The garden hadn't changed.
The same narrow path curled between low hedges, their edges dutifully trimmed, though a few stray leaves clung to the stones like forgotten memories. The old sakura tree stood near the far wall, stoic and gentle as always—its branches whispering in the breeze, bearing the first soft blooms of a spring that hadn't quite arrived.
It was past midnight when I found myself out there, wrapped in the stillness of a house too quiet to sleep in. The stars were faint, veiled by a soft stretch of cloud, and the air carried that unmistakable chill of early spring—cold enough to feel, but gentle enough not to send you running back inside. Just enough to remind you that some seasons come slower than you expect.
I sat down on the stone bench Dad had built with his own hands when we were little. It groaned faintly beneath me, weathered and old, but solid. Familiar. Like it had been waiting.
The sliding door behind me opened with a whisper.
I turned my head and saw Aoi stepping outside barefoot, her toes brushing the wooden porch. She wore a loose cardigan over her nightdress, her hair tumbling down in soft, unbrushed waves. Moonlight kissed the strands, giving her an almost ghostlike presence—real, but fragile. She said nothing. Just walked toward me with that same tentative grace I'd noticed at dinner, like each step still remembered the years we'd lost.
"Couldn't sleep?" I asked, quietly.
She shook her head. Her eyes didn't meet mine. She sat down beside me, close enough for her shoulder to brush mine. The contact was brief, hesitant. She shifted just enough to create a sliver of distance between us. Not because she wanted to move away—but because something in the air between us was trembling.
We sat like that in silence. Not the uneasy kind that begs for words. The kind that says I'm here. I stayed. The kind that hums with shared ghosts.
"I used to sit out here when I missed you," she said, her voice a soft echo. "It felt like… if I waited long enough, you'd come walking through the gate. Like time could rewind if I just believed hard enough."
I looked at her, but she wasn't looking at me. Her eyes were fixed on the garden—or maybe on a version of it that only she could still see.
"I'm sorry," I murmured.
"For what?"
"For leaving. For not coming back sooner."
Her lips parted slightly, but she didn't answer right away. Then, at last, she turned to face me—her expression unreadable in the dark, yet unmistakably tender.
"You didn't have a choice," she said, and her voice was steady. But there was something brittle beneath it. A thin layer of restraint, like glass just beginning to crack.
"I know that. I really do." Her breath caught for just a second. "But I still hated it. Every second of it. This house… it stopped feeling like home. Even the air felt different. Like I didn't belong to it anymore."
I felt her words settle deep inside me. Heavy and hollow at the same time.
"You've changed," I said quietly. "You've grown up so much."
She let out a small laugh—short, dry, almost bitter. "Of course I did. Someone had to. Someone had to stay and pretend everything was okay."
We turned to face each other then. And for the first time in years, I really looked at her.
Her eyes weren't the same ones I remembered. They no longer shimmered with the unshaken wonder of childhood. There was something else now—something sharp edged with loneliness, something that flickered like warmth held back for too long. Her gaze held the strength of someone who had survived silence.
"I waited for you," she whispered, like it hurt to admit it. "Longer than I should have. I used to sit out here until the porch light went out. Mom would call me in, but I stayed. Just in case. Just in case the gate opened and it was you."
"Not stupid," I said before she could finish. "Not even close."
She blinked once, then looked away. Her lips trembled, but she didn't cry. She was past crying. Past asking. Past explaining.
The silence returned, but this time it wasn't empty. It was full—heavy with all the years we'd never spoken of. All the letters never written. All the seconds that had waited quietly between the ticking of clocks.
Above us, the sakura tree stretched its branches into the night. One blossom—too early, too brave—had bloomed alone. It caught the moonlight like a lantern lit by memory.
"I missed this place," I said.
"Me too," she whispered.
And though we were sitting in the same garden we'd known since we were small—surrounded by stone paths and childhood stories—it felt like we were meeting for the first time.
Not as children.
Not even just as siblings.
But as two people who had wandered too far from each other for too long…
Carrying hearts that no longer knew where they were supposed to belong.