The door clicked shut behind me, soft but final, as though sealing away the years I'd spent apart from this place. I stepped inside slowly, like a trespasser in what was once familiar territory. The faint scent of my mother's cooking still lingered in the air—sweet soy, stewed roots, a trace of miso—but it mingled now with something colder. Dust. Stillness. Time.
It should've felt like coming home.
But it didn't.
Not anymore.
I stood there for a long moment, my travel bag heavy on my shoulder, held more by habit than need. My eyes scanned the hallway, expecting something—someone—to come rushing forward, laughter in their voice, arms outstretched. That was how I remembered it. That was how it used to be.
But the house offered only silence.
Then—footsteps. Soft. Hesitant. Like a memory approaching from the shadows.
I turned toward the sound.
And there she was.
Aoi.
She stood just beyond the threshold of the living room, as if the years had carved a boundary neither of us knew how to cross. Her face was older now—sharper, quieter. The pigtails I once tugged at to annoy her were gone, replaced by hair that fell loosely around her shoulders, catching the light like it belonged to someone else. Someone older. Someone I didn't quite know.
But her eyes—those same warm brown eyes—they hadn't changed. Not entirely. Only now they held something else. A quiet distance. A restrained awareness. As if they, too, remembered more than they wanted to.
She stopped a few feet in front of me. Her gaze lingered. Her lips twitched in the shape of a smile, but it never made it to her eyes.
"Riku," she said.
Just my name. No fanfare. No tears. Just that. Soft. Careful. Like she was testing the sound of it after too long.
"Yeah," I replied, with a laugh that came out thinner than I meant. "It's me."
As if saying it would make it feel true.
But it didn't.
Not really.
The air between us felt fragile, like we might shatter it if we said too much—or too little. My throat tightened as I tried to find something normal to say, some thread that could tether us back to what we used to be.
"You've grown up," I managed.
It was the truth. But it felt too small for what I meant.
Aoi looked down. Her hands brushed the hem of her skirt—nervous. Or maybe guarded. She nodded once, like she was agreeing to more than just the words.
"Yeah," she said. "I guess I have."
And just like that, the weight of it settled between us.
That one line—so simple, so ordinary—held years we hadn't spoken of. Years where everything had changed in ways we couldn't name. Or wouldn't.
The silence stretched. It wasn't empty. It was full—of all the things we couldn't yet say. I noticed how she stood, how her shoulders were a little straighter now, her gaze a little too composed. And yet, beneath the surface, there was something… else. A flicker I couldn't quite place. Something in the way her eyes didn't quite let go of mine. Something in the way she didn't smile like she used to.
A flicker of recognition.
And something more dangerous.
I cleared my throat and looked away, my pulse unsteady. "It's… good to be back," I said.
The words felt like a lie.
Aoi gave a small nod, still not meeting my eyes. The distance between us wasn't measured in steps—it was in time, in silence, in everything that had shifted while we'd been apart.
"So, uh… how's school?" I asked. I hated how forced it sounded.
She glanced at me quickly, then away again. "It's fine," she said, a little too fast. "Everything's fine."
But I didn't believe her.
Just like she didn't believe me.
I wanted to ask more. To reach for her. To undo the invisible wall we'd both started building.
But something held me back.
It wasn't just the years. It wasn't just the awkwardness.
It was something else now.
Something unspoken.
Something neither of us was ready to face.