Diya_Tejal

The first time Ren saw Aoi, he was crouched beside the old vending machine outside the corner bookstore, sketching something into a tattered notebook. His blue hair shimmered faintly in the spring sun, like the sea had gifted him a crown.
Ren almost walked past him. But the breeze carried a whisper of graphite on paper, the soft rustle of pages turning, and something made him stop.
“You’re drawing?” Ren asked, unsure why he even said it.
Aoi looked up, blinking once like he was waking from a dream. His eyes were a startling grey, like rain on glass.
“…Yeah,” he said quietly. “You’re blocking my light.”
Ren awkwardly stepped aside. “Sorry.”
For a moment, they stared at each other. Then Aoi returned to his sketch, and Ren left, but something about that moment stayed with him — like a bookmark placed in a chapter he hadn't meant to read.

Ren had moved to the seaside town of Hoshinawa after his mother passed away. He lived with his aunt above a quaint little flower shop, spent afternoons helping arrange lilies and writing poems he never let anyone read.
The town was quiet, and Ren liked it that way — until he started seeing Aoi everywhere.
At the bookstore. Near the cliffs. At the library where he sat in silence, scribbling in his notebook, always alone.
They spoke rarely, but when they did, Aoi’s words were careful, like he measured every sentence before letting it out. He didn’t smile much — but when he did, it was faint, fragile, like a star peeking through a cloudy sky.
One day, Ren found a sketch slipped into his poetry book at the library. It was a pencil drawing of the cherry tree that bloomed outside his flower shop — and beneath it, a figure that looked suspiciously like him.
The next time he saw Aoi, he waited until they were both at the vending machine again.
“You left this?” Ren asked, holding up the drawing.
Aoi flushed, eyes darting. “Maybe.”
Ren smiled. “I write poems about that tree.”
“I know,” Aoi murmured. “I’ve read them. You leave the scraps behind.”
A silence stretched between them — but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It felt… intimate.
“I think,” Aoi said slowly, “your poems make me feel less alone.”
Ren’s chest ached, soft and sudden.
“I think your sketches do the same,” he whispered.
And that was how it started.

Over the weeks, they met more often. Exchanged words, drawings, half-written poems. They didn't need grand declarations. Their closeness grew in the quiet spaces — the brush of hands as they reached for the same book, the shared silence watching the sea, the way their shadows leaned into each other as the sun set.
One day, under the blooming cherry tree, Ren turned to Aoi and said, “You make me want to write again.”
Aoi looked at him, eyes gentler than ever. “Then write me something I can keep.”
Ren leaned in, nervous but certain, and kissed him — soft, slow, like poetry in motion.
And in that moment, the world wasn’t loud or broken.
It was just them — beneath the cherry sky, finding something beautiful in each other.

Beneath the Cherry Sky

The morning after the storm was tender.

The air outside the guesthouse smelled of washed earth and salt. Light spilled gently across the tatami floor in golden stripes, and the ocean sang in the distance — calm, steady, like it had been waiting to return.

Ren stirred awake on the couch, still wrapped in the thin blanket Aoi had given him. For a moment, he forgot where he was — then remembered the rain, the warmth of Aoi's shoulder, and the silence they had shared like a promise.

Aoi was already awake, sitting by the window with a cup of tea in his hands, legs folded beneath him. The light touched the side of his face, softening the quiet there.

"You stayed," he said without looking back.

Aoi turned slightly. There was something in his eyes — not a smile exactly, but the closest thing he had to one this early.

Ren rose, stretching. "You don't have to be good at tea. Just good at staying."

Aoi's gaze lingered on him a little longer than usual.

They didn't talk much that morning, but it wasn't like the silence before. It was… easy.

Aoi let Ren help tidy the sketches in the corner. Ren read one of his poems aloud without asking, and Aoi didn't stop him. In fact, he asked him to read another.

It felt like something soft had been planted between them — and now, it was growing.

Later, as they sat on the porch sipping lukewarm tea, Aoi said quietly, "I think I'm scared of needing people."

"Because people change. And I don't always know how to follow."

Ren placed his cup down. "What if I don't ask you to follow me? What if I just… walk beside you?"

The wind rustled the chimes above them. Somewhere in the distance, the sea crashed softly against the rocks.

"You always say the right thing," Aoi said.

"I never know if it's right until I see your face after I say it."

Aoi's lips curved into something barely-there.

"I don't know what this is," he murmured. "Us."

"It doesn't have to be anything yet," Ren whispered. "It just has to be real."

But the guesthouse didn't feel far anymore.

And when he opened his notebook later that night, he didn't need to write a poem to remember Aoi.

He simply looked out the window at the cherry blossoms.

Chapter 7 After the Rain