Aiyumi was seven when she first met him.
She was the quiet girl in the corner of the village playground — sketching flowers in the dirt with a fallen twig — while other children played in noisy groups. She never cried when she was lonely; she had already learned that silence was safer than asking to be included.
Then he walked up to her.
A boy with curious eyes, sun-warm smile, and the kind of presence that didn't feel like a stranger at all… but like someone she had known before she even learned words.
"You're drawing a sun," he said, crouching beside her.
She nodded without looking up.
"Can I join?"
Nobody had asked her that before.
She shifted a little to the side. He sat beside her like he was meant to be there. Not forced. Not awkward. Just right.
That was the first day.
The second day, he brought two sticks — "One for you, one for me."
The third, he brought candies.
By the fifth, he didn't have to ask if he could sit beside her. He already belonged there.
---
They were inseparable after that.
Different schools.
Different uniforms.
Same walk back home.
He used to wait at the village corner for her, she used to pretend she didn't look forward to it, but her steps always got lighter when she saw him.
He teased her, she scolded him, he laughed, she turned away — and secretly smiled.
She didn't know the word for it then.
But she felt… safe.
Not loved — she didn't even know how love felt yet —
but seen.
---
Whenever someone tried to mock her for being silent, he stood ahead of her without thinking twice.
Whenever she drew, he watched with eyes softer than she noticed.
Whenever she disappeared into her thoughts, he pulled her back with a joke only she could understand.
He was her first friend.
Her first home.
Her first warmth.
And even though they were just children, destiny had already started stitching them together — quietly, slowly, without asking permission.
Because souls recognize each other long before people do.