I've seen her here multiple times since I started working at Morita Financial. Always just after six, always just as the sun starts bleeding into the edges of the skyline. She'd slip through the rooftop door like a shadow—quiet, constant, tired in a way that had nothing to do with work hours.
The first time, I didn't even notice her until she was already at the railing, lighting a cigarette with hands that didn't shake but looked like they wanted to. I didn't say anything. Neither did she. We just stood there, two strangers sharing the same sinking feeling, the same unspoken understanding that the world was too loud and too quiet all at once.
That was six months ago.
Since then, we've settled into something like a ritual. No words, just the occasional nod, the shared lighter, the mutual acknowledgment that we were both here for the same reason: to escape without actually leaving.
Tonight, I got there first.
The wind was colder than usual. Not freezing, just sharp—clean in a way that made the neon feel distant. Tokyo sprawled below in slow-moving veins of red and white. I lit my cigarette and leaned on the railing, watching the city breathe.
The door creaked open.
She stepped out. Rei. HR. Mid-thirties, probably. She always looked like she'd just woken up from a dream she didn't like. Loose black hair. Pale skin. No lipstick. She wore the same expression every day—a tired kind of elegance, like she'd figured out the world and wasn't impressed.
I handed her the lighter without speaking. She lit her cigarette with a slow inhale, exhaled like she was bleeding air instead of smoke.
"Thanks," she said.
We stood in silence. The sky above us was bruised with sunset, and the city's heartbeat below was steady, impersonal. It was like standing above a machine that would keep moving with or without you.
---
Rei had a habit of tapping her fingers against her thigh when she wasn't speaking. Not nervously, but methodically, like she was counting down to something. I noticed it the third time we shared the rooftop.
Tonight, she did it again.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I wondered if she was aware of it.
"You always come up here," she said eventually.
"So do you," I replied.
She gave a half-smile. "We're not the same, though."
"No," I said. "We're not."
But we were both here.
She took another drag, exhaled through her nose. "I used to hate cigarettes," she said. "My father smoked. All the time. Said it helped him think. Said it gave him time to process."
"You said 'used to.'"
"I still do," she admitted. "But now I need them."
I didn't ask why. I already knew.
She leaned against the railing beside me. Her hair caught the last light like strands of smoke. She stared out into the skyline like it was something that had betrayed her.
"You know," she said, "my therapist says I intellectualize everything. Pain, grief, loneliness. Says I overanalyze so I don't have to feel."
"Does it work?"
"No. But it gives me something to do."
I took a drag. "Mine says I avoid. That I run from silence but can't stand noise either."
She looked at me, curious. "So what does that make you?"
"Stuck, I guess."
Rei nodded like that made too much sense. "We should form a club. Emotionally Stuck Adults Anonymous."
"No meetings," I said. "Just mutual avoidance."
"Perfect."
We laughed, dry and cracked. Like the kind of laugh that comes from a wound, not humor.
---
The next night, it rained.
I didn't expect her to show up, but she did. No umbrella, just her usual black coat, shoulders damp from the drizzle.
"You came," I said.
She shrugged. "Where else would I go?"
We stood under the overhang, watching the rain blur the city into watercolor.
"I had a dream last night," she said suddenly.
I waited.
"I was standing in an empty train station. No one else was there. Just me. And the announcements kept playing, but they weren't in any language I understood." She flicked ash off her cigarette. "I think I was waiting for something. But I don't know what."
"Did you wake up before finding out?"
"No. I just stood there. Forever."
I thought about that. "Sounds lonely."
"It was." She paused. "But also peaceful."
I understood. Sometimes, loneliness is better than the alternative.
---
A week passed.
We didn't speak every night. Some evenings, we just smoked in silence, two ghosts haunting the same space. But when we did talk, it was always like this—fragments of confessions, half-finished thoughts, the kind of honesty that only exists in the dark.
One night, she asked: "You ever imagine what it'd be like to just keep walking?"
"Off the roof?"
"No." She shook her head. "Not like that. Just... not go back. Keep walking until the streets don't look familiar anymore. Until no one expects anything from you."
I thought about it. "Sometimes. But I don't know if I'm running toward something or just trying to get away."
"Same difference, isn't it?"
"No. One's about hope. The other's about fear."
She looked at me. "And you?"
"Mostly fear," I said.
She exhaled, long and slow. "Yeah."
---
Then came the night she didn't show.
I waited. Smoked two cigarettes instead of one. The sky turned from orange to black. The city lights blinked on, indifferent.
I told myself she was just busy. That she'd be back tomorrow.
But the next night, she still wasn't there.
I didn't ask around. That wasn't our arrangement. We weren't friends. We were just two strangers who shared a quiet understanding of the void.
Still, I wondered.
---
She returned a week later.
No explanation. Just the creak of the door, the familiar sound of her footsteps.
I didn't ask where she'd been. She didn't offer.
Instead, she lit a cigarette and said, "I haven't slept in three days."
I didn't respond. I didn't know how to. There's a kind of stillness that comes with real pain. You don't poke it. You just stay beside it and try not to move too loud.
"Not really," she continued. "I lay down. Close my eyes. But it doesn't shut off. It's like... glass. In my head. That high-pitched tension before it breaks."
She said it so calmly, like she was reading out symptoms on a medical form.
"Do you talk to anyone?"
She laughed. Not happily. "I am HR. I'm the one people come to when they're cracking."
"But you're not HR right now."
She gave me a look. "I'm not really anything right now."
"You're still here," I said quietly.
She stared at me. There was a flicker in her face—something between a flinch and a sigh. Like she wanted to believe that was enough.
---
The next night, she brought a thermos.
"Coffee?" I asked.
"Whiskey," she said.
I didn't ask why.
We passed it back and forth between cigarettes, the burn of alcohol mixing with the burn of smoke.
"You ever think about quitting?" she asked.
"Smoking?"
"Everything."
That question just hovered there. She didn't clarify. I didn't need her to.
"Every day," I said.
She flicked the end of her cigarette over the edge. The spark fell into the dark like a small, unceremonious goodbye.
"I'm scared," she whispered. Not to me. Just to the wind. To herself.
"I know," I said.
She turned toward the door, hesitated, then stopped. "Thanks for not talking too much."
"Thanks for not pretending," I replied.
She smiled. The real kind. Small. Worn. But real.
Before she stepped inside, she asked without looking back, "Same time tomorrow?"
"Yeah," I said.
---
I stayed after she left. Lit a second cigarette. I didn't feel better. But I didn't feel worse.
Sometimes, survival is just about bearing witness to someone else's silence.
She and I weren't fixing anything. We weren't offering answers. We were just two people who'd found a space where it was okay to fall apart in parallel.
Not for rescue. Not for romance.
Just for the momentary relief of being seen and not having to explain it.
We weren't trying to be whole.
We were just trying not to disappear.
And somehow, that was enough.
---
The whiskey became part of the ritual.
Some nights it was cheap convenience-store bourbon, others it was something smokey and expensive she'd pulled from the back of her cupboard. Never enough to get drunk—just enough to take the edge off the silence.
One evening, she didn't bring the thermos. Instead, she held out a small orange prescription bottle between two fingers, rattling it like a maraca.
"Sleep aids," she said. "But they don't work."
I didn't ask if she'd taken more than she should've. The shadows under her eyes were answer enough.
She twisted the cap off, tapped two white pills into her palm, then dry-swallowed them like a challenge.
"You ever take these?"
"No," I said.
"Good." She exhaled through her nose. "They make the dreams worse."
I thought about asking what she dreamed of, but she was already turning away, gripping the railing like it was the only thing keeping her upright.
---
The next time she disappeared, it was for eleven days.
I didn't count at first. Then I did.
On the twelfth night, the rooftop door didn't creak—it slammed.
Rei looked like hell. Hair tangled, shirt wrinkled, like she'd slept in it for a week. She didn't reach for a cigarette. Just gripped the railing and stared down at the streets below, breathing hard.
I waited.
"They put me on leave," she finally said.
I didn't ask why.
She laughed—a sharp, broken sound. "They said I was 'emotionally compromised.' That I needed to 'recenter.'" Her fingers dug into the metal. "As if I wasn't already hollow."
The wind picked up, carrying the scent of rain and exhaust. Somewhere below, a car alarm wailed, then cut off abruptly.
She closed her eyes. "I sat in my apartment for seven days straight. Didn't answer the door. Didn't answer my phone. Just… sat there." A pause. "I don't even remember most of it."
I lit a cigarette, handed it to her. She took it without looking.
"Welcome back," I said.
She let out a slow stream of smoke. "Yeah."
---
She started talking more after that.
Not about anything important. Just fragments. The way her father used to hum old jazz songs while he shaved. The time she got lost in Shinjuku Station at fourteen and no one noticed she was gone for six hours. The recurring dream where her teeth fell out one by one, silent and bloodless.
I didn't offer advice. Didn't tell her it would get better. We both knew better than that.
But I listened.
And sometimes, that's all a person needs—someone to witness the unraveling without trying to stitch it back together.
---
Then came the night she asked:
"What's the worst thing you've ever done?"
I didn't hesitate. "Stayed when I should've left."
She nodded, like she'd expected that answer. "Who'd you hurt?"
"Myself."
She turned to face me fully then, eyes searching. "That's the thing, isn't it? We're always the collateral damage."
I thought about reaching for her hand. Didn't.
Some wounds don't need touch. They just need to bleed in the same direction.
---
The next rooftop was quieter than usual.
Not the city—Tokyo still pulsed like a restless dream—but the space between us. Even the wind seemed softer, like it didn't want to interrupt.
Rei lit her cigarette and said nothing. Neither did I.
Minutes passed like hours. Then, quietly:
"I keep thinking about leaving," she said.
"Work?" I asked.
She shook her head. "Everything."
The way she said it—it didn't sound like a cry for help. More like someone reciting a fact. Gravity exists. Time passes. She wants to leave.
"I don't think anyone would notice," she added.
"I would," I said.
Her eyes flicked toward me. Not surprised. Not grateful. Just… registering. Like she was filing it away for later.
She didn't say thank you. She just nodded, slowly, as if trying to accept that maybe being noticed mattered. Even if just a little.
---
It was almost summer.
The rooftop was warm now. The breeze carried hints of cigarettes, humidity, and the sharp scent of rust from the railing.
Rei brought music. Just a small speaker she set between us. Jazz, mostly—soft horns and piano keys that sounded like they were trying not to cry.
"My father loved Coltrane," she said. "Especially when he was drunk."
I didn't say anything. Just let the music cover us like a second skin.
"He used to say the saxophone sounded like the soul breaking out of the mouth."
"Maybe it is," I murmured.
She laughed gently. "Then I guess I'm tone-deaf."
"You're not."
That silence after I said it felt different. Heavier. But not unwelcome.
Sometimes, healing sounds like jazz. Broken, messy, but somehow still beautiful.
---
The first time she touched me, it wasn't romantic.
It was instinct. A bad night. Her hands were shaking. Not from the cold. From everything else.
She dropped her cigarette trying to light it. Cursed under her breath. Then just stood there, shoulders tight, jaw clenched.
I reached out, gently touched her arm. Not to fix anything. Just to remind her she wasn't alone.
She didn't flinch. She didn't lean in, either. She just looked at my hand, then at me, and said, "Thanks."
The word felt bigger than it should have. Like a bridge over something unspoken.
She lit a new cigarette. We stood side by side. Breathing. Smoking. Surviving.
---
Eventually, she started calling me by name.
It was subtle. Quiet. Almost like a test.
"Hey, you ever think about disappearing, Michael?"
Not a question from a stranger anymore.
"Sometimes," I said. "But I think I'd miss the cigarettes."
She smiled. "You'd miss me more."
I looked at her. "Yeah. I would."
That night, we didn't drink. Didn't talk much. Just shared names and silence like two people learning how to stay.
And maybe that was enough.
---
Another night. Another scar revealed.
"Did I ever tell you about Naoya?" she asked.
"No."
"My little brother." She looked at the skyline like it held the memory. "He died when he was seventeen. Motorcycle accident. Hit-and-run."
"I'm sorry."
"So am I," she said. "I was supposed to pick him up that day."
Silence.
"He called me twice. I ignored it. I was in a meeting."
She didn't cry. She just said it like stone being placed on a pile.
I didn't offer forgiveness. It wasn't mine to give.
But I stood there, shoulder to shoulder, letting her grief echo in mine.
And she kept talking. Which meant something.
---
A month later, the cigarettes tasted like nothing.
Maybe my body had gotten used to them. Or maybe the craving had stopped being about the smoke and started being about the ritual—the routine of it. Light, inhale, wait. Pretend there's something to control in that small act.
Rei hadn't shown up in three days.
She'd been erratic since coming back from leave. Some nights, she was sharp and sardonic. Other nights, quiet in a way that felt hollow. Then the absences started again, sporadic and unexplained.
I didn't chase her. That wasn't the deal. We shared space, not responsibilities.
But I still noticed.
That third night, I sat on the edge of the rooftop with my feet dangling over the city. I never liked heights, not in the way that thrills people. I liked the distance. The detachment.
The kind that made everything look small enough to survive.
The door didn't open.
I lit my second cigarette and imagined her voice:
"You know that's going to kill you, right?"
And mine:
"Only if I'm lucky."
I laughed to myself. It wasn't funny. Nothing we said ever really was.
Just true enough to sting.
---
The fourth night, she came.
Not like usual. Not quiet, not composed. She stumbled.
Physically, emotionally—both. She looked like someone who'd been fighting something invisible and losing. Her eyes were red. Not from crying. Just raw. Like she'd been trying to cry but ran out of whatever it took.
She didn't speak right away. Just handed me the lighter. Her hands were trembling.
I lit hers, then mine.
Silence stretched thin between us.
Then: "I almost called someone."
"Who?" I asked.
"I don't know. Anyone." Her voice cracked like tired glass. "I just didn't want to be alone."
I didn't say anything. Just leaned against the railing beside her.
After a while, she whispered, "But I couldn't do it. I didn't want to explain."
"You don't have to explain anything up here."
She nodded. Barely.
Then, softer: "I thought about not coming back."
"I know."
"You would've let me disappear quietly, wouldn't you?"
I met her gaze. "Only if you wanted me to."
She looked down at the street, the cars, the blur of a life she didn't feel part of. Then she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Empty.
I handed her mine.
She didn't say thank you this time. She didn't need to.
We smoked in silence again.
But that night, she stayed longer.
And when she left, she didn't say goodbye.
She just said, "Tomorrow."
And I believed her.
---
Tomorrow came.
Not in the way you plan it, not clean. It came heavy, dragging its feet like it didn't want to arrive. The sky was a flat, colorless gray, like the world forgot to render itself fully.
I was already on the rooftop when she opened the door.
She had a small cut on her lip. Nothing big. Just enough to make you wonder how it got there. I didn't ask.
She walked over, slower than usual, like gravity had doubled since last night.
"Don't say anything," she said.
So I didn't.
She leaned over the railing, arms folded. Her fingers were bare—no rings, no nails done, no attempt at hiding how chewed up the edges were.
I offered her a cigarette. She shook her head.
"I can't. Not tonight."
"Okay."
She stared out into the city like it was some ancient riddle she was too tired to solve.
Then she said, "Do you think people always know when they're breaking?"
I thought about it. "No. I think sometimes it's quiet. Slow. You don't notice until something important doesn't hurt anymore."
She nodded. "That's the scariest part."
I didn't ask what had stopped hurting.
---
Later, we sat down on the cold cement, backs to the wall. There was no whiskey, no coffee, no small talk.
"I lied," she said.
"About what?"
"I did call someone." Her voice was hoarse. "My sister. Haven't spoken to her in almost five years."
"How'd it go?"
"She didn't recognize my voice. Thought I was a telemarketer. I almost hung up."
"But you didn't."
"No. I said her name, and something in me cracked."
Silence.
"She just listened. I didn't say much. Just that I didn't know what I was doing. That everything felt like a rehearsal for something that never comes."
I looked over at her. "And what'd she say?"
Rei shrugged. "She cried. Told me to come home. I told her I don't know where that is anymore."
I didn't have anything smart to say to that.
So I just said, "You can sit here as long as you want."
She smiled. Not the kind from before—the hollow one. This one looked like it cost her something.
"Thanks, Kaito."
---
We stayed until the sky lightened. No stars. Just the thin suggestion of morning. The rooftop felt less like an escape and more like a place to land softly.
She left first this time. No dramatic exit. Just a quiet promise in the way she closed the door behind her—careful, like not waking someone.
I sat there after she was gone.
Lit a cigarette.
Let it burn between my fingers.
Some nights don't end.
They just bleed into the next.
---
Three days passed.
She didn't come up.
I still did. Same time. Same spot. Same waiting silence. I wasn't worried—not the way you worry about a friend who's late. We weren't built like that. Our tether was made of smoke and stillness, not obligation.
But still—I noticed her absence like a missing line in a song I didn't know I'd memorized.
On the fourth night, I found a folded piece of paper tucked into the corner of the rooftop bench.
No name on it.
Just one sentence:
"If I don't show up again, don't make it mean more than it does."
I didn't know if she left it for me.
But I read it like she had.
---
That night, I smoked alone.
Tokyo was loud below. A siren screamed itself hoarse in the distance, fading into nothing. I tried to picture Rei's apartment—what it looked like when she was inside it, whether it felt like a place or just a box that held her body while her mind wandered.
My cigarette burned too fast. I didn't light another.
Instead, I whispered into the wind, "Okay."
Not to her. Not really.
To the version of her that lived only on this rooftop.
To the silence that sometimes needed no translation.
---
She came back on a Monday.
Not late, not early. Just there—like time had folded neatly into place again.
No cigarettes. No thermos. Just Rei, wearing a clean coat and that unreadable expression like she'd pressed grief under glass for now.
"You okay?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.
She didn't pretend. "No. But I can stand."
Sometimes that's all a person can do.
---
We didn't talk for a while. She just stood next to me, arms crossed tight across her chest like she was holding herself together by force.
Then: "Do you think it's selfish to need someone?"
I looked over at her. She wasn't looking at me. Just the horizon again—where the sun had slipped and left behind a smear of blue and purple.
"No," I said. "I think it's human."
Her voice dropped. "Then why does it feel like a flaw?"
I didn't answer. Not because I didn't have words, but because I knew they wouldn't help.
Some questions aren't meant to be solved.
Just shared.
---
She sat down beside me, her body angled slightly away like she couldn't quite trust her own proximity.
"I saw my sister again," she murmured. "In person, this time."
I waited.
"She hugged me." A pause. "I didn't know how to respond. I just stood there."
"That's okay," I said.
She shook her head, not disagreeing, just... unraveling.
"She said I looked tired. I told her I've been tired since I was thirteen."
Neither of us laughed.
"She didn't ask why," Rei said. "I think that's what made me cry."
I turned to her then, and for the first time, she let her head rest lightly on my shoulder.
It wasn't romantic.
It wasn't anything with a name.
It was the weight of someone who'd been holding too much for too long finally letting a little of it go.
I didn't move.
Didn't breathe too loudly.
Just stayed still and real and here.
---
She didn't say anything for a long time after that.
Just stayed there, head resting against my shoulder, as if breaking contact might break something else, too. I didn't press. I didn't ask questions. Rei wasn't made for interrogations. She was built out of ellipses and empty spaces. If she spoke, it was because the silence had grown too sharp to carry alone.
Eventually, she said, "You know what I hate most?"
I waited.
"When people say, 'You're so strong.' Like it's a compliment."
She pulled back just enough to sit upright again, brushing her hair behind her ear, then looking out into the wind like she was daring it to disagree.
"It's not strength," she said. "It's exhaustion. Endurance looks noble from the outside, but inside, it's just… survival."
I understood. I really understood.
"They say that because they don't know what else to say," I offered.
"I'd rather they say nothing," Rei muttered.
I nodded. "Silence is honest."
She smiled faintly. "Then I guess you're the most honest person I know."
---
That night, I walked her down.
Not because she asked. Just because the air felt heavier than usual, and I didn't want it settling on her shoulders alone.
We didn't speak in the elevator. She stood with her hands in her coat pockets, eyes fixed on the digital floor numbers blinking above. I noticed the small tremor in her fingers again. Like something inside her was always one step from shattering.
At the lobby, she paused before stepping out.
"I don't do goodbyes," she said softly.
"This isn't one," I replied.
She didn't thank me. She didn't smile. But she looked at me like I was a mirror that hadn't lied to her. And in her world, that was rare.
---
The next evening, she was already on the rooftop when I got there.
Two cups. No thermos.
"You brought coffee?" I asked.
"Chamomile tea," she corrected. "Trying something new. Less existential crisis, more... surrender."
I accepted the paper cup without question. It was still warm.
"Any good?" she asked as I took a sip.
"Tastes like regret," I deadpanned.
She laughed. Not cracked or bitter this time. A real one. Quiet. Surprised.
We sat.
No smoking tonight. Just tea and the hush between buildings. A softer kind of silence.
"I didn't think I'd come back," she admitted.
"But you did," I said.
"Yeah." She looked up at the stars. "I think I missed the quiet."
Not me. Not us.
Just the quiet.
But I could live with that.
---
Later, as we stood to leave, she said, "You know, Kaito... if I disappear again—don't wait."
I looked at her. "I don't wait. I show up."
She met my eyes, something fragile and searching in her expression.
"That's worse," she whispered.
---
A few nights later, she brought a radio.
An old, battered thing—paint chipped at the edges, the antenna slightly bent. She set it between us on the rooftop ledge and twisted the dial until it landed on some low-frequency jazz station. The saxophone spilled out, soft and imperfect, like someone confessing through brass.
"No Bluetooth?" I asked.
She shrugged. "This feels more honest."
We listened. Didn't talk. The music did it for us—melancholy without being melodramatic, nostalgic without pointing to anything specific. Like how memories feel when they're not yours but they could've been.
She finally broke the silence.
"My mom used to play this when she cleaned the house. Always Sunday afternoons. Always barefoot, windows open, like she needed the wind to remind her she was still here."
"You were close?"
She thought for a long time. "No. But I wanted to be."
There it was again—that quiet ache in her voice. Not sharp. Just deep. Like something too old to be treated.
"I think she was afraid of loving anything too much," Rei continued. "As if caring made you weak. I used to think she was cold. Now I think... maybe she was just scared all the time."
"What about your father?"
A beat passed. Then: "He never noticed anything unless it was broken."
We didn't say much after that. Just let the saxophone speak.
---
The next night, the radio was gone.
"I dropped it," she said when I asked.
I didn't believe her, but I didn't push it.
Instead, we watched the city flicker and glitch below us, like it was buffering. Caught between versions of itself.
"Do you think people get better?" Rei asked, suddenly.
The question startled me—not because of its weight, but because of the way she asked it. Like she wanted to believe the answer, but didn't trust herself to.
"I think some people learn how to carry their weight better," I said. "That's not the same as healing. But maybe it's close enough."
She nodded, slow.
"I want to believe that," she said. "I do."
"But?"
"But I'm tired of hoping. It costs too much."
There was nothing I could say to that. So I didn't.
Some silences are meant to be held, not filled.
---
Later, as we smoked our last cigarette of the night, Rei said, "Do you think we're friends?"
I looked at her. "Does it matter?"
"It might."
"Why?"
"Because if we're not... then I don't have to explain why I feel safer here than anywhere else."
I hesitated. Then said, "We're something. Maybe not friends. Maybe not strangers."
She exhaled smoke like it was a confession. "Something sounds okay."
And it was. For now.
---
Two nights later, she didn't smoke.
She came up, hands in the pockets of a faded hoodie, hair damp like she'd just washed away something she didn't want to explain.
"I quit," she said, leaning against the railing.
"Cigarettes?"
She nodded. "Or at least, I'm pretending to."
I didn't ask why. I just lit mine, held it out. She stared at the flame like it was a test, then shook her head.
"I want to miss it," she said. "I want to feel what I gave up."
I took a drag and nodded, like I understood. I think I did.
Some nights aren't about what you do—they're about what you choose not to.
We stood there in the wind, her empty hands twitching at her sides. The city hummed below. Neither of us spoke for a long time. I thought she might leave early.
But she stayed.
Eventually, she said, "I used to fantasize about disappearing. Just packing a bag and going. New name. New city. No one knowing who I used to be."
"What stopped you?"
"I didn't have anyone to miss me. Which made staying easier. And sadder."
I didn't know what to say. So I told her the truth.
"I tried. Once. Booked a flight. Didn't show up."
"Where to?"
"Osaka. That's not the point. The point was that I couldn't even commit to leaving."
She tilted her head, studying me. "Maybe staying is braver."
"Or lazier."
"Or both."
We laughed, that brittle laugh again—the kind that knows sorrow like a second skin.
---
Later that week, I found a note taped to the lighter she always borrowed.
It just said:
"In case I disappear for real. Don't wait too long. – R"
There was no date. No explanation. Just those twelve words.
I kept the note in my wallet. Didn't know what to do with it. Didn't even know if it was a warning or a goodbye.
But I still came up every night after work.
She didn't.
Three days passed. Four.
Then, on the fifth night, I saw a thermos on the ledge.
No Rei. Just the thermos.
Steam still rising from the lid.
She'd been here.
I picked it up. Sniffed.
Whiskey. Of course.
But taped to the bottom this time was a smaller note, folded twice.
"Not ready to go. But not ready to stay either. Floating. Thanks for being the middle."
No signature this time. Just the ghost of her handwriting.
---
The next night, she came back.
Didn't explain. Didn't need to.
We didn't speak. We didn't smoke.
We just stood there, floating together, waiting for gravity to decide what it wanted from us.
And that was enough.
---
One night, Rei showed up looking like she'd been dragged through a storm and forgotten.
Her eyes were red-rimmed, swollen in that way that no amount of sleep or tears can fix. Her breath came fast, shallow—like she'd been running from something or to something and didn't know which.
She didn't say hello. Didn't ask how I was. She just dropped onto the cold rooftop floor and curled into herself, knees to chest, arms wrapped tight like armor.
I sat beside her, careful not to touch but close enough to hold space.
After what felt like forever, she whispered:
"I broke today."
That simple sentence shattered the night.
"Everything," she said. "Work. My head. My heart. The way I pretend I'm fine until I'm not. Until I'm just... broken."
I reached out, my hand hovering over hers, but she flinched away, like pain was contagious.
"Do you want help?" I asked.
She laughed—a brittle, humorless sound that cracked the silence.
"No. Help is for people who think they can be fixed. I'm not broken like a vase you glue back together. I'm shattered. Into pieces no one wants to touch."
Her voice broke. I could feel it in the way she trembled.
"I'm tired, Kaito. So tired I don't care if I stop trying."
For a long moment, I didn't say anything.
Then I said what I felt but didn't know how to mean:
"You're not alone."
She looked up. Really looked. Like seeing me for the first time.
"Not even here," she said. "Not even now."
The night was heavy around us, the city's distant hum fading into the background.
I lit a cigarette and held it out. She took it, fingers shaking, and lit it with hands that finally betrayed her quiet strength.
We smoked in silence—two broken things caught in the same net of desperation.
And for once, being broken didn't feel like something to hide.
---
After that night, Rei started slipping faster.
She showed up later and later, sometimes not at all.
When she did come, the cigarette trembled in her fingers, her eyes darting like they were chasing ghosts no one else could see.
One night, she sat on the rooftop steps, staring at the city as if it held the answer to a question she'd lost.
"I can't sleep," she said. "Not from exhaustion—the kind where your brain refuses to stop. It's like it's tearing itself apart."
I didn't know how to help. So I just listened.
She pulled out the prescription bottle again, shaking it in her palm like it was a lifeline and a noose all at once.
"I took too many once," she admitted quietly. "Didn't work. Just made the silence louder."
Her voice cracked, and suddenly the tough armor cracked with it.
"I'm scared of what's inside me," she whispered. "The parts I don't want to meet."
I reached out, careful this time. My hand brushed hers—a silent promise.
"You don't have to meet them alone," I said.
For a moment, the storm behind her eyes softened.
But then she pushed away, standing abruptly.
"I don't want your pity," she said, voice low but fierce.
"I'm not pitying you," I said. "I'm here. That's all."
She didn't respond. Instead, she turned and disappeared into the night like smoke.
I stayed on the rooftop long after, cigarette burning down to ash, wondering if sometimes being present was all you could do for someone falling apart.
---
The nights grew colder. The wind sharper, like it was trying to cut through the silence between us.
Rei stopped bringing the whiskey. Stopped tapping her fingers on her thigh.
She still came, but something was different.
Less defiance. More surrender.
One evening, she leaned on the railing longer than usual, eyes tracing the horizon as if memorizing the line where sky met city.
"I'm tired of carrying it all," she said softly.
I didn't know if she meant the weight in her chest, the ghosts in her mind, or the cigarettes she'd left untouched in the ashtray.
"I want out," she whispered. "Not just the smoke. Everything."
I wanted to ask what "everything" meant. But some things aren't meant to be named.
Instead, I just nodded and passed her the lighter.
She shook her head.
"Not tonight."
Her silence said more than words ever could.
---
Days turned into a week, then two.
She came less and less.
When she did, her presence was fragile, like glass balanced on a thread.
She talked less, smiled less, and looked more like a shadow chasing a fading sun.
One night, she said, "Maybe quitting isn't about stopping. Maybe it's about letting go."
I asked, "Letting go of what?"
She didn't answer.
---
Then, the night before she disappeared for good, she stood at the rooftop door longer than usual.
Her fingers brushed the metal handle like she was deciding whether to open it or walk away.
She didn't look at me. Didn't say a word.
She just stepped out, lit a cigarette, and let the smoke curl around her like a farewell.
When she exhaled, her eyes were distant, haunted — like she was saying goodbye to more than just the rooftop.
"I'm quitting," she said, voice barely louder than the wind.
And I knew, even then, that quitting was a word too small for what she meant.
---
Then the last time — the one you wrote — where she smiled, soft and strange.
The ambiguity hung between us like smoke in the air, impossible to catch, impossible to clear.
---
The last time I saw her, she was smiling.
Not the tired half-smile from before. Something softer. Something almost peaceful.
She didn't have a cigarette. Didn't reach for the whiskey. Just leaned against the railing and watched the sun dip below the skyline.
"I'm quitting," she said.
I didn't ask what she meant. Job. Smoking. Life. It didn't matter.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." She tilted her head back, eyes closed. "Turns out, you can only stand at the edge for so long before you have to decide."
I nodded. "Which way?"
She opened her eyes. Looked at me. Really looked. Then down the roof.
"Forward." she said.
And for the first time, I believed her.
---
She never came back to the rooftop. Nor the company. Later on i found out she resigned without a clear reason. But i know. Oh i know.
I still go up there sometimes. Light two cigarettes instead of one. Watch the sky bruise itself into night.
I like to think she's somewhere else now. Somewhere nicer. Somewhere the air doesn't taste like ash.
Or maybe she just found a different edge to stand on.
Either way—
I hope she kept walking.