Evenings in Hoshimura are the colour of rusted gold; the light catches on the sea like a secret you almost remember.
Ren stands at the edge of the festival crowd, watching lanterns rise one by one, small suns drifting toward the stars.
Laughter, drums, the smell of grilled food, it's the first time in years the town has felt alive.
But he can't shake the sound of waves under the music, whispering something just out of reach.
---
Ryo finds him first, half-drunk on cheap soda and nostalgia.
> "You seriously came out? Miracles happen."
Ren shrugs. "Guess ghosts like fireworks."
Ryo laughs, but the joke lands flat.
> "Still thinking about the cliff?"
"Always."
Ryo nods once, the way people do when they know better than to keep talking.
---
Aika appears later, dressed in a pale yukata patterned with paper planes.
The crowd parts around her like she doesn't belong to the same timeline.
She hands Ren a small lantern.
> "Write something," she says. "It's tradition. For the ones the sea took."
He hesitates, then scrawls three names in messy strokes: Kai. Airi. Ren.
Aika raises an eyebrow.
"You wrote your own."
"Because the version of me that forgot them doesn't deserve to exist anymore."
She doesn't argue.
They release the lantern together; it drifts upward, reflecting in her eyes like twin fires.
---
Later, when the fireworks begin, Aika tugs at his sleeve.
> "Come with me. There's something I have to show you."
They slip away from the noise, following a narrow path down to the old docks.
The tide's low; moonlight paints the water silver.
At the very end of the pier sits a weathered crate, half-buried under nets and dust.
Aika kneels, opens it carefully. Inside an old cassette recorder, salt-stained but intact.
She presses play. Static crackles, then a boy's voice bursts through, bright and reckless.
> "This is Kai Saito! Day three of the Paper Plane Project, Ren chickened out again, but Airi says she'll keep flying them until he learns!"
Laughter follows, Airi's laughter, light and endless.
Ren's knees give out.
He can't breathe.
Aika lets the tape run, eyes wet but steady.
> "My father found it years ago. He was one of the fishermen that day. He couldn't bring himself to throw it away."
Ren covers his face, shoulders shaking.
Every word is a blade sharpened with love.
---
When the tape ends, Aika whispers,
> "There's one more thing the sea gave back. Not just this."
She opens her hand, inside lies a small metal pendant shaped like a wing.
> "It washed ashore a month ago. I didn't understand why until I met you."
Ren takes it, feeling the corroded edges.
It's Kai's. He remembers seeing it swing from his brother's neck the day of the storm.
He clenches it in his fist.
> "He never left."
"None of them did," Aika says. "They've been waiting for you to hear them."
Ren looks out at the dark water.
The tide's whispering again, different this time. Softer. Almost human.
He closes his eyes, listens.
> You kept the promise.
Now live.
---
When they walk back to town, the last fireworks bloom overhead, bright, soundless after the roar of the ocean.
Aika stops and looks up.
> "You ever think the sea speaks in echoes? Like it repeats what we're too scared to say."
Ren smiles faintly.
"Then I hope it says thank you."
For the first time, he means it.
---
End of Chapter 5 – If the Sea Could Speak