Chapter 8: Echoes of Warmth
The new year crept in like a soft snowfall—quiet, persistent, and almost unnoticed until it was all around them.
Kazuki had never celebrated New Year's with anyone before. There had been no warm dishes, no shared wishes, no voices counting down to midnight. But this year had been different, and the feeling lingered like the warmth of tea in a ceramic mug.
Ayaka still laughed about how awkwardly they'd clinked their mugs of canned peach soda at midnight, and Kazuki still remembered the way her forehead had rested against his, a heartbeat too long. The moment had passed without words, but it hadn't left.
January settled in with an icy grip, and the days grew shorter. The sun barely rose before it began its descent, casting golden light into the apartment for only a few short hours a day.
Kazuki had always disliked winter, but now, with Ayaka around, it became something gentler—less like isolation and more like an excuse to huddle under blankets, to share silence comfortably, to breathe in the same room without fear.
One particularly cold morning, Kazuki woke to find Ayaka sprawled beneath the kotatsu, a half-finished scarf tangled in her fingers and soft breathing escaping her lips.
Her notebook was open, a pencil resting between the pages. He stood watching her for a while, thinking how strange and comforting it was to see someone living so casually in his space—no, in their space. It still felt surreal.
He made tea quietly, taking care not to wake her, and then sat on the couch with his sketchbook. He hadn't drawn anything serious in weeks.
He flipped through the pages, finding doodles of mugs, half-finished portraits of Ayaka's silhouette, attempts at drawing the view from the balcony. It was all soft, mundane, and yet deeply real.
The world outside continued, indifferent to the small apartment tucked away in a narrow alley. Schools reopened. Cafés filled with couples and friends meeting after the break.
People hurried past each other, conversations echoing off frozen sidewalks. And yet, for Kazuki and Ayaka, time moved at a different pace.
It was on a Thursday that a letter arrived.
Kazuki stared at the return address—his middle school. It was a printed questionnaire: Where are you now? What are you doing? Would you like to attend the upcoming alumni reunion?
He dropped it on the table like it had burned his fingers.
Ayaka noticed it that evening.
"What's that?" she asked, towel draped over her shoulders as she returned from her bath, hair damp and curling at the ends.
"Old ghosts," he said simply.
She picked up the paper and scanned it. "You don't want to go?"
He shook his head. "I don't need to relive that."
She nodded, setting the paper aside. "I get it."
They didn't speak of it again until the next day, when Kazuki came home from work and found Ayaka curled on the couch with her notebook. She looked up as he walked in.
"What were you like, back then? Before all this?"
He hesitated. "I was quiet. I liked books and drawing. That was enough to be targeted. I guess… I was easy prey."
Ayaka closed her notebook. "Did anyone help you?"
"Once. A teacher. But she left the school before the year was over. After that, I stopped hoping. I just kept my head down."
She didn't say anything for a while. Then, in a soft voice: "That sounds like what happened to me."
Kazuki glanced at her. "You were bullied too?"
"In a different way," she said. "They didn't hit me. Not physically. But they whispered, excluded me, made me feel like every word I said was stupid. Even the teachers looked at me like I was a nuisance."
He reached across the kotatsu and gently placed his hand over hers. "You're not a nuisance."
Ayaka smiled. "Neither are you."
That weekend, they did something unusual—they went out together.
It started with a conversation over breakfast.
"Let's go somewhere," Ayaka said. "Just us. Even if it's just a walk."
"Where?"
"There's a winter market near the station. I saw a flyer at school. They have stalls and food, and maybe... something warm."
Kazuki hesitated. The thought of crowds, of being seen, of bumping shoulders with strangers—it still made his chest tighten. But then he saw the hopeful look in her eyes.
"Okay," he said. "Let's go."
The market was crowded but not overwhelming. Strings of fairy lights dangled from wooden beams, and steam rose from food carts selling sweet potatoes and oden. Ayaka pulled him toward a stand selling taiyaki.
"You have to try the custard one," she said, handing him a warm pastry shaped like a fish.
They found a bench near a small outdoor heater. For a moment, Kazuki forgot the cold. He watched Ayaka bite into her red bean taiyaki with childlike delight.
"You're really enjoying this," he said.
"Because I'm not alone," she replied without hesitation.
Kazuki looked down at his pastry, suddenly unsure how to respond.
Afterward, they visited a tiny bookshop tucked between two stalls. Kazuki wandered through the aisles, fingers brushing spines of old novels. Ayaka found a children's book about a fox and a rabbit who shared a winter cave, and insisted on buying it.
"For us," she said. "A bedtime story."
Back at the apartment, they took turns reading it aloud, laughing at the clumsy illustrations. By the end of the story, they were sitting shoulder to shoulder under the kotatsu, the book closed between them.
"Do you think they stayed together after winter?" Ayaka asked.
"The fox and rabbit?"
She nodded.
Kazuki tilted his head. "I think they did. Because they realized they needed each other."
Ayaka looked at him then, eyes thoughtful.
"I'm glad I met you, Kazuki."
"I'm glad you moved in."
It was the first time either of them had admitted it out loud.
February arrived quietly, with a cold wind and a thin layer of snow that covered the streets like powdered sugar.
Ayaka began preparing for exams, spreading books and notes across the floor. Kazuki started working longer shifts to help with bills, but always came home with something small—dango, a new tea blend, a sketch he'd made on the train.
They had fallen into a rhythm, a domestic heartbeat. And yet, the warmth between them had grown heavier, more tender, like a secret they weren't quite ready to speak.
One night, as they sat watching a rerun of an old anime, Ayaka turned to him.
"What if someone tries to take me away?"
Kazuki blinked. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know. A teacher. A social worker. My parents. Anyone who finds out where I am."
He took a breath. "Then we'll deal with it. Together."
Ayaka leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. "Promise?"
"Promise."
Outside, snow began to fall again. Inside, the kotatsu hummed, the television flickered, and two people sat together—once broken, now healing, still afraid, but learning to trust in small kindnesses.
And beneath it all, something unspoken waited patiently between them.
Something like love.