrealistic.”

“It is.”

Giyuu looked ahead.

His expression softened into something Sanemi could not read.

“Some people don’t know how.”

Sanemi glanced at him.

Giyuu kept walking, one hand buried in his coat pocket while the other hung close enough to Sanemi’s that their fingers touched whenever their steps fell out of rhythm.

“You know how,” Sanemi said.

Giyuu’s gaze dropped briefly toward the pavement.

“Not always.”

Sanemi could have argued.

Instead, he reached across and took his hand again.

Giyuu’s steps faltered for less than a second before his fingers closed in return.

They continued toward the older part of the city, where the streets narrowed and the noise from the station faded behind them.

Sanemi did not yet mention his friends.

He did not mention the dreams either.

For the moment, Giyuu was beside him, and the questions waiting beneath the evening could remain unanswered a little longer.