It was almost poetic.
No, more than that.
It felt... like a cruel trick wrapped in something beautiful.
The kind of twist you only see in movies where the protagonist ends up in the same place they started—but they're no longer the same person.
Because here I was.
Surrounded by lights, laughter, music, food—Osaka's summer festival unfolding around me like a scene from a dream—and yet all I could think about was how familiar it all felt.
The crush of bodies, the rise and fall of voices, the laughter too far away to feel real.
Just like Tokyo.
Just like the day I got separated from my friends.
I remember that day like a scar pressed into my memory—blurred signs, busy intersections, phones that wouldn't connect, my voice lost in the noise as the crowd swallowed everything familiar.
I never thought that same kind of crowd would return.
But it had.
Only now... I wasn't alone.
Yui walked beside me, humming something under her breath. A soft, childlike tune. Her steps were light, almost bouncing. She held a matcha ice cream cone in her left hand, her right occasionally brushing against mine, though never on purpose.
Or maybe it was.
Her cheeks were flushed—not just from the heat, I think—and her eyes kept darting toward the lanterns strung above us, swaying gently like stars caught in a breeze.
People around us bustled in every direction, calling out orders to vendors, trying to win goldfish, eating too much sugar, snapping pictures with old friends. Taiko drums pounded somewhere in the distance, deep and thunderous, like the heartbeat of a giant sleeping beneath the streets.
The night smelled like soy sauce and roasted corn, fried batter and charcoal. It was alive in a way Tokyo never was. Messier. Louder. More real.
I should have been overwhelmed.
But I wasn't.
Because she was beside me.
We hadn't meant to end up here. Not exactly.
One missed train. A misread sign. A wrong exit from the station. And yet somehow, all of that had led us here.
Osaka.
The festival.
The lights.
Her.
Fate?
I don't know.
But if fate was a train delay, I'd take it again in a heartbeat.
---
Eventually, we found a place to sit—wide stone steps leading up to a quiet temple on a hill just above the main road.
From there, we could see everything.
The rows of paper lanterns glowed like fireflies. Their reflections shimmered off the backs of festival-goers as if blessing each and every one with the light of some forgotten god.
Yui settled beside me without a word, letting her skirt fall over her knees, tucking her ice cream against her palm so it wouldn't drip. Her breath came out in a little puff, even though the night was warm. It wasn't cold air. Just nerves, maybe.
She fumbled for her phone, typed something, and turned the screen to me.
("This feels like a movie.")
Her eyes sparkled as she watched my reaction, like she was trying to guess what kind of response I'd give before I even said anything.
I smiled.
A small one.
The kind you don't force.
"Yeah," I said quietly, staring out at the scene before us. "One of those slow, quiet love stories."
She tilted her head, a little confused, her brows lifting in that curious way she had.
I raised my hands, curled my fingers, and formed a heart shape in the air.
Cheesy? Definitely.
But it made her freeze.
She blinked. Once.
Twice.
And then her entire face turned the color of her strawberry cheeks.
She looked down, covered her face with her hands, and burst into laughter—the kind that sounded more like bubbles popping in a soda can. Light, fizzy, uncontrollable.
I chuckled too.
And for a moment, it was easy to believe that this was all we needed.
Just her and me.
Sitting on temple steps in a city we hadn't planned to visit.
Watching strangers live their stories, as we quietly wrote one of our own.
---
But fate wasn't done with me yet.
I caught a movement in the corner of my eye.
Something fast. Familiar.
A flash of blue. A hoodie. A voice. A laugh. A Tamil accent.
That laugh. That voice. That… that was—
I stood up so fast it made her blink in surprise.
Squinting into the sea of people below, I scanned the street.
And there they were.
No doubt about it.
My friends.
The same guys I came to Japan with.
One of them was waving a half-eaten takoyaki stick like a sword, yelling something about "best stall in the city" while the other was wearing a ridiculous Pikachu headband, shoving him back and pointing at a grilled squid cart. A third was recording them on his phone, laughing so hard he had to crouch down to catch his breath.
I couldn't believe it.
I had been looking for them for days. I'd walked unfamiliar streets, begged for directions, spammed group chats, even talked to hostel owners in broken Japanese.
I had wanted nothing more than to find them again.
To go back to how things were before I got lost.
To go back to being part of the group.
And now they were right there.
A hundred feet away.
Just a shout would've done it.
I opened my mouth.
Paused.
And then looked down.
Yui was still sitting beside me.
Still humming, her attention focused on a paper lantern gently drifting in the wind, her ice cream now forgotten in her hand.
Her eyes reflected the glow of the night.
And her smile…
That soft, barely-there smile.
In that moment, something inside me shifted.
I didn't want to leave.
Not anymore.
Not yet.
---
I sat back down.
Quietly.
Yui noticed.
She didn't say anything.
Just watched me.
Her eyes flicked toward the crowd where my attention had gone.
Then back to me.
She understood.
I saw it in the way she breathed in slowly, the way her fingers tightened around her phone for just a second.
She opened the messaging app again. Typed something with a thoughtful pause between every word.
Then handed the phone to me.
("You can go. I will stay.")
No judgment.
No sadness.
Just honesty.
And something else…
Permission.
That hurt more than if she'd begged me to stay.
Because she didn't try to hold me back.
She was letting me go.
Which meant…
She was brave enough to lose me.
I took the phone from her slowly, typed my reply with trembling fingers.
Then turned the screen to her.
("I don't want to go. Not yet.")
She read it.
Then she looked at me.
Really looked.
And for the first time since we met, I saw a hint of vulnerability slip through her calm expression.
Her hands stilled.
Then. so slowly I almost didn't notice, she reached out.
And touched mine.
Just for a second.
Just a brush.
But that was all it took.
To say something neither of us dared to voice aloud.
You were lost. But maybe, I'm the place you found.
---
The first firework cracked open the night like a promise.
A golden flower bloomed above us, followed by red sparks raining down like divine embers.
The sky exploded in color—blue, white, green, pink.
I didn't move.
Neither did she.
We sat together, fingers barely touching, breaths syncing with the bursts of light above.
People cheered. Children gasped. Cameras flashed. But for me…
All I saw was her. All I felt was warmth. And all I knew was this:
I wasn't lost anymore.
---
One Plus Notification:
____________•••____________
You are one plus away from realizing what home feels like… even far from where you began.
____________•••____________