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”

No audience of hundreds holding up phones like shields against real emotion.

A narrow aisle lined with wildflowers they picked themselves.

And a morning sky that didn't try too hard to shine — just glowed, like it knew.

Aika stood at the edge of it all. Alone.

Hair loose, dress simple, no veil — just a soft fabric that moved like memory when the breeze caught it.

She could hear the hush of waves behind the chapel garden.

Feel the weight of the ring already waiting on her finger.

And in front of her, down that petal-strewn path — Ren.

Just in black slacks, white shirt rolled at the sleeves, a sketch of her folded in his back pocket.

No music. No cue. No one to give her away.

Because no one ever owned her to begin with.

But toward a flawed one who had chosen her — and kept choosing her — even when neither of them had the script.

Like if he did, she might vanish into the sunlight and hydrangeas.

When she reached him, he didn't take her hand right away.

He just looked at her. Like maybe love was a miracle you see before you believe it.

"I wasn't alone," she said. "I was just whole."

Just vows they wrote in the back of notebooks.

Just promises that didn't sound like poetry, but landed like thunder anyway.

Aika's voice didn't tremble when she said:

> "I won't promise forever, because we don't know what that means.

And every today after, as long as I can choose you."

Ren's hands shook when he slid the ring on her finger.

But his voice was steady when he said:

> "I'll spend every lifetime learning how to stay.

And every silence finding new ways to say your name."

Just the press of their foreheads together, and the slow exhale that said: We made it here.

That night, they danced in the living room of their apartment.

Just him, holding her like he'd never need to let go again.

Records playing softly in the background.

Old jazz. Something warm. Something that curled around the bones.

At midnight, Aika lit a single candle, opened a fresh journal, and wrote:

> I didn't walk toward a rescue. I walked toward someone who let me carry my own fire.

We didn't marry to fix each other.

We married to keep building a place where we don't have to hide what's broken.

He kissed me after vows like we were just beginning.

It just stayed — when it didn't have to.

Chapter 14 – The Wedding