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”

Hikari found it on a rainy afternoon.

The sky had curled into gray again. Thunder mumbling far away. Perfect weather for adventure.

She had been digging through the old shelf — the one in the corner of the study where her parents kept things too special to throw away but too worn to display. And there it was:

A children's book. Thin. Softcover. Slightly faded. Aika Misora on the spine. Illustrated by Ren Misora.

She curled onto the couch, pulled a blanket over her legs, and opened it.

Watercolor rooftops. A boy who didn't speak. A girl who didn't know how.

The story was simple — just a few lines on each page. But the drawings breathed between the words. Raindrops that looked like they fell slow. Eyes that held unspoken things.

And somehow, they found a way to grow something in the cracks.

Hikari turned each page carefully, like the book might whisper if she listened hard enough.

Just a final drawing of two people — older now — sitting on a rooftop bench with a child between them, her face upturned, eyes full of wonder.

And beneath it, in Ren's messy, unmistakable handwriting:

> This is a story about two people who met when the world was quiet, and learned how to love loud.

> If you ever find yourself on a rooftop, in the rain, with your heart half-written — keep going.

The best stories are the ones you grow into.

Held it in her lap like it was warm.

She didn't go find her parents right away.

She just sat there for a while, listening to the rain against the windows, feeling like she'd been handed a piece of treasure that didn't shine, but glowed.

Years later, when she would write her own stories,

she'd remember the book. The rooftop. The rain.

And the two people who never stopped choosing each other — even when the world tried to turn the page.

Final Journal Entry – Aika Misora

Found tucked in the back of the sketchbook Ren gave her the day he proposed.

It didn't fix me. Or change me. Or rewrite my story.

It just stood beside me while I wrote my own pages.

And every now and then, it handed me a pencil and said, "You don't have to write this part alone."

It was always about what grew there.

Epilogue – The Book of Us