Chapter 3: The Bench Between Worlds
A week passed. The days grew colder. The sky, once dusted with pale clouds, now hung low and heavy, as if winter were leaning closer, listening.
Every evening, Kaito brought a book.
He never stayed too long, and never asked too many questions. Sometimes Aira would speak. Sometimes she wouldn't. But each time, she was there on the bench by the sea—and each time, she took the book he offered like it was a gift she hadn't known she needed.
Today, he arrived with a flask of hot tea and a novel wrapped in cloth. It wasn't anything grand, just a quiet story about two strangers who shared notes in the margins of a library book. Aira had mentioned once, in a rare moment of openness, that she liked stories where people connected without speaking much.
He found her already waiting, hands folded in her lap, hair dancing slightly with the wind.
"You're early," he said, settling beside her.
She shrugged. "I didn't want to be home."
Home. A single word, weighted and vague.
Kaito unscrewed the flask's lid and poured tea into a small ceramic cup he'd brought. "I figured the cold might win today. This should help."
Aira accepted the tea with both hands. She didn't say thank you, but he saw the way her fingers curled tighter around the warmth. That was enough.
"I've been thinking," she said suddenly, eyes still on the sea. "About what it means to be seen."
Kaito glanced at her. Her expression hadn't changed, but her voice had a different texture today—less brittle, more like glass warming in the sun.
"You mean, when someone actually notices you?" he asked.
She nodded. "I think I forgot what that feels like."
The waves below crashed louder tonight, the tide restless.
"Do you want to be seen?" Kaito asked gently.
Aira was quiet for a long time. Then: "I'm afraid of what people will find if they look too closely."
Kaito leaned back slightly, his eyes drifting to the darkening sky. "Most people are," he said. "But I think it's braver to let someone see you than to hide."
Aira looked down at the book in her lap, untouched. "Why do you come here?"
He smiled faintly. "Because you're here."
She turned toward him slowly, brow furrowing. "You don't know me."
"Maybe not," Kaito said. "But I'm starting to."
He watched the wind play with her hair, strands sweeping across her cheek. She didn't brush them away. She didn't look away, either.
"I lost someone," she said, the words sudden and small. "Not to death. But to silence. The kind you can't break, no matter how loud you scream."
Kaito's breath caught. The truth had cracked through. Not everything—but something.
He didn't speak. He just poured her more tea.
Aira's eyes shimmered with something he couldn't name, and for the first time, she smiled. Not a ghost of one. A real, trembling smile.
"I think I like this story better than the ones in books," she said.
"Why's that?"
"Because I don't know how it ends."
Kaito looked at her then—not just her silhouette, not just the sadness in her voice, but her. The girl with quiet eyes and a storm behind them.
And slowly, he smiled back.
"Neither do I," he said. "But I think it's worth finding out."