POV: Kaito
The futon was thin, the room small and cluttered, but Kaito didn't mind.
He couldn't sleep during the early morning hours, staring at the ceiling of his childhood friend's apartment. The hum of the refrigerator blended with the sound of traffic far away outside. There was a muffled thud of a door from a neighbor down the hall. The city never slept.
"Still getting used to Tokyo?" a voice called out from the kitchen.
"I never was," Kaito muttered, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
Yuto, his ex-neighbor-turned-barista, handed him a cup of black coffee. "I can tell. You look like a country ghost hovering over this tight space."
Kaito forced a weak smile. "Thanks for letting me crash here."
Yuto shrugged. "It's what friends do. You said you were searching for someone?"
Kaito nodded, cradling the warm mug. "Haruka. She used to live here when we were children. She went away for years but came back recently… not by her own choice."
Yuto stood leaning against the counter, one eyebrow raised. "You mean the daughter of that strict professor on Hibari Street?"
"Your remember her?"
"Not especially. Just the legend. Her dad's strict. Everyone around here knows that."
Kaito's face stern. "She's home. But I don't think she's free to do what she likes."
Yuto studied him for some time. "And you'd like to make her free?"
"I simply wish her to see that she doesn't stand alone."
A spark of tension seemed to hover in the air between them, yet only the faint gurgle of refilling coffee cups breached the stillness. Yuto finally ended the silence.
"I'll ask around quietly. My regulars know everything that goes on in this neighborhood. But if they catch you snooping too much, it'll get to her father quickly."
"I know," Kaito said. "That's why I'm keeping low."
Low meant walking Tokyo on foot, keeping his head down, his phone quiet, his hope alive.
That day, he walked for hours.
Not with a plan, but with memories.
There had been a little park between the corner store and the laundromat. It was still there—smaller than he remembered, as if it had shrunk over the years.
He sat on the same bench they used to sit on after school, when Haruka would bring her sketchbook and Kaito would give her his melon bread.
The trees were taller. The vending machine was new.
But the laugh of hers still lingered there.
He continued.
To the bakery with the red awning—they had used to call it the "cloud shop" because of the way the steam billowed up each time the door opened. The old woman who stood at the counter was no longer there, having been superseded by her daughter. But the smell was the same: warm, sugary, like home.
He bought a cream bun and left a sticky note concealed behind the sugar packets on the self-serve station counter.
"I found the cloud shop again today. It reminded us."
He then walked to the little pedestrian bridge where they used to send paper boats down the stream. The water was darker now, narrowed by construction, but Kaito leaned against the same rusty railing and let himself be swept by the city.
Every place that he visited reminded him of another thread of the past. Piece by piece, he stitched a private map of Tokyo—their Tokyo. One not found on any visitor's brochure or street map. A hidden stitched in memories, in soft laughter, in pavement silhouettes.
And in every place, he planted a silent message.
Sometimes a sticky note, sometimes merely a drawing. Nothing with his name on it. Nothing that would land her in trouble.
He had no idea if Haruka would ever discover them.
But it was like a way of speaking to her. Like carving words into the air and hoping the wind would carry them.
That night, he returned to Yuto's apartment with sore feet and a notebook half-filled with sketches and scribbles.
"You mean it," Yuto said, munching on instant curry at the tiny kitchen table.
"I owe her more than words," Kaito answered.
Yuto didn't press further.
Kaito turned to a blank page in his notebook and started to draw.
A park bench. A red awning. A narrow bridge.
He drew them not as they were—but as he recalled them to be.
With childlike simplicity. With the warmth of summers past.".
When he finished, he wrote one line below the drawing.
Maybe we can still build something of our own—even here.
And then he closed the notebook and looked at the ceiling again.
He didn't know how long he could stay in Tokyo.
Didn't know if Haruka would ever be able to leave that house.
But for now, he had this:
A city full of shared echoes.
A promise not yet broken.
And a trail of paper the heart alone could follow.