Yui's eyes snapped open precisely at six-thirty, seconds before her alarm would have sounded. The date was etched onto her soul, a two-year scar. It was the second anniversary of his disappearance, and the day he would have turned seventeen.
The air in her room was chilled, heavy with the dense, deadening dampness of the sea mist that had swallowed the town overnight. The fog was more than weather; it was a physical manifestation of the empty space Jun left behind.
She walked downstairs, her movements perfectly controlled—the practiced composure of the Silent Princess.
"Yui," her mother, Mrs. Hanamura, said softly from the kitchen. Her voice was thick with the usual fragile grief. "Are you sure you need to go to school today? We can go to the shrine together later, perhaps?"
A request to mourn. A plea to accept.
Yui didn't stop in the doorway. She saw the familiar pity in the slump of her mother's shoulders, a pity that felt like a quiet betrayal. They treated him as a ghost; Yui treated him as delayed.
"I'll be fine, Mother," Yui replied, the words steady and emotionless. "I have an early study group."
She slipped out into the fog, not waiting for a response. She walked straight to Jun's house, unlocking the familiar door. The air inside was cool, odorless, and utterly still, perfectly preserved for a body that never arrived. Today, the brittle silence of the last two years seemed to be straining, about to snap.
Yui sat on the edge of his old, untouched bed. Her alabaster fingers, which usually maintained their regal posture, trembled as they reached into her school bag. She pulled out the two items the one she guarded most fiercely: copper-tinged ten-yen coin and the birthday card.
She smoothed the card. It was the one she'd written 6 months ago, the culmination of dozens of drafts, each one painstakingly copied over to ensure every word of her vow was perfect, pure, and untainted by doubt. Yui allowed the words to break through the silence.
"Happy 17th Birthday, Jun. I bought the cheap vanilla cake, just like you asked. It's waiting. I know we're still kids, but you know how I feel. I love you more than anyone. I always will. Let's get out of here someday and start our stupid little life. I promise to be your wife."
The last word, wife, was a tiny, devastating sound.
The emotional wall Yui had built collapsed violently. A raw, choking sob escaped her throat—the first sound of genuine, unmanaged grief since the search ended. Her body shook with the violence of the release. It wasn't simple sadness; it was the unbearable pain of a spiritual commitment stretched past its breaking point.
When the storm finally subsided, leaving her throat aching, she picked up the ten-yen coin. It felt impossibly heavy, the weight of their entire unspent future. She stood and walked to the window, overlooking the mist-shrouded shore.
"I kept the space, Jun," she whispered, her voice husky and broken. "I kept it safe. I rejected the world, rejected their pity. I gave you all my time, all my heart. I cannot wait in the silence anymore."
She held the coin to her lips, pressing their shared vow into the cool metal. This wasn't an act of defeat; it was a final, desperate act of force. If her heart was the anchor holding his soul to this world, she had to cut the cord now to compel him.
"If you are still searching, if you still remember me... you must come home now," she pleaded internally, sending a surge of raw emotional energy outward toward the dense fog on the ocean. "I am letting go of the coin. You find your way back to this heart."
She walked out of the house, leaving the open birthday card behind, and headed for the rocky shore. The only place left to make the ultimate offering was the sea itself.