[Next Week – Tokyo, Japan | Haruka's Grandparents' - Tachibana's Family Estate]
[Haruka POV]
The wooden gates creaked open with a familiar weight — tall and weathered, but always graceful. The air smelled of cypress, rain-soaked stone, and early spring.
Beyond the gates, the gravel path crunched beneath our shoes. The trees swayed gently, and the koi pond near the main entrance shimmered in the sun. Everything looked exactly the same as it did when I was a boy — except maybe a little smaller, now that I stood taller.
Levi slowed his steps beside me.
I glanced over.
He didn't say anything at first. He simply gazed at the expansive traditional estate in front of us.
Tatami mats. Sliding fusuma doors. Carefully manicured zen gardens. A koi bridge that arched into memory.
He whispered without meaning to, "It's like something out of a painting."
I smiled.
"It kind of is," I replied. "That painting you loved as a kid. The one you saw when you first attended the art exhibition?"
He turned to me, eyes sharpening.
"The one with the autumn pond and red-roofed veranda…"
"Yeah." I nodded. "That was painted here. Right from that angle over there."
I pointed toward the side garden where the maple tree stood. Tall, proud, its leaves just beginning to bud.
"I thought that painting was a dream," he said softly.
"You're standing on it."
He looked at me.
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
"Because I wanted you to see it yourself," I said, stepping forward and gently pulling him toward the wooden engawa, the veranda that wrapped around the house like a quiet embrace. "And I wanted my grandfather to meet the boy who grew up with his brushstrokes hanging over his bed."
Levi scoffed quietly, but I heard the breath catch in his throat.
"You planned this the moment I said I was revealing myself, didn't you?"
"Maybe."
"You're dangerously good at this."
"I know."
We stepped up onto the engawa. The sliding door opened before I could knock.
And there he stood.
My grandfather from my mother's side. Tachibana Hachirou. A renowned artist, the first person that inspired Levi to be an artist.
Still tall despite his age. Snow-white hair neatly tied back. The yukata is crisp and ink-stained at the sleeves, always painting, always thinking.
He looked at me first, his expression warm and calm.
Then his eyes shifted to Levi.
And something… shifted.
Levi stood straighter. Quieter.
"Grandfather," I said, bowing my head slightly. "This is the guest I mentioned."
My grandfather stepped forward, gaze calm, curious. And then a slow smile spread across his face.
"So, you are L. Schatz." He said it in perfect English, though his accent curled the word like a brush on rice paper.
Levi's throat bobbed.
"I… yes," he said, bowing deeply. "My name is Levi Ackerman. It's an honour to meet you, sir. Your work changed my life."
My grandfather chuckled softly. "No need for such formality. Any man who creates from pain and truth is already an equal in my eyes."
Levi lifted his head, eyes wide. The tightness in his shoulders didn't vanish, but I saw something shift. Something softened.
"Come," my grandfather said, stepping aside. "The tea's already prepared. And I've been waiting a long time to meet the boy who out-painted emotion itself."
Levi blinked.
I nudged him gently forward. "You heard him."
He walked slowly into the house, like he was stepping into a shrine.
And in a way… he was.
As the door slid closed behind us, I looked over my shoulder at the fading daylight spilling across the tatami.
The air inside the tea room was still, the kind of silence you don't disturb, only breathe in.
Tatami mats warmed under the filtered sunlight. The scent of matcha and hinoki wood lingered in the air. A small cast iron teapot steamed gently at the centre of the low table.
I sat beside Levi, cross-legged in formal posture. Across from us, my grandfather moved with slow precision, whisking the tea by hand. His movements were fluid, with years of memory embedded in muscle. Every flick of the wrist was intentional. Quiet. Art.
Levi said nothing.
He hadn't said anything for a while, in fact. He just watched my grandfather with the same reverence he once had for the painting that hung above his childhood bed.
When tea was ready, my grandfather poured it without a word. One cup in front of Levi, one for me, and one for himself.
He sat back finally and smiled.
"How's your mother, Haruka?" My grandfather finally spoke.
"She's doing well. She asked me to send her regards to you and grandmother. I didn't see my grandmother. Is she out?" I asked. Right, I couldn't see her yet.
"You know how your grandmother was. As a retired woman, now she's operating her own business. She just couldn't stay at home doing nothing, haha." My grandfather said with a chuckle.
Right. I should know better. My grandmother used to be a doctor. Then she was once a famous actress and model after leaving the doctor life. That was one of the reasons why Harumi onee-san wanted to be an actress.
After a moment of silence, my grandfather's gaze shifted toward Levi.
"I'm glad you came."
Levi nodded slowly. "I'm… honoured you invited me."
My grandfather studied him a moment, then shifted slightly, resting his hands in his lap.
"I've followed your work for years," he said, voice low and calm. "Even before the world knew your name."
Levi blinked.
"Well, of course Haruka's mother is one of the reasons in that part also. "I recognise the signature," my grandfather continued. "Or rather, the brushstroke behind the signature. The sadness inside your movement. It's the kind of thing only someone who has carried it before can see."
Levi's fingers tightened slightly around the ceramic cup.
"I learnt from you," he said quietly. "Not just your technique. The way your work… listens. It made me feel like someone finally understood what I couldn't say out loud."
My grandfather nodded once. "That's all art ever tries to do."
He took a slow sip of tea, then set the cup down with a quiet click.
"There is an exhibition coming soon," he said. "One of my last ones. I'm curating it myself, at my private gallery in Ginza."
I glanced over at Levi.
He didn't move, just listened.
My grandfather continued.
"I want to feature pieces from artists who speak from the soul. Who does not decorate but confess." He looked straight at Levi. "If you're willing, I would be honoured to include L. Schatz among them."
The silence that followed felt like a held breath.
Levi stared down at his tea. "You want me to exhibit… with you?"
My grandfather smiled softly. "No, I want you to exhibit next to me."
I watched Levi's expression shift. Slowly. Almost imperceptibly. But I knew him well enough to see it. The way his fingers relaxed, the way his shoulders dropped ever so slightly.
A small breath escaped him.
"I'd be honoured." He said.
My grandfather nodded once, satisfied. "Then I'll prepare a wall for you."
Levi lifted his tea slowly, took a sip, and looked up at the man he once idolised from a distance.
"This means more than I know how to say," he said. "Thank you."
"You already said it," my grandfather replied, "in every canvas you've ever painted."
We drank in silence after that. Not because there was nothing left to say.
But because, in this room, silence was the language.
And every sip was a conversation of its own.
[Next Day – Ginza, Tokyo | Private Gallery Space]
[Haruka POV]
The gallery was still empty of the art drawing and canvas, but the preparation is underway.
No crowds. No art yet hung. Just quiet white walls, tall ceilings, and sunlight pouring in from the long vertical windows that reached skyward like cathedral beams.
My footsteps echoed softly against the polished floor as I moved further inside.
Levi walked beside me, hands in his coat's pockets, eyes scanning the space as if mentally arranging each canvas already. He looked peaceful here. Like this place knew him, and he knew it back.
"This is where it'll happen." I said gently. "Two weeks from now."
He nodded, glancing up at the track lighting already angled towards the walls. "It's beautiful. Quiet. Personal."
"It's exactly what he wanted. Intimate, but sacred."
He stopped walking.
His eyes lingered on one corner near the far back. A recessed alcove, a bit hidden, but with its own spotlight fixture.
"This one," he said.
I tilted my head. "You want that spot?"
He stepped forward slowly, turning in place as if measuring the energy of the room. "Not centre. Not front-facing. But still seen. Still… felt."
My gaze towards him softened. "It suits you."
He exhaled quietly, slipping off one glove and brushing his fingers along the wall. Cool, clean, blank.
"What are you going to display?" I asked, stepping closer.
He stared ahead for a long moment.
Then he said, "something I never thought I'd share."
I waited for him to continue.
"A self-portrait," he added softly. "Not the kind with eyes or skin. Just… layers. Scraped paint. Negative space. Half-finished strokes. Maybe even a tear across the canvas."
Then I turned to face him fully. "Something vulnerable."
"Something honest," he replied.
"Sounds like it'll break hearts."
"It already broke mine."
We stood there for a moment, surrounded by absence. No art, no crowd, no judgement.
Only space.
Only possibility.
Then, I spoke again. Softer this time.
"Your mother would be proud."
He didn't respond. He just let his hand drop from the wall, sliding the glove back on.
"I think so too," he whispered.
As we walked slowly back toward the entrance, the sunlight followed behind us, casting long shadows across the blank canvas of the room.
[Later That Afternoon – Garden Studio, Tachibana's Estate]
The garden studio sat behind the main house, half-hidden under the maple tree's early green leaves.
Sunlight filtered through shoji windows, spilling onto aged floorboards and paint-streaked tatami. The faint scent of old ink and sandalwood clung to the air like memory.
I sat quietly at the side, a sketchbook resting on my lap. Closed. I wasn't drawing. I wasn't writing. Just… watching.
In front of me, my grandfather and Levi painted.
Side by side.
Neither of them spoke much. They didn't need to.
My grandfather, in his charcoal-grey yukata, moved with a soft steadiness. Dipping his brush, one fluid stroke at a time. His canvas was delicate rice paper stretched across cedar slats, the beginning of a minimalist landscape starting to take shape.
Levi, dressed in a simple black long-sleeve, sleeves pushed back slightly, mirrored him, not in technique, but in energy. Focused. Composed. Reverent. His canvas was oil-primed linen, his strokes bold and textured, the kind that carried feeling more than form.
They were painting different things.
But they were speaking the same
At one point, my grandfather paused and glanced over at Levi's work.
"Your strokes are heavier than they used to be," he said. "You paint like someone who has forgiven something."
Levi didn't look up. "I have."
"Yourself?"
"And the past."
My grandfather smiled faintly. "Good. That is when the art begins."
I felt something in my chest tighten.
There was a strange beauty in watching them together. My grandfather, the man who taught me how to hold a brush even though all I did was complain because I didn't want to. And Levi, the man I'd seen rebuild his entire world through colour and silence.
Two lives. Two losses. Two visions.
One moment.
Levi paused, cleaned his brush and set it gently to the side.
"I used to mimic your works when I was a kid," he said, glancing at my grandfather. "Not well. But I tried."
"I've seen the old sketches," I said from the side, smiling. "You were seven and ambitious."
Levi raised an eyebrow. "You're not helping."
My grandfather chuckled.
"You had soul," he said. "Even back then. Soul matters more than precision."
They fell back into silence again, the kind that made you forget the world existed beyond that little wooden studio.
Eventually, Levi spoke again, more quietly this time.
"Do you ever feel like painting is the only way to breathe?"
My grandfather nodded once.
"All the time."
And then, they continued painting after that. One with discipline, the other with storm. I didn't say a word. I didn't want to.
Because at that moment, I wasn't needed to fill the space. I just needed to witness it.
The weight of legacy passed not through blood, but through brush and understanding.
And I realised something as I watched them.
Levi wasn't just a part of my world anymore.
He belonged in it.
[Three Days Before the Exhibition – Levi's Temporary Studio, Tokyo]
[Haruka POV]
I found him in the same place he'd been for hours. Crouched on the studio floor, a palette knife in one hand, the other dragging across his jaw as he stared at the half-finished canvas.
He hadn't noticed me entering.
The room smelled faintly of oil, varnish, and pinewood. A single overhead light bathed the studio in soft gold, catching the subtle streaks of copper and black layered onto the canvas in front of him. Messy. Stark. Emotionally raw.
And still not done.
I walked over quietly, setting a fresh cup of tea on the nearby table.
He didn't look up.
"Still not right?" I asked softly.
He exhaled through his nose. "It's there. I feel it. I just can't reach it."
I moved to stand behind him, looking at the painting over his shoulder.
There were no faces. No form. No motion. Jagged strokes, torn textures, emptiness caught between colour and restraint.
It was Levi. The real one.
He leaned forward suddenly and added a sharp line of red across the middle. The blade of the palette knife scraped against canvas, not quite violently, but like a breath being pulled through clenched teeth.
Then silence.
I knelt beside him, our knees brushing.
He dropped the palette knife and let it fall into the mess of brushes and tubes at his feet.
"He's going to be there," he said. "Your grandfather. Standing just feet away from something I wasn't sure I had the right to paint."
"You do." I replied without hesitation.
Finally, he's looking at me.
There was paint on his knuckles. Tension around his eyes. A question behind them he still hadn't said out loud.
I reached for his hand, lacing my fingers with his.
"You're not painting for them," I said. "Not for the critics. Not even for my grandfather."
"Then who?"
"For the boy who used to stand in front of that maple tree and wonder if anyone could understand him."
He looked down at our hand.
Then back at the canvas.
"I don't want to make it pretty." He said.
"You're not supposed to."
"I want it to hurt."
"Then let it be."
He didn't say anything more. He just leaned his shoulder into mine for a moment, the kind of lean that doesn't ask for support but allows it anyway.
The studio went quiet again.
I didn't let go of his hand. And neither did he.
[Haruka POV - Later That Night]
He stood at the railing, hair damp from a shower, eyes on the Tokyo skyline.
The city was always louder than Paris. Brighter. But somehow, here, he looked more at peace than I'd seen him in weeks.
"I'm finishing the piece tomorrow," he said.
I stepped beside him. "You're ready?"
He didn't answer right away.
Then finally, "It doesn't have to be perfect. Just honest."
I smiled faintly.
"That's always been your strength."
He turned his head to look at me.
"I'm scared." He admitted.
"I know."
"But I'm not hiding."
"I know that too."
We stood in silence for a while.
No more fear. No more performance.
Just us.
And three days from now… the world would see the truth Levi had been carrying his whole life.
And he would let them.
TO BE CONTINUED!!!