Chapter 13 – Across the Quiet Hours
The days after Airi left felt longer.
Not in a dramatic, hollow sort of way—but in quiet, stretched moments where the clock ticked just a little too loud, and the world seemed to breathe a little slower.
Akira noticed it most at dusk.
That was the time when they usually talked—voice calls held in gentle light, journal pages sent through the camera, poems read aloud with laughter hiding in the pauses.
Now there was only the sound of wind tapping against the window.
---
But she kept her promise.
The first letter came three days after she arrived in her new city. It was handwritten in dark blue ink, neatly folded, tucked into a pressed envelope.
> Dear Akira,
I arrived safely. The new house smells like fresh paint and cardboard boxes. The school is bigger, but somehow quieter. I don't talk much here yet. Maybe I'm waiting for something to say that matters.
I miss the sound of your typing. I miss our journal. I miss everything we didn't have time to name.
I'm leaving the next page for you.
–Airi
Akira read it five times before writing a reply.
---
He didn't just write back.
He crafted his response like a piece of prose—soft and true.
> Airi,
The desk still leans a little to the left. I think it's because you once leaned on it too much when we wrote that dream sequence. I haven't moved the chair since you left.
The river still runs behind the library. The cherry blossoms are fading now, turning green. But I think they remember you.
I do, too.
I wrote a new scene for the novel. I hope you'll like it.
–Akira
---
They kept the letters flowing like that.
Every few days, something would arrive: a page of fiction, a quote, a drawing, a photograph.
Once, Airi sent him a list titled:
"10 Things I Would Say If I Were Beside You"
1. "You'd hate this coffee."
2. "I saw a cloud shaped like a cat today."
3. "The bookstore here smells like yours."
4. "I almost waved at someone who looked like you."
5. "This bench feels too wide alone."
6. "I still wear the necklace."
7. "You still show up in my dreams."
8. "I read our novel before bed."
9. "I'm still writing chapter 17."
10. "I love you, but I'm waiting to say it in person."
---
Akira pinned that page to the wall above his desk.
Next to it, he taped his response:
> "I read that ten times.
Each time, it said something different."
---
They set a new rhythm:
Mondays were for updates on life
Thursdays were for novel drafts
Saturdays were for something spontaneous—no rules
One Saturday, Akira sent her an old photo of the library steps. He captioned it:
> "This is still the safest place I know."
Airi replied with a voice memo:
> "Then let's build a new place too. Even from far away."
---
Their novel Dream Frequency passed 40,000 words.
Their characters were now lost in dreams, trying to wake into each other's world—but always one heartbeat too late.
Akira had written a new chapter where the boy leaves notes in hidden places for the girl to find: under pillows, inside books, carved in tree bark.
Airi replied with a scene where the girl starts dreaming of places she's never been, and realizes they're his memories.
Together, the story became less about dreaming, and more about remembering.
---
Back in Akira's world, graduation was approaching. There were ceremonies, forms, last-minute essays.
He moved through them like mist—present, but slightly apart.
His classmates noticed, but didn't ask.
Only Haruki, his quiet friend from literature club, pulled him aside one day.
"You still write?" he asked.
Akira nodded.
"Still with her?"
"Always."
Haruki smiled. "I think your stories are getting brighter."
Akira blinked. "Really?"
"They used to sound like silence. Now they sound like hope."
---
One afternoon, Akira received a package.
It was from Airi.
Inside: a new journal.
The cover was forest green. The pages unlined.
On the first page, she wrote:
> "This one's for the life we're building next."
Underneath, she added:
> "Not just the story. The actual life."
---
That night, Akira opened the new journal and wrote only one line:
> "Yes."
---
In her next letter, Airi included a question:
> "What do you see when you imagine us five years from now?"
Akira thought about it for days.
Then sent her a page.
> I see us in a city neither of us knows yet.
You're sitting on the floor, editing something you hate.
I'm across from you, writing something I'm not sure about.
There's tea. Music. Silence.
And between all of that—peace.
Because we are exactly where we wanted to be: still writing, still here.
---
In her reply, Airi wrote:
> I don't need a perfect answer.
Just a place where we're writing side by side.
Let's meet there someday.
---
Their communication deepened.
Not in quantity, but in texture.
They shared doubts, anxieties about college, sleepless nights, bad dreams, awkward family dinners, inspiration bursts at 2:00 a.m.
One day, Akira wrote:
> "I don't think I'm afraid of distance anymore."
Airi replied:
> "Distance is just a quiet space we fill with meaning."
---
Summer crept in quietly.
The sun lingered longer each day.
And Akira started seeing something strange in himself:
He was no longer counting how many days since she left.
He was counting how many pages they had left to write.
---
He visited the café again, alone.
Sat at their usual spot.
Ordered her favorite drink.
He opened their manuscript and began working on the new chapter.
The dreamers were now writing their own book inside the dream—trying to record everything before they woke up for the last time.
Akira smiled.
That sounds familiar, he thought.
---
Then he wrote a new ending.
Not the end of the story.
But the end of the fear that it must end.
> They didn't wake up.
They stayed inside the dream—not because they were lost.
But because they had finally found the place where stories could live without needing to finish.
They wrote one word every day.
And with each word, the dream stayed alive.