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 cherry tree had started to fall apart.

Blossoms scattered across the street like soft confessions — tiny, delicate truths dropped by the wind. It was the kind of beauty that hurt a little to look at, because you knew it wouldn't last.

Ren watched the petals drift from his window. Tomorrow, Aoi's parents would arrive.

But of what Aoi might become when they returned.

Of the way he might slip back into himself. Shrink. Fade. Disappear.

That evening, Ren brought two paper lanterns to the guesthouse.

They walked to the shore again, where the waves curled around their ankles and the sky wore the color of bruised lavender.

Ren set the lanterns down and lit them with care.

"What are they for?" Aoi asked, voice soft, hands tucked into his sleeves.

"A promise," Ren said. "Two, actually."

He placed the first lantern in the water. It floated, golden and steady.

"For you. So you remember you're still allowed to be who you are — even when they come back. Even when they don't see you."

Aoi stared at the glowing light, his eyes reflecting it like glass.

Ren lit the second lantern, but didn't release it. Instead, he held it out.

"For us," he said. "Whatever this is. Whatever it's becoming."

Aoi looked at him — really looked. And in that moment, Ren saw it.

Fear. Hope. A flicker of something that had no name yet, but lived loud behind his eyes.

"You keep saying things I don't know how to answer," Aoi murmured.

"You don't have to answer," Ren replied. "But I need you to know."

Then — in the space between breath and bravery — he reached out and took the lantern from Ren's hands. Their fingers brushed. Neither pulled away.

Together, they set it in the water.

Two lights, floating side by side.

Later, they sat beneath the cherry tree, their shoulders touching.

"You asked me once if I'd still come back," Ren said. "I meant what I said."

Aoi didn't speak at first. Then, barely above the wind:

"I'm scared of becoming someone you'll grow out of."

"I didn't fall for the version of you that's easy to love," Ren said. "I fell for the way you fight to stay soft. For the way you see the world. For the way you make silence feel like a conversation."

And then — for the first time — he reached for Ren's hand without hesitation.

"I don't know how to do this," he said, voice trembling.

"Neither do I," Ren whispered. "But we can learn."

And as their fingers laced under the pale rain of blossoms, the wind stilled.

Chapter 10 The Night Before the Bloom