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Chapter 5: Echoes of Before
Aira didn't come to the bench for three days.
The first day, Kaito waited in the cold, fingers numbing around the handle of a thermos. The second, he brought her favorite mystery author's newest release, still wrapped in ribbon. And on the third, he didn't bring anything at all.
Just himself.
But she wasn't there.
He didn't know her phone number. Didn't know her last name. In the quiet bond they'd shared, neither had asked for anything the other wasn't ready to give.
Still, the empty bench felt louder each day.
On the fourth evening, just as the sun dipped behind the sea, she returned.
Not from the usual path. She came from the opposite end of the cliff, coat buttoned unevenly, strands of her hair clinging to her cheeks. Her eyes were distant, as if they hadn't quite returned with the rest of her.
Kaito stood the moment he saw her. "I was starting to worry."
"I wasn't sure I'd come back," she said, voice flat.
He hesitated. "But you did."
Aira nodded slowly, then sat down without a word.
They stayed like that for several minutes, the silence more fragile than usual—less comfortable, more like glass stretched thin.
Finally, she spoke.
"When I was seventeen, I used to write poems in the closet."
Kaito turned toward her, his expression soft, but said nothing.
"Not because it was quiet," she continued. "But because it was the only place no one could hear me crying."
A gust of wind stirred the sea, but he kept still, letting her words unfold.
"My father had this way of breaking things without touching them," Aira said. "The house was always full of shouting, but he never had to raise a hand. Just a word. A look. He made you doubt the ground under your feet."
She laughed bitterly—just once. "My mother stopped speaking after a while. Maybe to survive. I thought if I stayed quiet long enough, I'd disappear too."
Kaito's voice came gently. "But you didn't."
"No." Her voice trembled. "I stayed. I learned how to be invisible. And then, one day, I left. No screaming. No goodbye. Just... gone."
She looked down at her hands. "But I keep wondering if I brought the silence with me. If I'm still that girl in the closet, just sitting in a different dark."
Kaito reached into his coat and took out the notebook he'd given her days ago—the blank one. She must have returned it at some point, slipped it through the shop's mail slot. He had found it that morning on the counter, wrapped in brown paper.
He opened to the first page.
The ink was smeared in places, but the handwriting was hers. Soft, slanted, uncertain.
"I am writing because the silence is heavy.
I am writing because I want to know if my voice still exists."
He looked up, met her eyes.
"You still have a voice, Aira," he said. "And it's stronger than you think."
She didn't respond right away. But then she whispered, "Read me something."
"From your writing?"
"No," she said. "From anything. I just… I want to hear something steady."
Kaito pulled a book from his coat—one he had brought on the first day she was gone. He opened it without asking, and began to read.
His voice rose and fell like waves, the words calm, even. Aira closed her eyes. And for a little while, she didn't feel like she was drowning in her own memories.
For a little while, she felt… safe.
And that was how healing began—not all at once, but in moments. In steady voices. In people who stayed.
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