Chapter 14 – Words We Haven't Said
Summer's heat had settled into the rhythm of the days.
Cicadas hummed in the background of every afternoon. Sunlight scattered through the leaves in flickering patterns, and the hours moved slowly, like long paragraphs stretched across wide pages.
Akira had developed a habit of writing outside.
Not in the café, or his bedroom, but beneath the maple tree behind the library. The shade was gentle, and sometimes the breeze sounded like a page turning.
---
He wasn't alone for long.
One morning, a girl from his class—Reina Okabe—wandered over, holding a sketchpad.
"Are you writing another chapter?" she asked.
Akira looked up, surprised. "Yeah. How did you know?"
She smiled shyly. "I've been sitting near the library steps lately. I keep hearing your pen. It's kind of... steady. Like it's thinking."
He blinked. "That's a strange compliment."
"But a good one," she said, then added, "May I draw while you write?"
Akira nodded.
They sat in quiet companionship. Neither said much. But when they packed up to leave, Reina paused.
"You look like someone who writes letters you never send."
He stared at her.
She simply smiled and walked away.
---
That night, Akira wrote to Airi:
> "A girl said I look like I write letters I never send.
*She's wrong.
*I always send them.
They just take a little longer to arrive."
Airi replied:
> "Then I'll wait forever, if I have to."
---
Their novel neared its final act.
They had written 24 chapters together. Two characters, lost in dreams, tracing one another through endless cities, memories, and half-remembered songs.
Now the ending waited.
But neither of them wanted to write it yet.
So they decided on something different:
They would write a letter to each other from the perspective of the characters in their story.
A fictional goodbye, told in their own words.
---
Akira went first.
> To the one I found in every dream,
I think I stopped searching the moment you appeared.
You were always there, waiting in the places I hadn't dared to look.
Now that I've found you, I don't want to wake up.
But if I must—if the story must end—then let me carry the memory of you into every day after.
And if we meet again, don't say a word.
Just hand me the book, and I'll know.
– The boy in chapter one
---
Airi responded a day later.
> To the one I followed through every shadow,
You never said your name, but I gave you one.
I called you "Tomorrow."
Because no matter how many times I lost you, you were always waiting in the next chapter.
I'll keep writing until I reach the page where you stay.
And if that day never comes, know this:
You made me brave enough to write without fear.
– The girl who remembers
---
Akira cried when he read it.
Not loudly.
Not all at once.
But slowly, like ink bleeding through thin paper.
---
Later that night, he opened the original journal—the one they had passed back and forth before the move.
He reread their earliest pages.
They were rough, raw, full of nervous handwriting and uncertain metaphors. But they held something sacred.
He paused on one page where Airi had drawn two stick figures holding a book.
Underneath, she wrote:
> "If our hands can't reach each other, maybe our stories can."
---
The next day, Akira went to the post office and mailed her a package.
Inside: a printed copy of Dream Frequency—chapters 1 to 24, fully formatted, with hand-drawn chapter titles.
He added a note on the last page:
> "You said we'd meet at the end.
But maybe the real ending is knowing the story never needed one."
---
Airi sent him a photograph of her holding the manuscript to her chest.
Her smile in the picture was quiet. Full.
> Caption:
"This feels like breathing again."
---
They didn't write for a week after that.
Not out of silence, but because the words had settled. They'd said what needed to be said.
And now, the space between them felt less like distance and more like trust.
---
One evening, Akira received a voice message.
It was Airi, whispering softly:
> "I'm sitting outside. The stars are out. I think you'd like the way the moon looks tonight. It's not full, but it's trying."
"That's how I feel. Not full. But trying."
"I want to say something, but I'm afraid it will change things."
"But maybe it's okay if things change."
Pause.
"I love you, Akira. I've loved you since the third poem you wrote."
---
He listened to it once.
Then again.
Then sat in the dark, watching his phone, as if it might say more.
It didn't.
So he whispered aloud, to no one:
"I love you too."
Then wrote it on the first page of the green journal:
> "I love you, Airi.
And I always will."
---
The next morning, he mailed her a simple letter.
No decorations.
No poetry.
Just one sentence:
> "Thank you for waiting until I was ready to say it back."
---
She didn't reply in words.
She replied with a video call request.
He answered.
Her face appeared.
No makeup, just sunrise in her hair.
They didn't say much.
But the silence was no longer heavy.
It was full.
Shared.
Like two bookmarks placed on the same page of different books.
---
Later that week, Akira began writing something new.
A story about a boy and a girl who meet again—not in dreams, but in real life, five years after they parted.
They're older. A little worn by time.
But the moment they speak, it feels like no time has passed at all.
He titled it:
> "The Words We Haven't Said"
And underneath:
> "Dedicated to the one who helped me say them."
---