The world felt thinner at dawn.
Ren sat on the rooftop of his apartment building, the sky still painted with hints of lavender and pink. The early Tokyo traffic murmured below, distant and muffled, like a heartbeat buried under layers of cotton. In his hand, he clutched the piece of parchment that had appeared by his pillow.
Find me.
He had no idea how it had crossed the impossible gap between them. He didn't understand why it hadn't disintegrated or vanished by morning. But he didn't care. It was real. More real than anything else in his life right now.
He stared at it again, wondering if she—Aira—had received his message in return. Had she seen it? Had she read his words: "I will"?
He hadn't dreamt of her last night. That frightened him more than anything. It was like a line had been severed.
His phone buzzed beside him. A message from Sota: You okay? You've missed two cram sessions.
Ren replied with a thumbs-up emoji, then shut the phone off. He needed to think. To plan. If there was a way to find her in real life, he had to start somewhere.
He unfolded a city map and pinned it under a paperweight. "Where do I even begin?"
---
In Yukinose, Aira opened her notebook to a new page. Her fingers hesitated over the pen. Something had changed. She didn't have the same clarity from her dreams. Ren's voice, usually soft and close, felt far away now—like someone speaking underwater.
The shrine.
She hurried back up the trail through the misty woods. The morning air was cold and sharp, and the shrine looked exactly as she'd left it, ribbon still tied in place. But the note she'd left was gone.
Instead, something new waited there.
A folded scrap of paper.
She unfolded it, her breath catching.
"I will."
Her hands trembled.
So it wasn't a dream. He had received her message. He had written back.
She fell to her knees in front of the shrine, overwhelmed by emotion. Something inside her cracked open, like a door she hadn't realized was closed. She wasn't alone in this.
Ren was real.
And he was looking for her.
---
Back in Tokyo, Ren gathered everything he had: sketches, poems, bits of dreams scrawled on sticky notes. He created a corkboard in his room, connecting them with strings and pins like some detective from a mystery novel. Sota would laugh if he saw it.
But Ren didn't care.
He noticed a pattern: the rain always came before her voice appeared. The dreams always ended at dawn. The scent of mountain air, the sound of temple bells, and once—a distant festival song he'd never heard in Tokyo.
"She's not from the city," he whispered. "She's from somewhere quieter. Older."
He began searching online for rural towns with mountain shrines dedicated to stars or dreams. There were dozens. Hundreds. But he kept going.
---
At the same time, Aira had started sketching Ren's world too. Though she'd never been to Tokyo, she found herself drawing buildings and trains she had no memory of visiting. Once, she even drew a streetlight her grandmother later identified as a district in Shinjuku.
"Strange," Obaachan muttered. "That light was knocked down during the last typhoon. You've never been to the city, have you?"
Aira shook her head. "No. Never."
But she had seen it. In a dream. With Ren beside her.
---
Their bond grew stronger not through spoken words, but shared memories.
One night, both of them dreamt the same dream.
They were standing in a field of glowing white flowers under a black sky. Stars hung low enough to touch. Ren reached out and clasped Aira's hand. She smiled at him like she'd known him forever.
"I found you," he whispered.
"You're late," she teased.
They laughed. And in that moment, time folded in on itself.
They woke up at the same moment—Ren in Tokyo, Aira in Yukinose—gasping, tears on their cheeks.
Ren sat up, whispering her name. "Aira."
Across the miles, Aira clutched her pillow. "Ren."
---
Later that week, the school announced a field trip: a historical and cultural tour of small towns along the northern coast. Ren almost dropped his lunch tray.
One of the towns on the itinerary? Yukinose.
He stared at the paper, hands numb.
Could it really be that simple?
---
In Yukinose, Aira stood at her window, watching the clouds gather. The wind smelled like rain again.
She didn't know it yet, but Ren was coming.
And the next time they met—if fate didn't interfere—would not be in a dream.
(To be continued…)