Namalll3

Haruka ran away from home after one sentence destroyed all her self-esteem. Failing to get into her dream university, her father decided: she was no longer a child worthy of pride.

Without a direction, Haruka disappeared into a small town and lived as a hikikomori. Her days were spent in silence, only opening the door for food delivered via an app. Until a food delivery person kept coming, with sticky notes full of absurd comments and inexplicable little attentions.

Kaito never forced her. But he was always there. Sometimes, just to say, "If you like sweets, tomorrow I'll bring melon bread from my grandmother's shop."

When Haruka ran out of money and the last order couldn't be paid, Kaito didn't get angry. Instead, he offered a solution: work for a while at her grandmother's bakery—just until Haruka could pay off her debt.

But the outside world that had always felt scary slowly changed.

And Haruka began to wonder...

Why did someone she didn't know make her feel more seen than her own family?

And why... did Kaito's gaze seem like she had met him before—in a past she had long buried?

Things He Never Says

The town was already asleep, apart from the distant rustling of leaves and a distant beam that occasionally creaked away in Haruka's room. She lay fully awake on her futon, gazing up towards the blackness above her. The soft chirp of a night bug buzzed near the window, but it was unable to encourage her to slumber.

Spring had come, soft but unavoidable. The wind had shifted, tasting lightly sweet. Plum blossoms had begun to open earlier in the day along the side of the bridge. Kaito had pointed them out on the walk home, joking they were trying to beat out the cherry blossoms for prime time. Haruka had smiled, but now lying in bed in darkness, that mood was lost.

It wasn't restlessness. It was that enigmatic, pulling ache again—the kind that appeared out of nowhere but had a home everywhere.

She yearned for her own bedroom in the city, the quiet creak of her beat-up desk chair, the cracked mug in which she made instant coffee. But above all, she yearned for her mother, but she didn't know which. The strict one? The tired one? Or the one from so many years ago, the one who used to draw the blanket up over her shoulders and say to her, "You're stronger than you know."

Haruka turned onto her side. The moonlight swept along the edge of the room and touched the spines of the books she'd placed on the low shelf. One stuck out ever so slightly—a book of poems she'd not opened since arriving.

Almost instinctively, she sat up, pulled out her notebook from under the pillow, and opened it. The pen she wrote with at the bakery still bore a smudge of flour. She pressed it onto paper.

The words did not pour out. They crept—tremulous, soft, like testing to see if it was okay to return.

If I had a voice that didn't tremble,

She hesitated. The pen hesitated over the paper.

Usually, this was where she'd rip the paper. Crumple it. Hide it away with other outlines like a little secret.

She closed the book, wedged it between the pages of the poetry book, and left it on the shelf.

Maybe it didn't have to be perfect.

Maybe it didn't even have to be good.

She climbed onto the futon again and lay down, still wide-awake, but lighter somehow. The hurt hadn't gone away—but she'd named it, and that made all the difference.

Outside, the wind shifted again, warm now, rushing through the newly bloomed branches.

And she didn't run from her thoughts for the first time in a while.

Sleepless in Spring