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

There wasn't a precise moment when Ren realized he was falling.

It wasn't dramatic — no sudden pulse of his heart, no grand music in the background. It came in fragments. In the way Aoi sipped his tea with both hands, like warmth was something he had to hold tightly. In how he always paused before speaking, as if weighing his words on invisible scales. In how he never looked Ren directly in the eye when the emotions were real.

Love came like rain on glass. Soft. Steady. Unavoidable.

It was a Thursday when they walked down to the shore after sunset.

The sky had turned to amber, streaked with purple, and the town behind them had begun folding itself into sleep. Aoi's sketchbook was tucked beneath his arm, unopened.

They didn't speak much. They rarely did when the sea was involved.

Aoi stood near the edge of the rocks, the tide brushing close. His eyes tracked the horizon like he was waiting for something — a memory, maybe, or the ghost of a voice.

Not just because Aoi was beautiful in that quiet, unlit way — but because he had never seen anyone look at the world the way Aoi did. Like it had both broken and saved him.

He wanted to touch him — not in a rush, not in desperation. Just to press his fingers gently to Aoi's, to see if he'd lean into it. To see if they were both ready.

"I used to come here when I felt like disappearing," Aoi said suddenly, voice barely above the waves. "I thought maybe the sea would understand."

A pause. Then: "I think… it waited. Until someone else did too."

Ren turned. Aoi wasn't looking at the ocean anymore. He was looking at him.

And this time, he didn't look away.

They sat on the rocks until the sky turned indigo and the moon carved itself into the water.

Ren tore a page from his journal and handed it to Aoi.

"I don't know what love feels like.

But I know what it doesn't.

It doesn't leave.

It doesn't stay silent forever.

It doesn't look away when you're ready to be seen."

Aoi folded the paper again, carefully. Reverently.

But Aoi didn't say anything else. He just stood, eyes glinting with something fragile, and walked ahead — not too far. Just enough to leave space for Ren to follow.

Chapter 8 The Way He Looks at the Sea