The morning air was oddly motionless.
Haruka noticed it first—not the quiet, but the way the world had softened overnight. She opened the rear door of the bakery pantry, where she'd ducked in to check the storage, and was greeted by a faint layer of white. Snow. Thin, still melting in patches, but unmistakably present. The first snow of the year.
There was a soft gasp from her mouth. She stood there for a little longer, hand still on the doorknob, watching the flakes settle gently on the stone path that curved its way to the alley. The world was quieter, even the rooftops across were wearing their icy cloaks like a secret. Her lips curled faintly, and then she closed the door and let the warmth of the pantry envelop her again.
A few blocks away, Kaito was walking alone down the side street that would lead him to the riverbank.
He had not planned to walk far. But when he saw the snow from his bedroom window, something pulled at him. A familiar kind of ache. Not the dense, suffocating kind that came after loss, but the kind that had his chest tighten and his mind roll backward in time.
His sneakers crunched softly in the fresh layer of snow as he reached the riverbank. The water was calm. The snow did not fall onto the surface but dissolved quietly, like memories returning.
He remembered the last time it had snowed in Tokyo. He was ten years old. His parents had been fighting every night that winter, and his world had been loud and unstable. But that one morning, the city woke up white, and everything had stilled.
He'd had a little shrine near his old house in Tokyo, where he'd escape when the shouting got too much. That morning, he remembered sitting alone on the steps of that shrine, snowflakes falling onto his sleeves. He hadn't cried. He'd just sat there, looking up at the sky, and wondered if the world always looked this peaceful to happy people.
That was the day someone sat beside him—a girl. A friend. A neighbor, though her name had escaped him over the years. She didn't say much, but she shared her melon bread with him and told him about her dream to be someone who made beautiful things. Poems, maybe.
He didn't know why the memory was so vivid suddenly, but it stuck with him now, more solid than it had been in years.
Kaito exhaled slowly, his breath fogging in the cold air. He rested forward on the wooden railing by the river, the cold seeping through his jacket.
He hadn't thought about that version of himself in some time—the quiet, angry boy who didn't know how to find the words for his pain. The boy who was calmed by silence, and in fleeting friendships that never stuck.
And yet, somehow… that part of himself had started to soften again. Since coming to this town. Since meeting Haruka.
The snow wasn't heavy, but it reminded him of that morning all those years before—not because of a note or any words spoken, but because of how the world had felt: poised. As if inviting him to breathe. To feel.
At the bakery, Haruka went quietly through her morning routine. She didn't know why, but her chest was both heavy and light. As if something essential was reordering itself.
Maybe it was the snow. Maybe it was Kaito's smile yesterday when they told stories of their pasts. Or maybe it was that the seasons were changing—and with them, so were they.
She was by the window, watching the snow continue to fall.
"Snow in this town always feels like a secret," the bakery grandmother said, quietly joining her with a cup of steaming tea. "It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it comes with memories."
Haruka accepted the tea with both hands. "Did it snow the year Kaito moved here?"
The old lady nodded slowly. "Yes. Not much, but I remember. He didn't say anything about it, but I could tell it reminded him of something."
Haruka held the warm pottery in her hands, gazing out again. Maybe the snow had always meant something to Kaito. A reminder. A scar. Or a promise he had left behind.
Kaito returned to the bakery later in the day, but didn't go in immediately. He stood outside for a while, looking up at the pale sky. Snow still fell, though more feebly now, as if the sky had at last begun to unload.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, checking the time. Still early. The bakery would be deserted.
He wasn't sure what he was expecting—maybe nothing. But he had to see her. Even if only for a little while.
Haruka looked up as the bell above the door tingled softly.
Kaito entered, brushing off snow from his shoulders. Their eyes locked over the counter, and for a moment, the world outside didn't matter.
"Morning," he greeted, his voice low but steady.
"Morning," she replied, with a softness that surprised even herself.
No sticky notes this time. No grand questions or confessions.
Just snow outside. And something melting slowly between them—like winter giving way to spring, one flake at a time.