Fireflies in Winter

3

There are things that don’t leave when a person disappears. They linger in the quiet, in the spaces between breaths, in the echo of a voice you can no longer hear, but somehow still remember.

The world did not change the way they thought it would.

There was no sudden stillness, no sharp fracture that split everything into a before and an after. The day comes as it always did, the light slipping quietly through the curtains, brushing against untouched spaces as if nothing had been taken from them. The air carries on, indifferently moving through rooms that no longer hold the warmth they once did, settling into corners where something invisible has already begun to fade.

But something is wrong.

Not loudly, not in a way that could be named at first, but in the smallest, most unbearable details. In this way silence lingered just a little too long after a thought had formed, as if it was waiting for a voice that no longer answered. In the way certain places felt unfinished, like a sentence cut off before it could reach its end.

And somewhere between those quiet fractures, something remains.

Taiga's eyes flutter open without understanding why. The sky is a pale, washed-out blue. It doesn’t feel like morning. The light slipping through the thin gap in the curtains carries no warmth, only a quiet, indifferent brightness that rests on his skin without ever truly touching it. The air is too still, too careful, as if the world itself is holding its breath.

Taiga doesn’t move at first.

Not because of pain, or fear.

But to a strange, hollow stillness that settles deep beneath his skin, where something should have been and no longer is. The ceiling above him is unfamiliar in a way that feels distant rather than new, like something he should recognize but can’t quite reach anymore, his thoughts moving slower than they should, as if wading through something thick and unseen.

Taiga inhales, or that's what he used to. The motion is there, the instinct, the quiet rise of his chest, but the air does not follow. There is no resistance, no weight, no warmth filling his lungs, only a strange hollow stillness that does not demand anything from him.

Taiga frowns slightly.

“Weird.”

His voice leaves him too easily. Too light.  As if it has no weight to anchor it.

He pushes himself up slowly. The sheets beneath him do not crease. There is no soft rustle of fabric, no evidence that he has disturbed anything at all. Even when his feet touch the floor, the cold of the tiles never reaches him.

He knows they’re cold.

He remembers it.

But he cannot feel it.

For a moment, he just sits there. Trying to understand. Trying to find the edge of whatever this is. But his thoughts feel wrapped in something thin and distant, like fog that refuses to fully settle, yet refuses to lift.

And a voice comes, echoes around him. It’s not coming from the door nor the window.

It's not from anywhere he can turn to.

“There is someone still waiting for you.”

Taiga’s head snaps up, but no one is there. It is just the same quiet room.

“Who?”

“You don’t have much time.”

The voice is calm. It doesn’t sound familiar, not cold, but also not really kind. Not in the way it speaks, not in the way it exists, as it has always been there.

Something inside Taiga should tighten. His heart should race.

But there is no heartbeat to quicken.

Only a faint, sinking sensation, like standing too close to the edge of something vast without realizing when he got there.

“What do you mean?” Taiga's voice is slightly shaking.

But only silence answers him at first.

“Three days in the world.” 

The words linger longer than they should, stretching thin in the air before dissolving into nothing.

And Taiga is alone again.

He isn't quite sure how things move around him, but Taiga finds himself alone again. His body feels light, too light, as if gravity has loosened its hold on him. Each movement comes a fraction too late, like his shadow is trying to catch up to him instead of the other way around.

Without thinking, he reaches for the small table beside his bed.

His fingers pass over it.

No texture. No warmth. No confirmation that anything is truly there, only the memory that it should be.

Taiga stares at his hand for a long moment, as if waiting for the world to correct itself.

But it doesn’t.

Taiga brings himself out of the room. The hallway stretches longer than it ever did before. The bright light gathers at the far end, but it never quite reaches where he stands. His footsteps make no sound, no echo, no proof that he is moving at all.

And for the first time, Taiga feels something close to fear. But it's not sharp or overwhelming.

It's just slow.

A quiet realization creeping up from somewhere deep and unreachable, like cold seeping into bone.

Something has already ended, and he is the only one who hasn’t caught up to it yet.

He stops in front of another room door. His hand hovers over the handle. There’s a strange pull in his chest, as if opening this door will shift something irreversible. Something that will not allow him to go back to whatever this was before.

Taiga swallows hard out of habit more than needed before he slowly pushes the door open.

The light spills toward him. And for a fleeting second, it feels like everything is about to come back to him.

But it doesn’t.

Not yet.

Taiga steps outside. The door behind him closes without a sound. The sky seems like a morning that has already settled over the neighborhood, but it feels misplaced. The light is too even, too gentle, like it has been laid carefully over everything instead of arriving naturally. The sky is a dull, uninterrupted blue. And the air carries no weight, no warmth, no coolness, nothing that presses against his skin.

For a moment, Taiga just stands there.

The world looks the same for him.

Nothing changes. It just like... he doesn't feel like it belongs to him anymore.

A car passes by at the end of the street. He hears it, but not quite. The sound comes delayed, like it has to travel through something thicker before it reaches him. A dog barks somewhere in the distance. It sounds sharp, and then quickly swallowed by the quiet again.

Taiga starts walking.

There’s no destination in mind. His body moves out of habit, following routes he has taken a hundred times before. Empty road on the left, and the vending machine that hums softly in the shade. The small park with its rusted swings swaying just slightly, though there is no wind to push them.

Everything is familiar.

And yet, he feels like a visitor moving through someone else’s memories.

Taiga brings his feet to move, or this is what he feels until he stops in front of the vending machine.

The low electric hum vibrates faintly in the air, but when he steps closer, it fades, as if even sound refuses to meet him fully. Rows of drinks sit behind the glass, condensation clinging to the bottles in perfect droplets.

Without thinking, Taiga reaches out. His fingers press against the surface, but it feels nothing.

He can't feel the cool glass, there is no resistance.

Just the absence of sensation.

His hand lingers there longer than it should.

“…Hmm?” The word slips out, quiet and uncertain, as if he is still wondering about something he hasn’t fully understood yet.

He pulls his hand back. For a second, he thinks he sees it, a faint delay like his fingers return to him a fraction too late.

Taiga looks down at himself.

He is still here.

He can see his body, his clothes, the small crease in his sleeve from how he must have slept. Everything is intact.

But why can't he even reach the glass of a vending machine.

As Taiga's mind travels to find an answer, a group of people pass behind him. Two high school students laughing about something trivial, their voices overlapping carelessly. One of them bumps into Taiga’s shoulder.

Or it should have.

But nothing happens. They pass through him. Not dramatically, not violently. Just through him, as if he isn’t there.

Taiga freezes.

He turns his body a beat too late, watching them continue down the street without hesitation, without even the smallest reaction.

“Hey.”

His voice doesn’t reach them. It falls short, dissolving somewhere between them and him. But Taiga tries again, even louder this time.

“Hey.”

And nothing happens. They keep walking without turning. They don’t even slow down, they don’t even hesitate.

They just simply look like they are ignoring him, as if he never spoke.

Something inside him shifts. There is a crack, a thin, almost invisible, but spreading inside him.

Taiga steps back, his movements suddenly uncertain, less fluid. He looks around, searching for something, anything that will anchor him back into place.

But what Taiga sees is just the usual things that happen everyday. 

A woman walks past, her phone pressed to her ear.

An old man adjusts his glasses as he sits on the bench across him.

A child runs ahead of his mother, his laughter bright and careless.

Taiga watches them all. But none of them see him, none of them hear him.

The world seems to continue without him.

His chest tightens, but it doesn’t feel like that. There is no pressure, no constriction. Only the memory of what it should feel like to struggle for air.

And that absence is worse.

“W-...what is this?”

The question trembles as it leaves him, thin and uneven. And for the first time, his voice sounds like it may break.

Taiga starts walking faster this time. His steps still make no sound, but there is urgency in the way his body moves now, like something is chasing him even though the streets remain unchanged.

He passes familiar places without stopping.

The convenience store he used to visit late at night. The crossing where he once stood too long, waiting for the light to change even when the street was empty. The narrow alley that smells faintly of rain even on dry days.

Fragments of memory brush against him as he moves, but they don’t stay. They slip away before he can hold onto them, like trying to remember a dream seconds after waking.

Before Taiga can remember, something pulls him. Not physically. Not a force he can see. But something deeper.

A direction.

Taiga slows down his feet. His steps falter before he stops entirely.

He knows this feeling. Not consciously knowing it, it just his body recognizes it.

Home.

The street behind him stretches out the way it always has. Nothing looks different. And yet there is a weight there now.

A heavy weight waiting for him.

Taiga hesitates. For the first time since he woke up, there is something close to resistance in him. A quiet reluctance, like some part of him understands what he is about to walk into, even if the rest of him doesn’t.

“I should go back.”

The sentence feels fragile, like it could fall apart if he thinks about it too much. He just starts walking. Moving as fast as he can. The closer he gets, the quieter everything becomes.

Not because the world is empty, but because it feels like it is lowering itself, dimming, preparing.

The houses line the street the same way they always have. The gate stands slightly ajar. Taiga slows again as his eyes try to catch up with anything he sees in front of him.

Something is wrong.

No.

Something is different.

There are shoes at the entrance. Too many shoes for the usual event. They're all black, neatly arranged on the front door. But none of them look familiar.

His gaze lingers there longer than it should. A faint sound reaches him from inside. There are low voices, sounds more likely murmured.

Not the kind of sound that belongs to an ordinary day.

Taiga’s hand lifts toward the door.

And this time, it trembles. Taiga gulps as he holds the door, preparing himself as if whatever is waiting beyond it has finally begun to take shape.

The air inside is heavier as he pushes the door open. Not in a way he can feel but in a way he knows. The quiet suffocating stillness of something that has already been accepted by everyone else.

Everyone except him.

The air inside the house does not welcome him. It settles around like something already decided, something that has made peace with itself long before he arrived. The faint scent of incense lingers, soft, almost sweet, but heavy in a way that clings to the back of his throat.

He steps in. Each step feels delayed, like his body is arriving a second after he moves. The hallway seems narrower than he remembers, the walls pressing in just slightly, not enough to trap him, just enough to make him aware of them.

People in the living room dressed in black, sitting close together, their postures straight, their voices hushed. Some of them bow their heads as they speak, others hold their hands together in their laps, fingers tightening and loosening in small restless movements.

No one looks at him.

Not even once.

Taiga slows his movement. Something in his chest, something that should rise, it should react, but it remains still.

The idea of unease begins to spread.

Taiga turns around and finds a woman dabbing at her eyes with a folded handkerchief. An older man beside her exhales slowly, his shoulders sinking as if under a weight that refuses to lift.

“He was such a good boy.”

The words are quiet, carried carefully between them. The sentence lingers in the air longer than it should.

Taiga doesn't realize he has stopped. 

“Yeah,” someone else murmurs, voice breaking just slightly. “Too kind for his own good.”

A small breath of agreement follows.

Taiga’s fingers twitch at his side. There’s something in the way they speak. Not just sadness.

But finality.

Taiga dare himself takes another step forward. He keeps himself slow, trying to steady even though his body is slightly trembling. He drawn by something he still can’t name, something that pulls at him gently, persistently, like a thread tied somewhere deep inside him.

The room opens up fully now.

Everything seems to be white, not bright, not pure. But softly, muted white that seems to absorb the light instead of reflecting it.

There are flowers, arranged beautifully and carefully. Taiga’s gaze moves over them slowly, as if he’s afraid to reach the center too quickly.

But in the end, he finds it. His gaze finds a frame in a place where everyone can see it.

He doesn’t look at it yet.

He can’t.

The incense burns steadily. Thin trails of smoke rise into the air, curling, disappearing before they can fully take shape.

Taiga watches it longer than he should, “This… This is…” his voice falters. 

Taiga turns his head as he hears a soft sound break near him, his gaze finds a figure, a woman, sitting near the front. Hands folded tightly in her lap, fingers interlaced so firmly the knuckles have gone pale. Her shoulders are drawn inward, as if trying to hold something together that refuses to stay whole.

And her head is slightly bowed. Not in greeting or politeness. But in grief.

Deep, heavy unmoving grief.

His mother.

Taiga keeps his eyes on her. For a moment, everything else fades. The voices, the incense, the weight in the air, everything seems to fade.

There’s only her.

And the way she looks smaller than he remembers is enough to sink Taiga's heart.

“Mom?” The word comes out softer than anything he’s said before. He sounds fragile, uncertain.

But his mother doesn’t respond. She doesn’t lift her head. Taiga takes a step toward her, trying to get closer slowly, carefully, as if approaching something that might disappear if he gets too close.

“Mom...” 

Taiga’s voice sounds too soft, as if the wind will take it. He tries to reach out, hand hovers near her shoulder. But then it stops for a fleeting moment as hesitation gnaws over him. A sudden fear tries to wrap him tight.

But Taiga tries. He lets his fingers touch her.

But they pass through fabric. Through the warmth that should be there.

Through her.

Taiga freezes. His hand lingers in the empty space where her shoulder should have resisted him.

Where it should have been real.

“…What…” The word doesn’t finish.

It can’t.

He can't.

His gaze drifts around, watching how people cry around him. Taiga lands his eyes back to the front of the room.

To the place he has been avoiding.

The frame.

The photo of him smiling above those flowers.

The room continues around him. His mother’s shoulders tremble once, just slightly, before stilling again. Taiga’s fingers curl into his palms. There is no pain and somehow, that makes it worse.

Not when his own photo keeps smiling at him from the front of the room, not when the air grows thicker with every whispered condolence, not when his mother’s quiet, contained grief begins to feel like something he cannot breathe through even without lungs.

Taiga steps back before anything inside him can fully break.

One step and another. And no one notices. No one stops him.

It is almost merciful, the way the world continues to refuse him.

He turns before his eyes can linger any longer on the altar, before the shape of himself in that frame can settle into something permanent, something undeniable. His movements are not rushed, not frantic, just withdrawn, like someone quietly excusing himself from a room he no longer belongs in.

The hallway greets him with the same hollow stillness as before, but now it feels narrower, heavier, like the walls have absorbed everything from the other side and are holding it in place. The murmurs fade behind him, replaced by a silence that hums faintly in his ears, stretching thin until even his own presence feels distant.

He doesn’t think.

If he does, it will settle.

If it settles, it will become real.

And he doesn't want it to be real. So Taiga walks.

Passes the entrance. Passes the neatly lined black shoes.

Passes the door that had once separated him from everything inside and now feels like the only thing keeping him from unraveling completely.

He steps out to the world that still does not belong to him. The air outside is darker now. Not night yet, but no longer day. The sky has shifted into that quiet, uncertain blue that comes just before everything fades, when shadows grow longer and softer at the same time. The street is calmer, the distant sounds dulled, as if the world itself is lowering its voice in respect.

Taiga doesn’t go far.

He doesn’t know where to go.

He just takes a seat under the tree.

On the low step just outside the house, where he used to pause sometimes without thinking, tying his shoes, checking his phone, lingering just a little longer before going somewhere else.

Now, there is nowhere else.

His hands rest loosely at his sides, fingers curling slightly against nothing. His shoulders are drawn inward, not from cold, but from something quieter, something that folds him into himself without asking.

He stares ahead.

The street blurs, not because his vision fails, but because his focus does. Nothing holds long enough to matter. Everything passes through him the same way he passes through everything else.

“…I’m dead.”

The words come out gently. There is no panic or disbelief in his tone. Just a soft placing of truth into the open air.

But he doesn’t repeat it. Once is enough.

Time moves around him. Taiga can't feel it, but he knows it does. The light fades slowly, the sky deepening into something darker, heavier. One by one, the murmurs inside the house quiet down. The door slides open and shut at intervals, polite bows exchanged, voices offering condolences that have already been said too many times.

Taiga doesn’t look, still doesn't want to look. He just listens instead.

There are footsteps, fabric shifting, the faint clink of something being set down.

The door opens again and this time, he turns.

He sees a lot of people begin to leave. Their movements are careful, subdued. They bow low, speak softly, their grief measured into something socially acceptable, something contained.

Taiga watches them pass. And none of them see him sitting there. Not even as they step around him, as if guided by instinct rather than awareness.

One by one, they disappear down the street until there are none left.

The door remains open a moment longer. Taiga keeps his eyes on it, and his father steps out. He looks older than Taiga remembers, or probably heavier. Grief sits differently on him, less visible, but no less present. It weighs down his shoulders, pulls at the lines of his face. He pauses at the entrance, glancing back inside as if waiting for someone. 

Taiga’s heart beat fastly, or maybe that's what he feels. His father murmurs something Taiga can't hear, but a figure of someone Taiga has been expecting appears on the front door.

“I will,” his mother says, just as softly. “I’ll come in again soon.”

His father doesn’t argue. He just nods once, a small and restrained before turning and stepping back inside. The door slides shut behind him, leaving the outside wrapped in a quiet that feels deeper now.

His mother steps out slowly. Her movements are deliberate, as if each one requires thought, requires effort. The black fabric of her clothes falls neatly around her, untouched, composed. Even her posture is held together, her back straight, her steps measured.

Only her face betrays her. Not in tears, those have already been shed.

But in the way something has settled behind her eyes.

Something that will not leave.

She lowers herself onto the step. Not far from where Taiga sits. Close enough that in another time, their shoulders would have brushed.

For a moment, she says nothing. She simply looks ahead. At the darkening street. At the sky that has finally given up its last trace of blue. Her hands rest in her lap, fingers loosely intertwined, no longer gripping, no longer trembling.

Just quietly sitting alone with grief paints well on her eyes.

“You must be free now.”

Taiga’s breath catches or would have.

“You don’t have to be in pain anymore.” She exhales slowly, her gaze never leaving the distance in front of her.

“I hope… it doesn’t hurt where you are.” There is a small pause, a small silence before a thin smile etches on her lips.

It is not a happy smile, but gentle. As if she is offering it to someone who cannot see it.

“Be happy there, my beloved son…”

Something inside Taiga folds in on itself. Not sharply. Not all at once.

But deeply.

He doesn’t realize he’s moved until he’s already beside her. Closing the distance between them, close enough that if things were different, he would have leaned into her without thinking.

His movements are slower now, not hesitant. But heavy with something he can't name. He turns slightly facing her, watching the way her expression holds, how she keeps it together, how she breathes through something that should have shattered her completely.

“Mom…” The word barely exists. He lifts his arm without hesitation. He doesn't want to stop.

Without him expecting it, his hand lands around her shoulders. It doesn't pass. It doesn't slip through it.

It stays around his mother's shoulder.

Taiga freezes. His fingers press against fabric and it feels real. It feels faint and fragile, but real.

“Mom?...” His voice finally breaks on the last word, the sound thin and trembling, pulled from somewhere deeper than anything he has allowed himself to feel until now.

He leans in, resting his head against her shoulder, the motion instinctive, desperate in its quietness. For a second nothing happens.

Until his mother’s breath falters. Her shoulders tense beneath his arm. Just slightly, like she felt something she wasn’t supposed to.

Her hand lifts slowly, uncertain, hovering in the space near where his arm rests, as if she’s afraid to confirm it, afraid that reaching out will make it disappear.

“…Taiga…?” It’s barely a whisper. 

Her fingers close around Taiga's face.

Taiga’s eyes wide. The contact is still faint, still fragile, but it’s there. Undeniable now. Her hand wraps over his arm, holding it in place, as if anchoring it, as if refusing to let it slip away.

He lifts his head abruptly, breath catching in a way that doesn’t make sense anymore, his tear-blurred gaze snapping toward her.

“Mom...” Taiga’s lips tremble, tears stream down his cheeks.

As Taiga's chest rises, his mother turns facing him slowly. As if afraid that any sudden movement will break whatever this is.

And she sees him.

For a moment, neither of them move. The world does not exist beyond this small space between them. 

“…Taiga?” Taiga's name splits out his mother's lips shakingly, as if it has been waiting to be out. 

Taiga doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.

The cold wind blows gently against her as she reaches Taiga, fully this time. Her arms wrap around him, pulling him close with a strength that doesn’t match the stillness she held before. Her hands grip at his back, his shoulders, as if confirming every inch of him, as if afraid that letting go even slightly will make him disappear again.

Taiga clings to her just as tightly. His face presses into her shoulder, like a son seeking for comfort. His fingers curl into the fabric at her back, holding on with everything he has left.

And this time he can feel it.

Her warmth.

It feels faint, fragile. But real.

“I miss you,” Taiga finally says, his voice breaking completely now, the words dissolving into quiet, uneven breaths against her shoulder.

“I miss you so much.”

Her grip tightens. A small yet broken sound escapes her, something between a sob and a breath she can’t quite hold.

“I’m here,” she whispers, over and over, as if it’s the only thing she can give her son, the only thing she can keep steady.

“I’m here, Taiga. I’m here.”

They don’t let go, not yet. Not when they’ve only just found each other again in a place where they were never meant to meet.

For a long while, they don’t speak. 

Taiga stays folded into his mother’s arms, his face pressed into the familiar curve of her shoulder, his fingers gripping the fabric at her back like something instinctive, something that exists deeper than thought. Her embrace is firm, even firmer than he remembers, or maybe he only realizes now how much strength it takes to hold someone who is already gone. One hand cradles the back of his head, fingers threading gently through his hair, the motion slow and steady, like she is smoothing something unseen, something fragile that might break again if she stops.

The night settles around them quietly. The sky has deepened into a dark endless blue, scattered with small and distant stars that flicker faintly above the rooftops. They are not bright enough to illuminate anything, not enough to push back the darkness, but they are there, constant and patient, like something that has watched countless goodbyes and never once intervened.

A soft breeze passes, barely noticeable, stirring the edges of her sleeve, brushing lightly against Taiga’s hair. He doesn’t feel it, not truly, but he sees it, the way the world still moves, still breathes, even as something inside him has already stopped.

“I’m scared, mom…”

The words come out muffled, fragile and breaking against her shoulder like something that has been held back for too long. There is no attempt to hide it, no effort to steady himself before speaking. It spills out of him, raw and unguarded, the way a child would confess a fear they don’t understand.

“I’m scared.”

Her arms tighten immediately. Not abruptly, not desperately, but with a quiet certainty, as if she had known Taiga would say it.

“It’s okay,” she murmurs, her voice soft and low. It is the same voice that once soothed him through smaller fears, through nights that felt too long and shadows that seemed too real. Her hand continues its gentle rhythm against his hair, calming, grounding, anchoring him in a way nothing else has since he woke up. 

“You’ll be okay. I’m here.”

Taiga shakes his head slightly against her shoulder. The movement is small but insistent, like he doesn’t know how to accept that yet.

“I don’t understand,” he whispers, his voice trembling again, even thinner this time, stretched by something deeper than confusion.

“I woke up and… I didn’t know where I was. Everything felt wrong. No one could see me, no one could hear me, Mom… I tried, I really tried, but…” His words break, catching somewhere between explanation and realization, his grip tightening unconsciously. “And then they said I had to come back. There’s something I need to finish before I can go home...”

Home.

The word lingers strangely between them.

Taiga pulls back slightly, just enough to look at his mother, his eyes still damp, still searching, as if he is trying to find something steady in her expression, something that will tell him what any of this means. 

“I don’t know what that is,” he admits softly, the fear no longer sharp but heavy, settled deep in his chest. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

His mother listens without interrupting. She doesn’t rush him, and doesn't try to fill the silence too quickly. Her hand remains where it is, brushing through Taiga's hair with the same gentle care. Her touch never falters even as her eyes soften, even as something deep and aching moves behind them.

She looks at him the way she always has.

Not at the confusion. Not at the fear.

But at him. Her son.

“You don’t have to understand everything right away,” she says finally. Her voice is calm and steady in a way that doesn’t deny the pain but doesn’t let it take over either. There is a quiet warmth in her smile when it appears, soft and gentle. The kind of smile that doesn’t force happiness but offers something safer, something that can be held without breaking.

“Sometimes, we only realize some things when we’re ready.”

Taiga’s gaze wavers, but he doesn’t look away.

“You said there’s something left unfinished,” she continues, her fingers slowing slightly in his hair, her touch turning more deliberate, grounding her son even more. “Then it must be something important. Something only you can do.”

He swallows, his throat tight with something he can’t quite name.

“What if I don’t find it in time?” The question comes out smaller than before.

More vulnerable.

Her expression softens, “then you will,” she answers gently, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world, as if doubt has no place here. “Because you’re not alone in it, Taiga. You never have been.”

Her hand moves from his hair to cup the side of his face, her thumb brushing lightly beneath his eye, wiping away something that doesn’t quite fall like tears anymore but still feels just as heavy.

“You’ve always known what matters most,” she adds quietly, her gaze steady, “even when you’re scared. Even when you’re unsure.”

Taiga exhales slowly. Something inside him shifts but not completely. Still not enough to erase the fear.

But enough to make it calmer. Enough to let something else exist beside it.

Time passes without them noticing. The night deepens, the stars shifting almost imperceptibly across the sky, the world moving forward in a way that feels distant from where they sit. Their voices come and go softly, sometimes fading into silence, sometimes returning in small fragments of memories, reassurances, things that don’t need to be said but are there anyway, just to fill the space between them with something gentler than loss.

At some point, Taiga rests on his mother's shoulder, and her hand returns to his hair as naturally as breathing. The tension in his body eases little by little, not disappearing, but no longer consuming him entirely.

And when she speaks again, her voice is softer than before.

More certain.

“Taiga…”

Taiga hums quietly in response, too tired to form words, too comforted to move away.

“I’m okay.”

The statement is simple, but it carries weight.

He lifts his head slightly, his brows knitting together, as if he wants to argue, as if he doesn’t believe it.

She smiles again gently, more reassuringly, the kind of smile that doesn’t deny the pain but chooses to stand beside it instead.

“I’ll be okay,” she repeats, her hand resting against his cheek. “Your father will be okay. And Shin… he’ll be okay too.”

At the mention of his younger brother, something in Taiga’s expression falters, his lips parting slightly, but she continues before he can speak.

“You don’t have to stay for us,” she says softly. “You don’t have to worry about us.”

Her fingers curl lightly against Taiga's cheek, grounding him in the moment.

“I’m already so proud of you,” she adds, her voice barely above a whisper now, but steady. “So whatever it is you need to do… go and do it without fear.”

Taiga’s eyes sting again. Something inside him feels steady, it still hurts him, but he knows it becomes steady slowly.

The world around them has changed. Taiga finally notices the time. The night has grown quieter but heavier.

The kind of quiet that comes just before midnight, when everything seems to pause for a moment between one day and the next.

He looks up at the sky. The stars are still there. It looks unchanged, unmoving. But something gathers around it.

“I have to go,” he says, the realization settling into his voice more gently than he expected.

There is no panic this time or a sharp edge of fear. Only a quiet understanding.

His mother nods gently. As if she already knew.

They hold each other one more time, it is not as tightly as before, but no less deeply.

Her arms wrap around him, steady and warm. Taiga closes his head as her hand rests at the back of his head again, pressing him gently closer, like she’s memorizing him the same way he is memorizing her.

“I love you,” she whispers.

“I love you too, Mom..” he replies, his voice soft, full of vulnerability.

When they finally pull apart, her hands linger on his shoulders for just a moment longer, her gaze holding him as if she is placing something there, something Taiga can carry with himself.

“Go,” she says softly.

Taiga nods as his lips pout, holding back his tears.

And for the first time since he woke up, he knows what it means to move forward.

Even if he doesn’t know where it will lead.

Taiga moves his feet slowly, he keeps his head turning to his mother, watching her waving at him, sending him off.  The distance between them grows, but the warmth doesn't.

At the edge of the dim light, Taiga turns his body once more and catches a warm and soft smile still etched on his mother until he vanishes from her sight.

2

The day has changed. The morning comes again but this one feels different from the one he woke into. The sky is clearer now, a pale winter blue stretched thin above the quiet edges of the town. Snow rests lightly along the rooftops, gathered in soft layers along fences and sidewalks, untouched in places where no one has walked yet. The world looks clean. Almost too clean. Like something has been carefully covered over, as if it could hide what lies beneath.

Taiga moves through it slowly. His steps leave no prints, not in the snow, not anywhere.

The cold should bite. It should sting his skin, settle into his fingers, creep up his sleeves and into his bones but it doesn’t. He knows it’s there. He can see the faint fog of breath leaving others as they pass in the distance, bundled in coats, hands tucked into pockets, shoulders drawn inward against the chill.

But when he exhales, it feels nothing. Just the absence of something that used to be.

And still, there is a different kind of cold that doesn’t come from the air.

It comes from within him.

A quiet, hollow chill that doesn’t fade, no matter how long he walks beneath the sun.

The town feels quieter than usual. It is not empty, but feels distant. People move as usual, cars pass occasionally, life continues in small and in ordinary ways, but it all feels slightly out of reach. Like he’s watching it through glass, close enough to see but too far to touch.

Taiga doesn’t try anymore.

Not after yesterday.

Not after the way voices slipped through him, the way hands failed to meet anything solid.

He just walks, letting the snow crunches under others’ feet, but not his feet.

He doesn’t notice how far he’s gone until something familiar pulls at him again, not the same pull as before, not as strong, but enough to slow his steps, enough to make him look up.

A house.

A simple and quiet house.

The curtains drawn halfway, the outside untouched except for a thin layer of snow along the steps.

Taiga stops for a while. His gaze lingers around him.

“…Juri.”

The name comes easily. It comes out warmer than most things have felt since he woke.

And some fragments of memories come softer this time.

A hospital room with pale walls and the faint scent of antiseptic.

A chair pulled too close to the bed. A voice filling the silence when Taiga didn’t have the strength to.

Some laughter that tried, stubbornly, trying to exist even when everything else was falling apart.

Tanaka Juri.

His best friend Juri who was always there.for him. Not being loud about it. Not even dramatic.

He was just there.

For Taiga.

Taiga moves closer without thinking. The street around him is quiet, the kind of quiet that belongs to late mornings in winter, when most people are indoors, when the world feels like it’s waiting for something to begin.

He looks up to the second floor and sees Juri's room. The window is partially uncovered, the faint outline of movement visible behind the glass.

Taiga blinks once and the world around him shifts. There is no sensation of moving. There is no step taken. There is no transition. 

Just moves and changes.

Taiga stands in Juri's room. The room is dim with the curtains drawn just enough to let in a muted light, softened further by the pale reflection of snow outside. The air remains the same, carrying that same faint heaviness from yesterday, like grief lingers not just in people, but in spaces.

Juri sits on the edge of his bed.

He's still in black.

The same clothes from yesterday, it seems untouched but slightly wrinkled now. His posture is slouched forward, elbows resting on his knees with something open in his hands.

An album.

An old album.

The kind of album that holds more than just pictures, but also time and versions of people that no longer exist.

Taiga stands there for a moment, watching him. There’s something different about seeing someone grieve like this especially his friend. Not in a room full of people. Not surrounded by voices and rituals and expectations.

But alone.

Juri flips a page slowly. His fingers linger on the edge before letting it fall. His expression doesn’t change, still hollow and quiet and something flickers in his eyes.

A weight that hasn’t settled yet. Something raw, something that is still finding its place.

Taiga moves closer to him carefully. As if afraid of breaking something that is already fragile.

He lowers himself beside him, closing the distance between him and Juri. Close enough that their shoulders almost touch.

For a second, Taiga hesitates. Some questions appear in his mind as he wants to touch Juri.

But then, Taiga reaches out gently. His hand hovers over Juri's head for a fleeting moment before resting it there. 

There is no resistance or warmth.

His fingers pass through strands of hair that should feel familiar, that should feel real.

But Taiga doesn't let it go. He keeps his hand on Juri's hair, as if pretending is enough.

“... thank you.” The words slip out gently,  “for staying.”

The last words drift into the space between them, still unheard, still unanswered. As he expected.

Juri doesn’t react.He doesn’t move.

Juri keeps turning the page as Taiga lets his hand fall slowly.

His eyes sparkling in despair stared at the album in Juri's hands. The despair flickers in Taiga's eyes as he drifts his eyes at the album in Juri's hands, studies the familiar faces on each frame. 

They looked younger, full of spirit, and unaware of anything waiting for them beyond those moments.

In the upper left there is Kochi Yugo, Taiga's classmate that used to sit in front of him, grinning too widely at something just outside the frame.

Moving to the middle there is Jesse, smiling innocently, but blurred slightly like he couldn’t stay still long enough to be captured properly.

Moving to the bottom right there is Juri, with a smile that looks stiff but sincere.

And then others that Taiga calls as friends.

People who once filled entire days with noise, with presence or something that felt permanent back then.

Taiga watches them quietly, trying to remember if he saw them yesterday.

At the house.

At his funeral.

But he can’t be sure. The memories blur at the edges as he only can't recall his memories. 

Taiga's head slightly tilts as Juri turns another page. His eyes back on studying some moments that were captured in the album. 

A gentle smile etches on Taiga's lips as he sees a small frame in the corner of them, holding a cup with Kochi and Juri in the middle, wearing their basket team t-shirt. 

Taiga bends lower to see other faces but then Juri's phone buzzes against the surface beside him. It buzzes sharp against the quiet as Juri lifts it up and answers it.

Juri lets out a long, heavy breath, showing tiredness as he drags a hand over his face before pushing himself up.

“Yeah… I’m coming,” he mutters a low voice as he is already moving toward the door. Leaving Taiga alone in his room with an album that remains open. 

Taiga stays where he is. But it just for a moment he doesn’t move until his eyes drop to those frames, remembering some faces he sees over it.

Taiga's eyes keep on those faces, on those moments. On those pieces of a life that feels both close and impossibly far. He traces them with his eyes, one by one, lingering just long enough to recognize.

Taiga moves his gaze again slowly to the next frames on the other page. And then, a soft smile that was on his lips, fades slowly as his eyes catch a very familiar yet distant face.

Hokuto.

Matsumura Hokuto.

For a moment, Taiga still doesn’t move. His gaze stays fixed on the photograph, on the quiet curve of Hokuto’s expression, half-turned toward the camera but not fully present in it, as if he had been looking at something else just before the shutter clicked. The image is still contained within the thin borders of the page, but something beneath it refuses to stay that way, something that presses outward, insistent, patient, waiting to be acknowledged.

Taiga’s fingers hover just above the paper, not touching, not quite daring to.

“Hokuto…” 

The word comes out faint, almost breathless, not in denial but in recognition that arrives too late.

It doesn’t hit him all at once.

It never does.

It is deliberately, like the warmth returning to something that has been numb for too long and hurting because of it.

It comes slowly gnaw over him, his memories, some pieces of his memories with Hokuto that he keeps deep inside him starts to appear on the surface. From a glance to a laugh. From a laugh to a quiet moment stretched between two people who didn’t need words.

From the way Hokuto used to look at him, like he was trying to understand something he couldn’t quite name, to the unsaid words between them stretched longer and kept them close, heart to heart, as if they were the two people that was meant to be each other.

Hokuto is no longer just a face in a photograph.

He is more than that.

And that is the fact Taiga never wants to admit.

Somewhere deep inside him that keeps him steady all this time, starts to stir.

Not pain.

Not yet.

But something unfinished.

The room around him fades without disappearing. The edges soften and blur, like the present is being gently set aside but not erased, just moved back. The silence stretches and in that space as something begins to surface. Something feels familiar yet distant and impossibly close.

All memories he has with Hokuto is taking over him now. Those are uninvited and unstoppable. And there is nothing Taiga can do but holds onto it.

The first thing that comes to his mind was the first time he realized he’s in love.

It was in the classroom in late afternoon. The room felt warmer and softer, spilling across wooden floors and open windows. The air carried the faint hum of voices, overlapping, careless, alive in a way that didn't ask permission to exist.

Dust suspended in the sunlight, drifting lazily between rows of desks. The faint scratch of pencils, the low murmur of conversations that haven’t quite died down yet, even though they were supposed to.

Taiga was there, leaning back slightly in his chair, one arm draped over the backrest, his expression somewhere between bored and quietly attentive. He was not really listening to the lesson he never was at this hour, but he was not fully distracted either.

Across the room Hokuto was there. His head slightly tilted down, pen moving steadily across the page, his brow faintly furrowed in concentration. There was something about the way he sat, he looked composed, self-contained that drew attention without asking for it.

Taiga watched him.

Not obviously, it was never obviously.

Just enough. Just often enough that it becomes a habit before he realizes it.

Everything started in small way. Passing notes that didn’t say anything important, just something to fill the space between classes. Walking home in the same direction, even when one of them could have taken a shorter route. Conversations that begin with nothing and stretch longer than they should, not because there was more to say, but because neither of them felt the need to end them.

Hokuto wasn’t loud.

He rarely reached out first.

But he stayed.

And somehow, that became enough.

Taiga remembers the way Hokuto noticed things.

The way his gaze lingered just a second longer when Taiga laughed too easily, as if he was trying to figure out what was behind it. The way he adjusted his pace when they walked together, matching without asking and without making it obvious. The quiet way he listened, really listened even when Taiga was just talking about something trivial, something that shouldn’t have mattered.

And Taiga responded in ways he didn't fully understand at first.

Taiga remembers he talked more when Hokuto was around. 

He remembers he laughed a little softer when Hokuto was beside him. 

He remembers he smiled softly when Hokuto looked at him without meaning to, or sat closer than necessary, let silences stretch without filling them.

Because with Hokuto, silence didn't feel empty.

It never has been.

It feels full, always.

There was no moment where it suddenly changes. No clear line between friendship and something else.

Just a slow shift.

A gravity that built quietly until one day, it was simply there, undeniable, unspoken, and impossible to ignore.

And it happened in the evening, after the club school ended. The sky fading into that familiar soft blue before night, the air carrying the last warmth of the day. They’re sitting somewhere quiet away from the noise, away from everything that could interrupt.

Taiga didn't remember how they got there. But Hokuto was beside him, sitting close to him, very close that their shoulders almost touched.

Very close that it felt deliberate.

There was a pause in their conversation, something unfinished lingering between them. And Hokuto spoke first.

“You know,” his voice sounded quieter than usual, as if he was choosing each word carefully, “you’re different with me.”

Taiga let out a small, uncertain laugh as he glanced away, “what’s that supposed to mean?”

Hokuto didn't answer immediately. But when Taiga looked back, he was already being watched. 

Not intensely. Not accusingly. Just honestly.

“It means, I notice.”

The words settle between them, heavier than they should be. Taiga’s chest tightened, but not painfully, not yet, but enough to make him aware of it, enough to make him want to look away again.

But he didn't..

“... and?”

Hokuto let out a soft breath as his gaze flickered down for just a second before returning.

“And I think I like you more than I should.”

The memory doesn’t rush past that moment.

It lingers.

Because that’s how it felt then, time got slower and stretched giving them space to either step forward or pull away.

Taiga remembers the way his heart reacted.

He remembered how loud and fast his heartbeat was. 

He remembers the way he tried to speak and couldn’t at first, the way the words felt too big for his mouth, too real to say without changing everything.

And he remembers he finally confessed, letting them all out his lips as he replied, “I think I do too.”

And after that, everything became brighter.

The Days felt lighter even when nothing particularly good happened. Some small touches lingered longer, accidental at first, then less so. Glances turned into something shared, something understood without explanation.

They didn't need to say much because it just existed between them.

In everything.

Until the world seems to shift again.

The brightness doesn’t disappear, it just fades slowly in the way something does when it’s being taken away piece by piece.

It was the moment when Taiga used to visit the hospital more often than before.

Taiga was sitting on a bed, trying to make light of something that isn’t light at all. Juri was beside him, filling the silence, pretending just enough to make it bearable.

And Hokuto asked questions through the phone.

Just some messages as Taiga never answered his call when he was in the hospital.

“What’s wrong?”

“You’ve been disappearing a lot.”

“You look tired.”

Taiga avoided him when he met Hokuto at school. He never meant to make it obvious but Hokuto noticed more than usual. Whenever he asked, Taiga would laugh it off, changing the subject, saying he was fine in a way that sounded convincing if Hokuto didn't listen closely.

But Hokuto listened.

He always had.

And that became the problem.

The day it breaks wasn't loud. There was no shouting or dramatic confrontation. Just tension that had nowhere left to go.

“If something’s wrong, you can tell me.”

Hokuto’s voice sounded quieter than usual, but there was something beneath it, something steady, something that refused to be brushed aside.

Taiga looked at him, staying at Hokuto's eyes as he thought of telling him.

Just for a few seconds, he almost blurted them out. He almost told him everything. 

The diagnosis. The fear. The way his body had already started to fail him in small and quiet ways.

But then, Taiga saw it.

He saw the way Hokuto’s eyes held his.

The way Hokuto would carry it, all of it, and more than Taiga himself.

And Taiga couldn't say that. He wouldn't let Hokuto feel the same fear as him.

So he kept it by telling some soft lies.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

The lie came out softer than expected, almost gentle, but it landed just the same.

Taiga remembers how Hokuto didn't argue immediately and that was what made  it worse.

He just watched him, keeping his eyes on Taiga, letting the silence stretched between them and became unbearable.

“Then why does it feel like you’re leaving?”

Taiga swallowed hard something that blocked his throat, holding back his tears as he blinked rapidly. 

He had nothing to say because he was. He was going to leave him.

Taiga was going to leave Hokuto.

And he did it slowly, not wanting to make it cruel for Hokuto. Taiga just wanted to make it gradually.

Replies became shorter. Meetings became less frequent. Excuses stacked quietly on top of each other until they formed something solid enough to stand on.

Until one day, Taiga just left.

Without any explanation, or any single word of goodbye. 

Not even the truth.

He just… left.

Taiga even had told Juri not to say anything. He didn't want Juri to tell Hokuto or explain anything to him.

Because Taiga believed, it would be easier that way. It would be cleaner and less painful.

He had been wrong.

The memory didn't end with him leaving. It lingered longer than he expected.

And Hokuto was the one who dealt with it.

Being left without any truth.

The world seems to shift again, back in the quiet room. And beside the open album, Taiga finally understands.

His hand trembles slightly above the page as his gaze doesn’t leave Hokuto’s face.

“No…”

The words don’t finish, it doesn't need to. Because the realization settles fully this time.

The hospital.

The unanswered questions.

The unfinished explanations.

Hokuto, is what Taiga left behind.

Taiga’s chest aches, not physically, but in a way that feels heavier than anything he has felt since waking up.

“I have to see him.”

And this time, Taiga understands. He doesn’t know where he’s going but he knows it has to be Hokuto.

After leaving Juri’s room, the quiet realization settles into something heavier than denial. Taiga moves again, not with certainty, not with direction, but with something softer, something instinctive. It isn’t a voice. It isn’t even a clear pull like before.

It’s just something deep he recalls as feeling, a quiet insistence beneath everything else.

The town changes around him without warning. One moment, he’s standing in a familiar street with snow resting gently along rooftops, the pale winter sun stretched thin across empty sidewalks, and then the world shifts around him, not abruptly, not violently, but like a page being turned without his permission.

Buildings he doesn’t recognize.

Streets that feel older, quieter.

The air carries a different stillness here, something heavier, something that lingers in the spaces between people rather than around them.

Taiga stops and looks around.

“Where am I?”

The question fades as soon as it leaves him. No answers following, of course there is no answer. Taiga keeps moving, or the world around him does.

The days seem to blur, or maybe it's only hours that changes. Taiga can't tell. Time doesn’t move the same way anymore. He can’t feel it, nothing marks its passing except the slow shifting of light across surfaces that don’t belong to him.

He keeps walking.

He keeps searching.

It's not like he's actively looking or has a plan, he just keeps moving. Letting his feelings or his heart lead him.

Hokuto is there now, somewhere inside him, present in a way that won’t let him rest.

Fragments of memory follow him.

A glance. A voice. A feeling that refuses to settle.

Seven years.

The number presses quietly against his thoughts.

Seven years since he walked away. Seven years since he chose silence over truth. Seven years of a life that continued without Hokuto in it.

Juri’s voice echoes faintly in his memory.

He left. I'm not sure if he went back to his hometown. He doesn’t answer anymore. I don’t know how to reach him.

Taiga had accepted that once. Back then, it had felt like something final.

But Taiga realizes now it feels like something unfinished.

The more he moves, the more the feeling shifts. It keeps shifting from stronger to weaker, up and down, as if a part of him is giving up and another part of him is still looking without direction. Taiga follows a thread he cannot see but cannot ignore either.

But then Taiga begins to doubt it.

Maybe he’s wrong.

Maybe this isn’t it.

Maybe it's not Hokuto.

Maybe—

The world settles again. Fluorescent lights hum faintly overhead. The air smells faintly of plastic, cardboard, something artificial and clean in a way that lacks warmth.

A supermarket.

Taiga stands near the entrance without remembering stepping inside. People move around him, carts rolling, voices murmurs, mundane conversations filling the space with something almost comforting in its normalcy.

It feels distant.

All of it.

It feels distant until Taiga's eyes catch a glimpse of him.

Taiga feels unsure he sees a figure among others. Someone carrying a box, moving between shelves and storage doors with quiet efficiency.

But Taiga’s gaze lingers a little longer than it should. He keeps his eyes long enough for the shape to settle.

Broad shoulders, slightly hunched under the weight of the box. Movements that are steady, practiced, unhurried.

And the hair…

It looks longer than he remembers.

It looks dark, falling in loose waves to the shoulders, slightly unkept like it hasn’t been cut with intention in a long time.

The box shifts slightly in Hokuto’s arms as he adjusts his grip, turning toward the back area of the store, disappearing briefly behind a door marked for staff only.

Taiga moves before he realizes it. He doesn't run. He doesn't rush either. He just feels like being drawn.

The space changes again. There's no door open or any barrier stops him. He was on the main floor and now he’s in the back, in the storage room.

The room is dimmer. Even colder in a way that feels closer to something real, even if he cannot feel it fully. Stacks of boxes line the walls, labels facing outward, organized but not perfectly so. The hum of the fluorescent lights continues here, louder, more enclosed.

Hokuto is there, setting the box down.

And Taiga stops a few steps behind him.

For a moment, he can’t move. His gaze traces the lines he remembers, altered slightly by time but unmistakable. His gaze follows everytime Hokuto moves in front of him. The slope of his shoulders, the quiet way he carries himself, the stillness that always seems to exist even when everything else moves around him.

Seven years.

And he’s right there.

Taiga’s hand trembles in a way he can't even feel it. There’s no blood or pulse, nothing physical left to betray him like this and yet, it does. It feels faint, unsteady motion, like something inside him is trying to exist again just for this.

He is hesitant yet he takes a step closer. One and another, carefully, as if approaching something fragile.

Something that might disappear if he moves too quickly.

Hokuto shifts slightly, looking unaware, obviously. He is still facing away and out of reach. But Taiga tries to lift his hand, slowly reaching Hokuto as he mentioned his name in the wind.

But Taiga's hand stops as he reaches for familiar line of Hokuto's shoulder, something that once belonged to him.

Taiga's breath hitches or that is what he feels as Hokuto turns at him.

But not looking.

Hokuto still doesn't hear him. He still can't see him. The movement is steady, naturally. And walks straight through him.

Taiga can't even feel Hokuto walking through his body, as if it's just the wind, nothing impacting. His hand remains in the suspenseful air as he realizes there's no resistance. Just the quiet devastating absence of contact.

It feels empty.

His breath stutters or something like it. His body unmove completely, as if the world has paused around him, as if everything has been pulled taut and left there, unmoving.

“No…” The word break from his lips breathlessly. It sounds fragile, and wraps in disbelief.

Hokuto doesn’t stop as Taiga tries to call him, reaching him over and over. But Hokuto keeps moving past him, toward another stack of boxes, his presence solid and grounded in a way Taiga can no longer reach.

Taiga shifts his body as he keeps watching him, trying to understand. Trying to find something, anything that could bring him an understanding, that can be proof this isn’t final.

But Hokuto doesn’t look at him.

He doesn’t react.

And he doesn’t even hesitate.

He just keeps doing what he has been doing. As if the world around him never stops, unlike Taiga. 

Panic rises in his veins, not sharp, not explosive, but deep and suffocating. Just like something closing in from all sides without warning.

“Hokuto?”

“Can't you see me?”

The words tremble as it slips out Taiga's lips, falling apart before they can fully form. His gaze flickers to his own hands.

Taiga is still there, watching Hokuto, trying to make himself visible.

Yet it feels like nothing.

“Does that mean…”

Taiga can’t finish it. He doesn’t want to. He is not ready for anything that would come afterwards.

Does it mean it’s over?

Does it mean there’s nothing left?

Does it mean Hokuto has already let him go?

Hokuto turns again, moving toward the exit of the storage room. His steps are steady and unhurried, as if it's just another day.

As if Taiga was never there.

Taiga’s heart sinks, or that is what he feels even though there is no heartbeat anymore.

But then Hokuto stops, just for a second.

Taiga freezes as he sees Hokuto's body stop a few steps in front of him.

If he had a heartbeat, it would have stopped.

If he had breath, it would have caught.

Hokuto only stands there. His back is still facing Taiga. There is no movement, or any slight hints of Hokuto will turn around. 

So does Taiga. He doesn't speak, he doesn't move. If he still had breath, he would hold it as well. 

But the thought of despair flickers. His view starts to blur as he clenches his hand into a fist, holding everything he feels inside him that starts to shake him.

And Hokuto doesn’t turn. He takes a deep breath and walks again, leaves Taiga alone behind him without him knowing.

Taiga remains in the place he has been standing. Tears start to fall gently against his cheek as his eyes are still on Hokuto, as if he has been waiting long enough, as if Hokuto might come back.

But he doesn't. And for the first time since realizing what he lost, Taiga begins to wonder if he is already too late.

He almost believes it. His logic chooses to believe it.

The quiet suffocating thought that settles in after Hokuto walks past him like he was never there, that thing can be enough for the proof that everything might be final. Whatever thread once tied them together is already too thin to be followed back.

But his heart refuses to believe.

Because even as doubt begins to take shape, something deeper refuses to let it settle, something stubborn, aching and painfully alive in a way nothing else has been since he woke up.

Taiga lifts his gaze and wipes his tears.

The ceiling is gone. The storage room dissolves at the edges. The world around him has changed.

And above him, a pale winter sky bleeding slowly toward evening. The light thinning, stretching and slipping quietly toward something darker. He doesn’t know how he sees it from here, he doesn’t question it, he doesn’t try to understand. He only knows time is moving.

And he does not have much left of it.

“Not yet.” The words come out softer but steadier.

He straightens his body and walks away, trying to find Hokuto again.

The rest of the day passes in fragments. Not because it’s short, but because Taiga exists in it differeny, detached and present all at once, like someone watching a life unfold through glass, unable to intervene, unable to step away.

He stays close, closer than before.

Not reaching out this time, not trying to force something that isn’t there yet. 

Taiga is just staying, watching him patiently.

Hokuto works quietly. There is nothing remarkable about it at first glance. He lifts boxes, stacks them, checks labels with practiced movements that come from repetition, not thought. His hands move with quiet efficiency, his posture slightly bent from the weight he carries, not just the physical one but something else that lingers beneath it.

Taiga notices the small things.

The way Hokuto pauses sometimes, just for a second longer than necessary, as if he’s catching his breath from something heavier. The way he doesn’t talk much, even when others speak to him, his replies are short, polite, and distant in a way that doesn’t invite continuation.

Taiga stays through all of it.

Through the steady hum of fluorescent lights. 

Through the quiet rhythm of work that fills the hours without marking them.

Through the slow fading of daylight beyond the walls he cannot fully see but somehow still feels.

He doesn’t try to speak again, not yet.

He just waits.

When Hokuto interacts with others, Taiga watches carefully.

A coworker says something light and casual, something that should invite an easy response.

Hokuto merely nods, answers shortly as he's being polite. But the warmth doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

It’s not cold.

It's not unkindness.

It's just absence, like something has been taken out of him, leaving the rest intact but quieter.

Taiga’s chest tightens again, not physically but in a way that feels heavier than before.

Hours pass, the light shifts, the hum of the store changes as people come and go as tasks are finished, as the day slowly winds itself down.

And Taiga stays longer than he could  ever think, longer than he could have imagined. Until finally it shows some hints. Hokuto wipes his hands on a cloth, movements seem to get slower as fatigue settles into his shoulders, into the slight drag of his steps. There’s a tiredness in his face that doesn’t belong only to the day’s work, it sits deeper, older, like something that hasn’t left in a long time.

He doesn’t linger.

He doesn’t talk much as he finishes.

Hokuto just gathers his things, nods once or twice to those still around, and then leaves.

The air is still colder. Evening has fully taken over, the sky now a deep, quiet blue, the last traces of light gone. Streetlights flicker on one by one, casting soft pools of yellow against the snow, illuminating paths that look both familiar and distant.

Hokuto unlocks a bicycle.

He swings a leg over it with practiced ease, settling into something that feels routine, something that has been repeated too many times to count.

Taiga hesitates for only a second before moving.

He takes a seat behind him. Not carefully or deliberately. He is just there. As his body remembers how.

There is no weight behind, of course. There's no shift in balance.

And Hokuto doesn’t react.

He simply starts pedaling, the wheels cutting softly through the thin layer of snow along the road, and the quiet rhythm of movement settling into the space between them.

The town unfolds slowly as they move.

The street looks smaller now, even quieter, lined with houses that carry the stillness of winter in their walls. Snow gathers along rooftops, along fences, along the edges of paths where no one has walked recently. Windows glow softly from within, warm light spilling into the cold night, hinting at lives contained behind them that look ordinary and untouched by what Taiga carries with him.

The air feels colder.

It looks sharper and cleaner.

And Taiga watches everything. Not because he needs to but because he doesn’t know what else to do.

Because sitting here just behind Hokuto, close enough to reach but unable to touch, is the thing he has been yearning in seven years

Hokuto doesn’t rush. He rides at a steady pace, his breath visible now in the cold air, faint clouds forming and disappearing with each exhale. His shoulders remain slightly hunched, his movements economical, as if conserving energy even when he doesn’t need to.

Taiga watches the back of his head.

The way his hair falls against his neck and curling slightly at the ends. The way the dim streetlights catch in the strands, outlining something softer beneath the tiredness.

There is so much he doesn’t know anymore.

So much time he wasn’t there for.

And that thing aches his heart.

Taiga doesn't realize they finally stop in front of a house. A small and modest house. The house set slightly back from the road with a narrow path leading up to it, partially cleared of snow. The exterior is simple, worn in places, but cared for in quiet ways that don’t ask to be noticed.

Hokuto steps off the bike. He parks it without hesitation and moves that seem automatic.

Taiga doesn’t move.

He just watches from behind. From outside. From a far.

Hokuto unlocks the door and disappears from Taiga's gaze as he closes the door behind him.

The silence settles now.

Taiga remains on the small terrace with the cold night stretching around him. And the faint glow of light slipping through the uncovered window. From where he stands, he can see inside even though just barely. But enough to catch fragments of movement, shadows shifting across the floor, the outline of a life lived alone.

He doesn’t go in.

Not yet.

Taiga's gaze drifts to the window and then he looks away. He drifts back his gaze back to the window, and looks away, again and again, he keeps repeating the same thing, as if he’s trying to gather something, trying to understand something that doesn’t come easily.

Taiga can hear footsteps on the wooden floor inside, a shadow crossing the room and the light turning on.

Those are just small and ordinary things.

And Taiga waits, still waiting, not giving up.

Not yet. 

But how?

“How?”

How can he speak to someone who can't see him?

How can he stand in front of someone he left behind and ask them to listen?

How can he reach and explain something that his own existence shouldn’t have existed?

The sky doesn’t simply darken, it bleeds into night, slow and deliberate, as if even time itself hesitates to let this moment pass. The pale winter light softens into a quiet gradient of violet and muted orange, the clouds catching and holding those colors like something fragile, something that exists only for a breath before it disappears. And there, stretched faintly across that fading sky, something impossible gathers, making some shapes aligning just enough to form a number only one soul is meant to see.

Taiga tilts his head upward, eyes tracing it without blinking, and for a moment everything else falls away. The house behind him, the door that still shut behind him, the weight of seven years pressing quietly against his chest. 

Everything feels like it falls away.

Five.

Five hours.

The meaning settles into him without resistance, not like a warning, but like a truth that has already been decided long before he woke up. His fingers curl slowly into his palms, tightening as if he could hold onto something slipping between them, as if resolve could be shaped into something solid if he just grips hard enough. 

But it’s almost ironic, the way he draws in a breath out of habit, the way his chest lifts even though there is no air to fill it, no lungs to burn. But the gesture steadies him anyway, anchors him in something that still feels human.

When he turns back toward the house, the window reflects only a faint, blurred version of himself. He looks thin, pale, almost transparent against the growing dark. And the room inside remains quiet and distant in a way that feels deliberate rather than accidental, as if Hokuto has retreated somewhere deeper, somewhere Taiga cannot follow without being let in. 

And that thought alone, the idea of needing permission, standing outside something he once belonged to, it tightens something in him that has already been stretched too far.

But Taiga doesn't want to give up.

No matter how hurt his heart, how aches his chest, how would Hokuto react, Taiga still chooses to stand.

The distance between him and the door is barely anything, just a few steps across a narrow terrace dusted with unmoving snow, but it feels heavier than it should, like each movement carries the weight of every moment he avoided, every word he never said. 

And Taiga walks, slowly but certain. Stopping just close enough to see his own faint reflection in the glass, almost transparent and dim beneath the light from inside.

“Excuse me.”

His voice leaves him softly, careful at first, just like he’s testing whether it can still exist outside of him. It echoes strangely, not through the air, but through something thinner, something that shouldn’t carry sound, and for a second it feels like it disappears before it reaches anything at all.

“Excuse me…”

This time, there is more urgency beneath it, a quiet strain that he can’t hide anymore. The edges of his composure begin to fray as time presses in on him from all sides. 

And the silence answers again, thick and unmoving, the kind that feels final if he lets it be.

“Hokuto…”

The name slips out differently, softer and deeper, carrying something heavier than the words before it, something that has lived inside him for too long without being spoken.

And this time, footsteps fill the silence.

They come faintly at first, but unmistakable. Each one closes the space between them with a quiet certainty that makes Taiga instinctively step back, his body moving before his thoughts can catch up, straightening his posture as if preparing for something inevitable, something that cannot be undone once it happens. His chest tightens, not with fear, not entirely, but with something far more fragile, something dangerously close to hope.

The handle turns.

The door opens.

And Hokuto stands there.

For a single suspended moment, the world holds its breath.

Hokuto doesn’t move, he doesn’t speak, he doesn't even seem to breathe as his eyes lock onto Taiga’s. And the shock that settles into his expression is not loud or explosive but immediate and absolute, like something impossible has forced its way into reality without permission. His fingers tighten around the door handle until the color drains from his knuckles, his body caught between stepping forward and recoiling back, unable to choose either.

Taiga smiles.

He just smiles. It’s small and restrained, the kind of smile that doesn’t try to erase the distance between them but acknowledges it, carries it gently, like something too fragile to break any further.

“…H-hi...”

It’s barely more than a whisper, but it lands heavier than anything else that has been said.

And Hokuto, as Taiga expects, closes the door.

The sound cuts through the quiet evening, sharp enough to echo down the empty street, and for a second Taiga just stands there, the faint curve of his smile faltering as reality settles back into place, colder than before.

Hokuto stumbles back a step, his hand still pressed against the door like he needs something solid to hold onto, his breathing unsteady, his chest rising too fast, too shallow, as if his body can’t decide whether to accept what it just saw or reject it entirely. The name forms silently in his mind, louder than anything he could say out loud.

Taiga.

Seven years of absence collapse into that single moment. And it doesn’t feel like time has passed, it feels like a wound has been torn open exactly where it was left, raw and unfinished.

And Taiga doesn’t leave.

He can’t.

He tries to reach Hokuto again, softer this time.

“Hokuto…”

The edges of his voice trembling despite how carefully he holds it together. 

“I don’t have much time… I just need you to talk to me. Please… Just for a little while.”

The silence that follows stretches painfully, long enough to feel like an answer on its own, long enough for doubt to creep back in, to whisper that maybe this was a mistake, that maybe he really is too late.

But no, the door opens again.

Hokuto steps aside without looking at him, his gaze fixed somewhere lower, somewhere safer, his voice quiet and controlled in a way that feels more like restraint than calm.

“... Come in.”

The space inside is small, almost bare, fills only with what is necessary and nothing more. It feels lived in, but not alive. It feels like a place that holds routine instead of warmth, something steady but empty in all the ways that matter. Taiga steps in carefully, his presence almost hesitant now, as if he’s afraid the invitation might disappear if he moves too suddenly.

They sit across from each other, separated by a distance that shouldn’t matter even though it does, for Taiga 

Hokuto doesn’t look at him.

Not even once.

He just keeps making slightly movements around the room, touching things that don’t need to be touched, adjusting objects that are already in place, as if keeping his hands busy is the only way to keep himself from unraveling completely. His back remains turned most of the time, his gaze keeps on the floor, never once meeting Taiga’s eyes again.

Taiga tries to talk.

He really does.

His voice stays gentle, careful, threading through the silence like something fragile he’s afraid to break. He asks simple things, whether Hokuto lives alone, what he’s been doing, how he’s been living. But every answer comes late, short, stripped of anything that could be mistaken for warmth. The distance isn’t just physical, it’s deliberate, constructed, something Hokuto is holding onto like a shield.

And slowly it begins to suffocate Taiga.

Because this isn’t indifference.

This is worse.

This is someone who cares enough to hurt but refuses to let that care exist anymore.

Taiga leans forward slightly, trying to catch even a glimpse of Hokuto's face, trying to find something familiar in the way Hokuto used to look at him, but there’s nothing offered back, nothing given, nothing allowed.

Time presses harder.

He can feel it now, not in seconds, not in minutes, but in the quiet urgency building beneath everything, reminding him that this moment will not wait for him to be ready.

So he reaches backward instead, bringing something safer.

“Hokuto… Do you remember,” he starts softly, his voice unsteady in a way he can’t hide anymore, “when we used to stay after class for no reason?”

Hokuto’s hand stills just briefly, just a moment, and that is enough.

Taiga keeps going, his words coming gently but it feels heavy as he pulls from a place he hasn’t touched in years. He talks about the walks home, about the way Hokuto used to match his pace without being asked, about the quiet moments that didn’t need filling, about things that once felt small but now feel impossibly distant.

Taiga's voice carries warmth, but beneath it, there’s something desperate, something searching, like he’s trying to rebuild something that no longer exists using only memory.

And Hokuto listens.

That’s the problem.

He listens.

Every word lands.

Every memory cuts.

Because those moments didn’t disappear for him.

They stayed.

They lingered.

They became something he had to live around, something he never got to resolve.

So when Taiga keeps talking and keeps smiling faintly, as if he keeps reaching back into a past that Hokuto was forced to carry alone, something inside him tightens too far.

“Kyomoto.”

His voice cuts through softly, but there’s strain beneath it now, something controlled but breaking at the edges.

“If you don’t have anything to say,” Hokuto finally turns slightly, enough for his profile to be visible, but not enough to fully face him.

“Please go.”

The words land heavier than they should.

“I want to rest.”

Taiga blinks as confusion flickers across his face and hurts following close behind it.

“I am saying something,” he insists quietly, his voice lifting just enough to betray the panic settling into him. “I’ve been talking this whole time…—”

“Then say it properly.”

Hokuto’s gaze snaps to him fully now. The restraint in his expression fractures just enough to reveal what’s underneath, not anger in its loudest form, but something deeper, something sharper, something that has been waiting too long without release.

“Say it.”

“Explain it.”

“Tell me.”

Tell me why you left me like that.

But Taiga can’t tell him.

And Hokuto sees that immediately.

That hesitation.

That silence.

That absence of the one thing that matters.

It confirms everything he already believed.

“I told you to leave.”

Taiga shakes his head as panic rises fully now, raw and unguarded. 

“No,” his voice shaking but firmer. Taiga doesn't want to leave. That is something he would never be capable of doing, never again.

And that is what breaks the last thread.

Hokuto steps forward and grabs his wrist, the contact feels immediate, real, and jarring in a way neither of them is prepared for. Taiga’s skin is cold, unnaturally so, but Hokuto doesn’t process it, not beyond a fleeting flicker that is instantly swallowed by something stronger, something louder.

Emotion.

Seven years of it. 

He pulls him up. His grip is firm, almost rough, dragging Taiga toward the door without looking at him, without giving him the chance to say anything else.

“Hokuto! Hokuto wait…!”

The door opens widely before him. The cold air rushes in, touching Hokuto's skin as he pushes Taiga outside. And the distance between them reestablished in a single motion.

The door slams shut harder than before.

As if that is the final.

Taiga stands there, shocking. His hand lifts instinctively toward the door as if he can stop it, as if he can undo what just happened, but he doesn’t knock. But his voice comes out weaker, trembling in a way that has nothing to do with the cold.

“H…Hokuto…”

And still no answer.

Only silence fills inside the room, and emptiness fills the place where Taiga stands.

Taiga lowers his hand as he leans his head against the door, bringing his body to sit. Desperate shows clearly in his eyes as Taiga stares at the sky. 

Time keeps counting.

And something heavier crawls over him. It dangerously reminds him of losing Hokuto all over again.

But he doesn’t leave. He stays, forcing his way back in would be easy. Taiga could just appear in front of Hokuto by walking through the door or the wall.

But no. Taiga doesn't want to do that. Because this one matters more.

So he takes a seat. Alone on the cold terrace, under a sky that looks darker than before, his form faint against the night, his presence quiet but unwavering.

Even as the hours continue to slip through his hands, Taiga stays.

Even as the distance between them feels impossibly wide, Taiga stays.

Taiga stays. Because this time, he refuses to be the one who walks away.

Taiga doesn’t move much after the door closes on him again. At some point, he lowers himself onto the terrace, his back resting lightly against the wooden panel beside the door, his legs drawn in slightly, hands resting loosely in his lap like someone who has decided quietly and stubbornly that leaving is no longer an option. The position feels familiar in a way that hurts, like he has done this before in another life, waiting for someone to open a door, waiting for something to be given back to him.

Time stretches into something heavy and slow, marked only by the deepening silence and the way the cold night seems to press closer, tighter, even though he cannot feel it the way he should. He sits there like he is still alive, as if his body still belongs to the world. As if he just waits long enough, Hokuto will open the door and everything will soften, everything will return to something gentler than this.

But the door doesn’t open.

And the rain comes without warning.

It starts as a soft tapping against the roof, barely noticeable at first before it grows steadily, insistently, until it falls in thick, relentless sheets, striking the ground, the steps, the quiet street with a sound that fills every empty space. The snow melts into slush beneath it as the air turns sharper, even colder, the kind of cold that seeps into everything that settles deep and refuses to leave.

Taiga doesn’t move.

The night is getting colder, but not for Taiga. Even though it blurs his outline further, turning him into something even less solid than before. And still, he stays exactly where he is. His gaze fixes somewhere ahead, somewhere distant, as if he’s waiting for a moment that hasn’t come yet.

And Hokuto stands near the window, watching Taiga from inside.

He shouldn’t be there.

He told himself he wouldn’t look.

He told himself he would ignore everything Taiga does.

But he can't.

Hokuto could never do that. 

It is just a glance at first. Just enough to confirm that Taiga probably has gone, that the night probably has swallowed him, that this was nothing more than a moment that has already ended.

But he’s still there, sitting and waiting.

Hokuto’s chest tightens sharply as something painful twisting deep inside him, something that refuses to stay buried no matter how tightly he’s held it down all these years. He doesn’t know what hurts more, the memory of what Taiga did to him, or the quiet and unwavering presence of Taiga now, sitting outside like he hasn’t already left once before.

Why?

Why come back now?

Why stand there like that?

Why look at him like nothing has changed?

If he was going to leave then why come back at all?

The question burns through him. It keeps repeating again and again, haunting him relentlessly.

And yet there is something else peeks inside his heart.

Something softer.

Something far more dangerous.

Because even now, even after everything, even after seven years of silence and absence and pain that never fully healed he still cares.

More than he should.

More than he wants to.

More than he can control.

Hokuto steps back from the window abruptly, as if the distance alone can protect him from what he just felt, from what he almost did. Because for a second, just a second, he almost went to the door and opened it.

Almost.

But he doesn’t. He forces himself away. He forces himself to walk deeper into the house, hides into his room, into a space where Taiga can't be seen or can't see him, and can't reach him again.

If he stays out there, he’ll leave eventually.

He has to.

Taiga wouldn't stay any longer if the night gets colder and colder, would he?

He should go. He should go home, leave Hokuto and never come back.

Never.

Hokuto sits on the edge of his bed, his hands trembling faintly in his lap, his breathing uneven in a way he can’t quite control. The silence inside the room is different now. It is not empty but tense, stretches too tight, fills with everything he’s trying not to think about.

Until his gaze shifts to something he hasn’t touched in years.

A drawer in the corner of his room.

His phone lies inside, being forgotten and unused, a piece of a life he chose to walk away from completely. For a long time, he just stares at it, as if even reaching for it would undo something he has spent years on building distance, separation, and safety in not knowing.

But outside, under the heavy rain cold night,Taiga is still there.

Hokuto exhales shakily as he keeps his eyes on it before deciding to walk and reaches for it.

His hand trembles as he turns it on. It takes longer than he remembers, long enough to make him wonder if it won’t work at all.

But the screen lights up and everything breaks.

A dozen notifications flood in.

Hundreds of missed calls, messages, emails from the names he hasn’t seen in years all pushing forward at once. Just like a wall collapsing under its own weight, like something he buried has finally forced its way back to the surface without asking.

Hokuto feels worried for a few seconds his phone will break. 

His fingers hover on the screen as the notification gets slower this time. 

He clicks one of them almost automatically, a group chat he has abandoned from years ago. The chat is not that much, and Hokuto himself doesn't even remember when and how he joined.

It doesn't matter anyway.

His mind reads the messages right after he opens it.

And the world tilts. The message isn’t old, it's new. It’s been sitting there, waiting to be opened.

Koyomoto Taiga has passed away.

The words don’t make sense at first. They don’t connect. They don’t fit.

Hokuto’s eyes widen as his breath catches so sharply. It almost hurts. His hand tightens around the phone as if it may slip from his grasp if he doesn’t hold it hard enough.

“.....What…?”

The word barely forms. Or his mind still can't process it.

So he clicks the return button and scrolls faster, more likely desperate as his breath starts to catch.

And his thumb stops as he reads another familiar name appears on the screen.

Tanaka Juri.

58 messages.

Hokuto takes a gulp as he lands his palm against the screen, taking a deep breath as he tries to calm himself, even though everything he does is just in vain. 

Every word his eyes scan slowly lands sharply within him

Each line lands harder than the last.

Each word cuts deeper than anything before it.

Juri:

Taiga is sick.

 

Juri:

His cancer is getting worse.

 

Juri:

I know your relationship with him isn't good... but he never forgot you.

Hokuto scrolls down again, reading each word that hits him harder than before. Each message shows a different timestamp. 

Juri:

How long are you going to keep your ego?

 

Juri:

He left not because he didn't love you, but because of his cancer.

 

Juri:

He always stops me from telling you about this... but I can't stand it.

 

Juri:

Fuck you.

 

Juri:

Go to see him.

 

Juri:

Meet him.

 

Juri:

Now.

 

Juri:

This is his address ****

The messages blur. His vision distorts as something hot and sharp builds behind his eyes. Something he can't stop or control anymore.

Juri:

Taiga is gone.

 

Juri:

I really hope you can come to his funeral.

Hokuto’s grip loosens as he falls against the wall. His phone slips slightly in his hand.

Unstoppable tears stream down his face as everything collapses. The room suddenly feels too small. Too quiet. Too suffocating. 

Hokuto finally breaks apart. His palm lands against his lips as his body trembles and unsteady breath echoes around the room.

A sound escapes him low and uneven, something between a breath and a sob, something that has been trapped inside him for years and finally forces its way out all at once. His shoulders shake, his chest tightening painfully as realization crashes into him violently and relentlessly, leaving nothing untouched.

He wasn’t abandoned.

He wasn’t left behind.

He was kept away.

Every moment of anger. Every year of silence.

Every wound he carries, believing it was because Taiga chose to leave, but it twists into something else.

Something heavier.

Something unbearable.

“I….” Hokuto's voice breaks completely. The word falling apart before it can even form into anything coherent.

“I didn’t...”

He didn’t know.

He stupidly didn't know and didn't want to know.

And the worst thing is he didn’t go.

There is no time left to fix it. Tears freely down his cheek. His chest tightens even more, hot and unrelenting, tracing down his face as his body folds inward, his hands gripping the fabric of his shirt like he needs something to hold onto, something to keep him from completely falling apart under the weight of it.

Outside, the rain grows heavier. The sound of it fills everything.

Everything suddenly feels cold, endless cold.

And unforgiving.

Hokuto wipes his tears and forces himself up. He is still not steady. He's not strong. He's not ready.

But he has to move.

Hokuto holds the wall as if his life depends on it as he stumbles toward the window. His breath stops as he looks outside and finds that Taiga is still there, sitting exactly where he left him, waiting for him patiently.

Something inside Hokuto breaks again. His sobs have to be muted by his hand for now as he holds the doorknob. 

There is no more doubt. No more questions. No more distance he can hide behind.

Taiga didn’t come back to hurt him.

He came back to talk to him. To reach him. To do anything Hokuto has avoided to do with Taiga. 

And he pushed him away. Again and again. As if it can make his own heartbreak heal.

But in the end, Hokuto was the one who hurt Taiga.

Always.

The cold outside feels sharper now as the rain doesn’t stop. It falls harder and heavier, as if the sky itself has given up holding anything back. Each drop striking the ground with a quiet violence that fills the empty night. The cold deepens with it, seeping into the air, the wood beneath them, the silence that has stretched too long between two people who were never meant to end like this.

Everything.

Yet Taiga stays. His posture unchanged, like he never moved. An enough sign that he never left, he chose to stay no matter how many times Hokuto pushed away.

And Hokuto takes a deep breath before he turns the doorknob and pulls the door. 

The sound is softer this time, unsteady. As if revealing how vulnerable the human.

Hokuto steps out without hesitation, without care for the cold bite against his skin almost instantly. His breath uneven, his chest rising too fast like something inside him has already broken beyond repair. 

His eyes find Taiga immediately, as if they’ve been searching for him even when he refused to look and for a moment he just stands there, frozen between disbelief and something far more fragile.

Taiga looks up. His eyes look confused but soft.

“…Hokuto?”

And that’s it.

That’s all it takes.

Hokuto moves before he can think. Before he can stop himself. Before the fear of this being a dream, or a mistake, or something he will lose again has time to catch up with him.

He reaches out to grab Taiga’s arm and pulls him in. Taiga stiffens at first as the sudden warmth of contact catches him off guard. The weight of Hokuto’s arms around him feels so real, so solid that for a second it almost feels like his body remembers what it was like to be alive.

And then he understands.

His arms lift slowly, hesitantly, before wrapping around Hokuto in return.

Hokuto doesn’t loosen his grip, not even a little. His arms wrap tightly around Taiga as if he's afraid that if he lets go, Taiga will disappear the same way he did seven years ago, without warning, without explanation, leaving nothing behind but something broken and unanswered. His shoulders shake against Taiga’s, his breath starts to steady, and his face buries against him like he’s trying to anchor himself to something that feels too fragile to trust.

“I’m sorry.”

The words break out of him raw and fragile. His voice shaking against Taiga’s shoulder, and his fingers gripping the fabric like it’s the only thing keeping him grounded.

“I’m sorry, Taiga… I’m so sorry…”

And it’s not just one apology for kicking Taiga out.

It's not just one apology for being harsh.

It's for a lot of things.

For the anger Hokuto held onto for years without knowing why.

For the silence he chose instead of reaching out.

For the way he just shut the door again without understanding what was really standing in front of him.

For ignoring him.

For not knowing.

For not trying to know.

And tears that look sparkle at the cold and heavy night stream down Taiga's cheek. 

“I’m sorry, Hokuto…” He whispers in return. His voice breaks just as easily, softer, but no less heavy, the words falling apart against Hokuto’s shoulder as everything he kept buried finally surfaces all at once.

This is an apology of two people standing in the wreckage of something they both loved, something they both lost, something neither of them knew how to save at the time.

Hokuto had spent many years believing he was abandoned, left behind without reason, forced to carry a wound that never closed because it never made sense. Every memory of Taiga had been sharpened by that absence, twisted into something painful, something unfinished, something that kept asking why without ever receiving an answer.

And Taiga had spent the same years carrying the weight of a decision he thought was kindness and protection, never realizing that silence could cut deeper than any truth he was trying to hide.

So when they hold each other now, it isn’t just about missing each other.

It’s about everything that was never said.

Everything that was misunderstood.

Everything that was lost in the space between leaving and staying.

Hokuto’s grip tightens, his shoulders shaking as his tears refuse to stop. His face buries against Taiga as he’s trying to make up for every moment he didn’t have him, every second he thought was gone for good.

“I didn't mean to leave you, Hokuto…” The confession slips out of Taiga's lips. It feels broken, barely audible.

“I never mean to hurt you…”

Hokuto's arms tighten around him in response. His fingers curl slightly into the fabric at Taiga's back, holding him in a way he never got to before. His own tears are falling silently now.

“I know…”

The words out tremble, unsteady with the truth he just heard.

And Hokuto knows he doesn’t have to ask again.

Not anymore.

Because for the first time since that day, he finally understands.

The rain keeps falling around them. It feels cold, the kind of cold that is enough to make everything unbearable.

But between them, there is only warmth. After everything that happened, they finally fell into each other's arms. Though the fragile and painful memories still inside them, it slowly let them go.

The rain softens eventually. Falls from something relentless into something quieter, more patient but it never truly leaves, as if the night itself refuses to let go of what has already begun between them. The cold lingers in the air, sharp and biting against the world around them. And yet, on that small terrace, there are two people that remain close against each other. 

They don’t separate immediately.

Even when Hokuto’s breathing begins to steady.

Even when the first wave of tears quiets into something softer, something that lingers instead of crashes. 

They stay like that, foreheads nearly touching, hands still gripping onto each other like distance is no longer something they’re willing to risk.

The rain becomes a backdrop. The night deepens. And time feels like it gets slow.

Hokuto is the first to pull back slightly, just enough to look at Taiga properly, to confirm what his hands have already told him that Taiga is really here. That this isn’t something his mind has created to fill the emptiness. His eyes search Taiga’s face, tracing every detail like he’s trying to memorize it again, just like how he’s afraid it will change if he looks away.

“You…” His voice is quieter now, almost whispering.

“You look the same.”

There’s no accusation in it, just disbelief, and something softer beneath it.

Taiga lets out the faintest laugh. The sound is fragile but real. His gaze lowers for a moment before lifting again. 

“And you don't,” he replies gently, his voice carrying something warmer now, something that feels almost like relief despite everything else. 

“Your hair got longer.”

It’s such a small thing.

Such an ordinary observation.

But it breaks something open between them in a different way.

Hokuto exhales as the tension in his shoulders easing just slightly. It’s no longer suffocating him the way it did moments ago. He wipes at his face quickly, almost reflexively, though it does nothing to hide the redness in his eyes, the evidence of everything he just let himself feel.

Hokuto knows he doesn't want to ask. He doesn't have to. But deepest in his heart, he wants to hear it by himself. He's tired of guessing, so he asks. He let the question slip his lips gently.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Taiga blinks softly as he looks into Hokuto's eyes, his hand cups Hokuto’s face gently, caresses his cheek as a single tear stream down again.

“I didn’t want you to worry,” he says after a moment, the truth bending just enough to stay safe, to stay within the boundaries he cannot cross. His fingers tighten slightly where they rest against Hokuto’s sleeve, grounding himself in something he can still touch. “You always think too much.”

It’s soft.

Almost teasing.

But it doesn’t fully land.

And Hokuto only smiles gently as he takes Taiga’s hand and brings it closer to his face. He closes his eyes, feeling Taiga's palm against his cheek before he lands a soft kiss, a very gentle kiss over it.

“Do you remember,” Hokuto begins again after showering a few kisses on Taiga's palm, “the day it rained after school and we didn’t have umbrellas?”

Taiga blinks as he is caught off guard by the change, but the memory comes easily, slipping into place without resistance.

“You said we should just run.”

A faint smile, small and fleeting, touches Hokuto's lips before he can stop it, “and then you slipped halfway down the street.”

Taiga laughs softly as he bends down towards Hokuto's shoulder. The sound of his laugh is warmer this time, more familiar. 

“You laughed at me.”

“I didn’t laugh,” Hokuto replies instinctively, though his voice is lighter now, softer around the edges.

“You did.”

“I only smiled.”

“That’s the same thing.”

The conversation drifts just like that, gently and carefully.

From one memory to another.

From laughter to something quieter.

From something light into something that carries weight beneath it.

They keep talking about things that don’t hurt too much.

School.

Friends.

Small moments that once felt insignificant but now hold more meaning than anything else.

They keep talking just like two people who are trying to rebuild something fragile without breaking it again, like each word is placed carefully between them, testing whether it will hold any longer.

And slowly, it does.

The night is getting colder. The snow has taken turns falling down to earth. Hokuto leans his back slightly against the wall beside the door. His shoulder brushing against Taiga’s as if the distance between them has become unnecessary, as if the space that once existed no longer needs to be protected. Taiga stays close, their arms occasionally brushing and their hands finding each other again without thinking, without hesitation this time.

The silence shifted to something gentler, no longer suffocating. Something that held them instead of tearing them apart. The cold night remains but between them there is only warmth.

"…It’s cold,” Hokuto murmurs at last, though he makes no move to let go. 

Taiga huffs a quiet, breathless laugh, the sound fragile but real. “You’re just realizing that now?”

Hokuto smiles faintly as he holds Taiga's hand tightly. 

“Let's get inside.” Hokuto says as he stands up slowly, pulling Taiga with him just like the way he used to. 

And Taiga nods gently as he stands up, following Hokuto.

Hokuto walks before Taiga while holding him, keeping his eyes on Taiga's, still because of the same reason, he's afraid if what happens between them is not real.

He's afraid that the Taiga that he sees in front of him is not real. 

He's afraid that the hand he's holding now is not real. 

But it is real.

They're real.

The wooden door creaks softly as Hokuto pushes it open, a thin line of warmth spilling out into the freezing night. And Taiga walks after Hokuto, stepping the floor gently as if he can feel how cold the floor is against his feet, tightening his grip on Hokuto's hand.

The sound of the door closing quietly behind them fills the room, shutting out the snow, and the years they had lost. But it is not enough to close the feelings that remain, still raw, still aching, still alive.

But warmer.

The sky outside begins to shift again, and the snow gathers over them, creating a number that could be seen by Taiga only, before they fall down to earth.

The times may be shifting, but not for Taiga or Hokuto.

They stay, and they will keep staying by holding onto something they were never meant to lose.

Even if this time, they know they will, eventually.