The phone rang at sunrise.
Kaito rolled off the futon, groggy. He'd just worked two back-to-back shifts the day before—morning hours at the bakery, and late-night rounds to cover a friend's shift. His hand randomly sought out the phone, eyes still half-mast.
"Hello?"
"Kaito," his mother's voice was tight and low. "Grandpa fainted this morning."
The rest of it was a blur. Something about the ambulance. Something about a Tokyo hospital.
Kaito was on his feet in a flash, his heart pounding.
"How bad is it?"
"They're still running tests," she said, then leaned in and whispered, "You should leave."
By mid-morning, Kaito stood outside the bus station, his bag slung over one shoulder.
He hadn't told Haruka.
Hadn't told Natsumi either.
It all happened too fast, suddenly, and much to breathe in at once.
The last two days had already been entangled with unseen strings of confusion. Haruka had been pulling away, mute in a way that had widened the gap between them, though she was still by his side.
He was always waiting for the right time to ask her why she was acting like that.
But now, there was no time anymore.
By the time the bus departed from the station, the sky had turned to a dull gray. Rain clung to the windows in soft, insistent drops.
Kaito leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes.
He hadn't seen his mother in nearly a year.
When they met at the hospital, no grand hugs, no over-the-top reunion—just the tense quiet of two people who had shared a roof but long since gone their separate ways.
"He's resting now," she said after she took him to a bench down the hall. "The doctors said it was a stroke. Minor, but he'll have to be watched closely."
Kaito massaged his face with both hands. "What do you want me to do?"
His mother hesitated. "I can't do it alone, Kaito."
He nodded gradually. "I'll stick around for a while."
That evening, as his grandfather slept, Kaito sat at the window of the hospital room and looked out into city lights. So many people. So many stories. And yet, he was thinking of the tiny town he'd left behind.
To flour-covered mornings and sticky notes stuck under trays.
To a girl with silent eyes and a voice he'd not heard laugh in days.
Is she alright?
He looked down at his phone.
No messages.
The next few days were a blur of hospital routines and phone calls. His mother fussed anxiously, while Kaito juggled visits from distant relatives, insurance forms, and midnight ramen runs.
And yet, he remembered Haruka.
Often.
More than he had expected.
Not just her laughter, but silences too.
The way she used to nod to him with little knowing nods. The way she eased her walls open gradually. The way she looked at him—really looked at him, as if trying to see the lines of something unspoken.
He realized that he missed her.
And not because he liked watching her every day.
He missed… her okayness.
He missed the way she laughed.
He missed the way her being there rounded out the rough edges of his own life.
And now, he wasn't certain if that part of their story would still be there when he got back.
Late at night, scrolling through ancient photos on his phone, he saw one he'd forgotten he took.
It was gentle, snapped amid that crazy flour fight in the bakery. Haruka was laughing—laughing truly, head tossed back, her cheeks dusted with white.
It wasn't perfection.
But it was real.
Kaito scowled at the screen, his thumb suspended.
Then he sent it.
Just a single photo.
No caption.
No words.
Just… a reminder.
That for an instant, everything had been light.