The next morning never came.
At least, not the way Haruka had hoped.
Her suitcase was barely closed when her father returned, this time with her mother. Their arrival filled the tiny apartment with smoke—thick, choking, inevitable.
They didn't scream. They didn't struggle.
They didn't have to.
Her mother looked around the room with pursed lips and red-rimmed eyes, and draped a crumpled-up coat over Haruka's shoulders like she was a kid who had forgotten how to do things.
The next thing she knew, they were on the way to Tokyo.
Snow clung to the edges of the windshield, streaming in crazed lines as stale air washed in through the heater. Haruka sat in the back, hands cold even through gloves. Silence was unbearable—but one she was all too familiar with.
She'd been unable to text Kaito. Her phone lay buried deep in her bag, beneath the mountain of forced acquiescence.
The village slid by them in slow motion. Frosted rooftops, slumbering trees, the sign of the bakery barely visible through the shroud of snow.
And then the corner.
That street opposite the stationery shop where Kaito had waited yesterday night, smiling.
Her chest tightened.
Would he still be waiting?
Her breath misted the glass as she leaned her forehead against it, looking out.
And then—she saw him.
He stood near the corner, gloved fists shoved into pockets, his head ducked as if striking against cold air. The scarf across his face flew out, a soft gray-blue mist.
"Kaito…"
The name didn't escape her lips.
She reached out, palm to glass as the car went by.
He looked up at the exact moment they took the turn.
Their eyes met—just for a moment.
And then he was gone.
Lost in snow and distance and all that she couldn't tell him.
Kaito stayed until coldness tickled his fingers.
He balanced his weight on one foot and then the other, his gaze shifting between the bakery and tiny street that led to Haruka's flat. He glanced at his phone once more.
No messages.
The last one stayed on the screen:
"I arrived safely. Thanks.".
He had answered, and she had seen it. The three dots had blinked, then gone, blinked again—but afterward, nothing.
It was nearing noon now.
He had waited outside her building until early morning, then gone back to the corner where they'd always meet. Maybe she needed space. Maybe there had been a crisis.
But a knot was forming in his stomach.
He attempted calling once. Then twice.
Nothing.
First, he talked himself into thinking that it was nothing. Her phone might be dead. Or she'd fainted without plugging it in. Kaito had known Haruka, however. She would've protested at least. Just to spit out one "Don't wait."
Nevertheless, he stayed.
Because a big portion of him—scared and obstinate—wouldn't let him jump to the conclusion that she was really gone.
The city lay before Haruka as a memory that she didn't want to revisit.
Skyscrapers. Dashing footsteps. Endless clatter. On the drive home, her parents did not chatter much, but only occasional talking about schedules and expectations.
The moment they came to the apartment building, Haruka was an apparition within her own flesh.
All were the same. Her room untouched. Books stacked on the bookshelf, the desk perfectly maintained. A corner of her once worked so thoroughly to be exactly what everyone had expected.
Now she didn't know how to belong there anymore.
Her phone remained turned off the rest of the day. Not because she wanted it to, but because she was scared. Scared that if she turned it back on, there would be calls from Kaito—confused, worried, patiently holding out.
And she had no clue how to answer them.
So she sat in the window, knees to her chest, as city lights sparkled in the evening mist.
Outside the snow was light here. It melted too fast. It never had a chance to accumulate like it did in the village.
Kaito finally left the corner of the street at dusk.
He walked slowly, each step heavier than the last.
At home, his grandmother stopped knitting.
"Haruka-chan wasn't here today?" she asked softly.
He nodded. "Something came up. I think."
She regarded him for a very long time, then softly patted the seat beside her.
Kaito sat, but his restlessness did not.
He wanted to tell himself it was a misunderstanding. That maybe she'd been called away on an emergency. That she'd call and explain everything.
But some voice in his head told him otherwise.
What if she didn't want to say goodbye?
What if this was it?
He stood in the kitchen later that night, alone with his phone in his hand, scrolling through the message thread. The blinking cursor mocked him.
Finally, he typed:
"Are you okay?"
He hovered over the send button.
Then deleted it.
In Tokyo, Haruka woke and didn't sleep, the ceiling above her too familiar and too foreign at once.
She turned on her phone.
Thirty-seven notifications.
But the one she was looking for wasn't present.
No new messages from Kaito.
Her heart sank a little.
Was he hurt? Mad? Lost?
Or… had he already decided it wasn't worth waiting anymore?
She closed her eyes, trying to push away the thoughts.
But even in the silence of her room, all she could imagine was the flash in his eyes behind the window.
That half-second.
That unspoken goodbye.