Chapter 16 – Where the Light Falls
The first time Akira saw the anthology in print, he didn't touch it right away.
It sat on his desk for almost an hour, wrapped in a plain brown envelope, the return address typed neatly in black. The title was stamped across the front of the book in silver letters:
> "Voices of Youth: Fiction from Tomorrow's Writers"
Inside, tucked between stories from students across the region, was their name.
Akira Hayashi & Airi Nakamura
"Dream Frequency" – excerpt from a novel-in-progress
He stared at the page as if it might disappear.
---
He didn't cry.
He didn't laugh.
He just sat quietly, letting the weight of the moment press gently into his chest like a bookmark slipped between pages.
Then, slowly, he opened his green journal and wrote:
> "We're part of the world now."
---
Airi received her copy two days later.
She sent Akira a photo of it lying next to a small ceramic fox on her shelf, captioned:
> "I put us next to something that always watches over me."
Then followed it with a message:
> "They're reading our words, Akira. Right now, someone out there is holding the same page we held together."
He stared at the screen for a long time.
Then whispered aloud, to no one: "I hope they feel it."
---
Their calls became softer.
Not because anything was wrong.
But because there was a shift.
An awareness that time was moving.
That autumn was near.
That soon, applications would be submitted, exams taken, futures selected.
Akira stood one evening by the window, the wind sliding in through the small cracks in the frame. He thought about how much had changed—and how little.
He still wrote every day.
He still missed her.
But now, the missing felt lighter.
Like carrying something you no longer fear dropping.
---
One weekend, Airi called with a question:
"Can I visit?"
Akira almost dropped his pen.
"What?"
"I mean—just for a weekend. I asked my parents. They said if your family's okay with it..."
He didn't let her finish.
"Yes," he said quickly. "I mean—yes. Yes, please."
She laughed, flustered. "Okay, then. It's a maybe-soon."
---
The week passed in a daze.
Akira cleaned his room. Then cleaned it again. Then rearranged the bookshelves in case she noticed how many times he'd re-read their chapters.
The morning of her arrival, he woke before the sun. His hands were trembling and he wasn't sure why.
They weren't strangers.
They had never stopped speaking.
But there was something terrifyingly new about seeing her in three dimensions again—without pixels, without delay, without the safety of the screen.
---
The train station was quiet when she arrived.
Akira stood near the gate, fidgeting with the sleeve of his hoodie.
And then—she was there.
Airi. In a white sweater, her hair longer than he remembered. She carried a tote bag that sagged with books.
They stared at each other.
Then she smiled, wide and real.
"Hi," she said, breathless.
"Hi," he replied.
It was the simplest greeting in the world.
But between them, it felt like fireworks.
---
They didn't hug at first.
Instead, they walked.
Through the narrow streets that still smelled like pine and newspaper ink.
Through the library steps where they once wrote their first lines.
Through the café where he ordered her drink before she could ask.
Finally, beneath the gingko tree where she had once dreamed of returning, she sat and looked at him.
"You look taller," she said.
"You look more like your words," he replied.
They laughed.
And finally—hugged.
---
It was brief.
But everything they needed.
---
That evening, they sat in his room, the anthology open between them.
"Do you ever think about how weird it is?" Airi asked.
"What?"
"That this," she said, tapping the page, "came from a single sentence on a blank screen."
Akira nodded slowly. "From: 'Can I share a story with you?'"
She smiled. "And now it's ours."
He looked at her.
"No," he said. "Now it's theirs too."
---
They spent the weekend walking, talking, writing small scenes in their journals, and rereading the older ones like postcards from younger selves.
But there was something unspoken between them.
A slight tension.
A pause at the edge of something deeper.
It wasn't bad.
It was just... real.
---
On the last night, Airi sat beside him in the garden.
The stars shimmered faintly above the quiet roofs.
"Akira," she said softly, "do you think we'll choose the same university?"
He hesitated.
"I don't know," he admitted. "But I think... even if we don't, we'll still write."
She looked down. "But will that be enough?"
He turned to her.
"I don't know what the world looks like in five years. Or ten. But I know this: if I stop writing to you, I'll stop recognizing my own voice."
She blinked. Slowly. Carefully.
"I think I feel the same," she said.
---
Then, she reached into her bag and pulled out a folded envelope.
Inside: a page from their novel.
Chapter 26.
Written by her.
He unfolded it and began to read.
> "They didn't fear the end anymore.
Because they knew even endings could become beginnings—if you left the door open just enough."
He looked up.
Airi was smiling, gently.
"I wrote it on the train," she said.
He whispered, "It's perfect."
---
The next morning, they stood at the station again.
This time, there was no hesitation.
They hugged tightly.
No words.
Just breath.
Just quiet.
Then, as the train pulled in, she looked at him one last time and said:
"I think we're more than a story now."
He smiled.
"We're where the light falls."
And she stepped onto the train.
---
That evening, back in his room, Akira took out the page she'd given him and pinned it beside the green journal.
Then, he opened the journal and began to write again—not for a contest, not for school, but for her.
> "You came back.
And that's all the ending I ever needed."
---