It was sitting on the kitchen counter when she got home.
A plain envelope. No return address. Just her name — Aika Misora, handwritten in cursive she hadn't seen in over a year.
She knew immediately.
Her fingers didn't shake, but her breath did.
"Someone mailed it again," Sora said from the hallway, voice light like she was talking about a delivery menu. "I think it's the same one. The one you didn't open."
Aika didn't answer. Just stared at the envelope like it might catch fire.
She picked it up. Held it. Didn't open it.
---
She took it to her room, not because she wanted to read it, but because she couldn't look at it and not think about it. She set it on her desk. Opened her window. Sat on the edge of her bed like she might suddenly float off it.
Rain had dried off the streets. The world outside was shining, but not sunny. Just… rinsed.
Clean, in the way heartbreak never really is.
---
The letter sat untouched for two days.
Aika ignored it like it was a stranger asking for something she didn't owe anymore. But every time she glanced at her desk, it was still there. Still waiting. Still calling something in her she didn't have a name for.
By the third night, she couldn't sleep.
She slipped her shoes on, grabbed her sweater, and stepped out into the chill. The streets were quiet. Not silent. Just still. Like the city was breathing carefully.
She didn't know where she was going until she was already there.
The bell above the door to Miharu's Flowers jingled softly as she pushed it open. The lights were off. It was well past closing. But the scent of chamomile and rosewater still hung thick in the air, like comfort.
And he was there.
Ren sat on the floor behind the counter, headphones in, sketchbook resting on one knee, a blanket tossed across his shoulders like he hadn't planned to stay but never left.
He looked up as she entered.
Didn't speak.
Didn't need to.
Aika just stood in the doorway.
Then her shoulders started to shake.
Not violently. Not dramatically. Just gently — the way a leaf trembles before it lets go.
Ren set his pencil down and stood. Walked over. Reached for her without hesitation.
And pulled her in.
He didn't ask what happened. He didn't press her for answers. He just held her — like he'd been waiting to.
Her fingers curled into the fabric of his sweater.
She buried her face into his chest and breathed in the scent of paper and petals and something she could never quite name.
After a long time — or maybe no time at all — she whispered, "She wrote to me again."
Ren's hand moved gently across her back. "Did you read it?"
She shook her head.
"I want to. I don't want to. I think... I'm afraid that if she says she's sorry, I'll believe her. And if she doesn't, I'll break."
Ren rested his chin lightly against her hair. "You're allowed to feel both."
The lights buzzed faintly above them.
"I keep pretending I'm okay with it," she whispered. "Like it was her choice, and I've accepted it. But I didn't. I hate her for it. And I miss her. I shouldn't… but I do."
Ren's hand stilled.
"I don't think you stop loving someone just because they hurt you," he said.
And that was the first time she realized how deeply he understood it. Not just her. Everything.
He didn't pity her.
He recognized her.
---
They stayed like that for a while — no clock ticking loud, no world intruding. Just two kids holding each other through the aftermath of a letter unopened.
---
Later, when she returned home, she placed the envelope back in her drawer — not because she was ready, but because she didn't have to be yet.
Not alone.
---
In her journal, she wrote:
> I broke a little today.
But he didn't flinch.
He just stayed.
And maybe that's what I've been needing all along.
Not someone who fixes me.
Just someone who doesn't leave when the cracks show.