KREEZO

Aika Misora never planned to fall in love. Not with the boy who sat alone on rooftops, or the one who pressed flowers instead of speaking his pain. But some stories don’t wait to be written — they bloom in silence, in shared glances, in the weight of unsaid things.

After her mother’s quiet abandonment, Aika survives high school by keeping her heart zipped shut. Her world is routine: library lunches, hushed notebooks, and pretending everything’s fine. Until she meets Ren Hayashi, the quiet sketch-artist with rumors on his name and bruises in his smile.

He doesn’t talk much. But his silence says everything.

Drawn together by chance — and maybe fate — the two begin to orbit each other in secret places: the abandoned rooftop, the library’s back corner, the flower shop that smells like lost time. As seasons shift, so do they. Slowly. Tenderly. Terrifyingly.

But love, even the gentle kind, brings buried pain to the surface. And when a long-unopened letter from Aika’s mother resurfaces, the wounds between them deepen — not enough to break, but enough to test whether two broken hearts can really hold each other.

A soft, grief-tinged coming-of-age romance about first love, second chances, and what it means to stay — even when everything else leaves.

“I’ll Still Love You When We’re Old”

The same rusted railing. The same cracked tiles where weeds fought to grow between seams. The same dull hum of the city far below, always too loud and too far away at once.

Aika leaned against the railing, umbrella dangling from her wrist, eyes tracing the skyline like it might hold some version of their past still floating above it.

"I thought it'd feel smaller," she said.

Ren stepped beside her, his coat damp at the shoulders, hair curling slightly from the rain.

"It only felt big because we were small."

She smiled. "Speak for yourself. I was terrifying."

He laughed — quiet and real, the kind of sound that still made her knees soften a little.

Rain dusted the edge of the concrete, tapping rhythmically on the metal pipes. It wasn't pouring. Just present. Like a memory that never really went away.

Ren sat down, legs stretched, back to the wall like he had in high school. Aika followed, tucking her skirt under her knees, umbrella forgotten beside them.

"No. Us. The version of us that didn't need to know the answers yet."

He was silent for a moment. Then, almost too gently:

"I still don't know all the answers."

Aika tilted her head. "Which part scares you more? The future... or deserving it?"

"I've been thinking about someday," she whispered. "You and me. A small apartment. Paint on the floor. Maybe a kid who reads bedtime stories before we even finish them."

His eyes widened a little. Like she'd just said something bigger than the sky.

She laughed under her breath. "Not now. Not yet. But… maybe. One day."

Ren stared at their hands, his thumb brushing lightly over hers.

"Sometimes I worry I'll pass on all the wrong things."

"You probably will," she said, smiling. "But so will I. That's kind of the point."

He looked up at her then, eyes soft, like rain pooling at the edge of something delicate.

Aika felt the words land — not like a compliment, but like a promise.

"I think you'd be a good dad. Even if you mess it up sometimes."

They both laughed, and for a second, the rooftop felt like a lullaby.

Just the two of them and the sky and everything unspoken between.

"I don't need a perfect life," she said after a long silence. "Just one where I can keep choosing you."

"Even when you don't answer my texts for six hours because you fell asleep on your keyboard."

Ren tilted his head, hair dripping slightly into his eyes.

The rain thickened then — not storming, not angry. Just full. The way rain gets when it's not trying to ruin anything, just remind you it's still there.

> The rain never really stopped. It just learned to fall quieter. And maybe love is the same. Not louder. Just deeper. We came back to the place where it all began — and instead of looking back, we started imagining forward.

Chapter 12 – Rain Never Stopped