Until then, it had been just another Thursday afternoon. Outside, the sky had faded into a dull gray that promised no rain, yet offered no relief either. Aiko sat with her math book open on her lap, though she wasn't truly reading. Her eyes lingered on the cup of tea, long since gone cold, then on her phone—silent for hours—while inside she felt that persistent emptiness pressing between her shoulder blades and ribs like a weight she could still bear.
Then suddenly, a message arrived.
Yuji: I saw a giant tanuki today outside the supermarket. It reminded me of that ridiculous movie we went to see on our first date. I don't know why, but it hurt. Maybe I just really miss laughing with you.
Aiko remained still, without saying a word.
Her fingers hovered in midair. Her eyes fixed on those words. For her, this wasn't just any message. It wasn't even an apology.
It was true nostalgia. It was a lump in the throat written with just a few words and a period.
But she didn't reply right away.
She read it. She reread it, over and over again. For a moment, she felt faint. But the feeling she had wasn't anger. It was… almost relief.
Because Yuji wasn't telling her "let's go back to how we were."
He was telling her: "I'm still here."
And for her, that was more than enough.
An hour went by. Then two. At last, Aiko made up her mind.
Aiko: I really miss laughing with you too. But I don't know where to start again.
Yuji didn't reply at once, but the read receipt appeared twenty seconds later.
Then, late in the evening, another message arrived.
Yuji: You start again from what never really ended.
Aiko closed her eyes. She smiled without meaning to.
In the days that followed, the messages grew more frequent. No one spoke about the "before the cinema," no one brought up the situation, or Sukuna, or that night at the cinema.
But between the lines, everything was still there.
Yuji: Have you ever thought that tanuki could rule the world, if they only wanted to?
Aiko: Yes, and they'd probably do a better job than us.
Yuji: So are you more of a rebellious tanuki, or a diplomatic one?
Aiko: Rebellious—with excellent manners.
Virtual laughter for both of them. A few lines, every day. Then a short voice message. Then another.
Like an elastic band stretching and loosening, each time a little more.
Until that Saturday afternoon.
Aiko had left school late, grabbed an onigiri on the go, and was walking under the sun that made the shop windows in Shibuya sparkle. She was wearing a short red dress that reached mid-thigh, her hair tied back in a messy braid and earphones in her ears. She was listening to a song that spoke of inner emptiness, of pauses that turn into promises.
It was there, at the corner between two side streets, that she saw him.
Yuji.
He had a small bottle of water in his hand, a dark sweatshirt tied around his waist, a white T-shirt rolled up at the sleeves, and a half-open backpack. He was looking at his phone as he walked, absent-minded, as if searching for something he couldn't quite bring into focus.
When he lifted his eyes and saw her, he stopped abruptly.
For a second, they both stood still.
Then she moved closer, slowly.
Neither of them spoke right away.
Only the sounds around them could be heard: footsteps, laughter, bicycles rushing past, the wind stirring the fabric of the curtains hanging from the stalls.
"Hey," he said. His voice was low, calm.
"Hey," Aiko replied. And her smile was small—but real.
"Were you on your way somewhere?" Yuji asked, running a hand through his hair—a familiar gesture she knew well.
"Just home. I wanted to stop by Book-Off, maybe look for some silly novel to distract me from the world."
Yuji nodded. He took half a step toward her. "Mind if I come along? We don't have to talk about anything important. I promise."
Aiko hesitated. Then: "Only if you let me pick the trashiest book, and we read it out loud like two idiots."
Yuji smiled. It was the same smile as before—only more tired, more real. "Deal."
They started walking side by side. Their hands didn't touch. But the air between them… trembled, caught somewhere between embarrassment and guilt.
They arrived, and the bookstore was steeped in a wonderful stillness—made of shelves stretching up to the ceiling, the smell of old paper that Aiko loved so much, and the hum of the air conditioners that sounded like a whisper. The neon light above the "Weird Literature & Absurd Fantasy" section flickered as if it were laughing on its own.
Aiko walked with a steady step down the aisles, letting her fingers trail along the spines of the books. Her head tilted to the side so she could more easily read the authors' surnames.
Yuji followed her, listening more than moving. Every so often he pretended to take an interest in a dusty manga, but his eyes always wandered back to find her profile between one shelf and the next.
"This one!" Aiko exclaimed, grabbing a little book with a neon cover. "The Tanuki Who Wanted to Be a Wizard… I swear it's fate!"
"It's perfect," he said. "Looks like it was written by someone on way too much jam."
They found a free corner with two beanbags—squashed, but still comfortable—under a flamingo-shaped lamp. They sat there, so close their knees nearly brushed.
Aiko's voice, as she read aloud the misadventures of the apprentice wizard tanuki, was light, full of irony, and every so often it was interrupted by muffled laughter or by Yuji snatching the book away to read in an overly dramatic tone.
They laughed. Without pretense or malice. As if those weeks of silence had been nothing more than a bad dream fading away.
Aiko closed the book halfway through the chapter. "Enough, really. This tanuki just cast a spell to turn a mochi into the perfect boyfriend. I refuse to go on!"
Yuji chuckled. "It only works if the mochi has a soft heart."
She glanced at him from the side. "What do you think? Do you have one—a soft heart?"
He grew serious for a moment. "I don't know. But ever since I met you… I find myself asking that question more often."
A second of silence. Then Aiko smiled—but it was one of those smiles filled with something that burns slowly inside. "Then maybe you're just a mochi… a damn complicated one."
Yuji looked at her. "And you're the person who makes me want to be better. Even when I'm a mess."
Aiko's fingers brushed the edge of the book. They still didn't touch. They didn't need to.
Outside, the afternoon light was slowly fading, painting the shop window in warm, almost melancholic shades. And there they were again, sitting close together, sharing pages, pauses, silly jokes. But this time, there was something else too: the kind of full silence that only two people who had missed each other knew how to inhabit.
***
After a month…
SUKUNA'S POV.
One month. How much quieter the world becomes when two insects stop chasing after each other.
The brat has stopped showing up; the waitress no longer sets the plate before him as if it were a talisman. Silence is useful: it purges, and reveals the bare measure of things.
She, without him, does not collapse: she shifts her rhythm, lengthens her shifts, shortens her words; her eyes count hours, not dreams. No complaints. A good sign: the easy levers are not enough. Not naïve, not heroic. Efficient. I prefer the pieces that don't break at the first blow: it leaves me free to decide where to wear them down.
Him without her? Tsk. The vessel does not learn. He pretends not to notice the void and fills it with labor and promises. He believes movement can frighten the abyss. Pathetic. But this too is useful: haste opens fissures; through them I flow—especially I.
In this month I have kept record. No blush, steady pulse, straight step when he thinks of her but does not seek her out. Every third day he stumbles on a sign—a scent, an hour, a syllable—and his breath falters by half a beat. Half a beat is leverage; line up a few, and a dam gives way.
The waitress does not squander tears. She drafts lists, severs the superfluous, preserves fire. If she chooses to return, she will return cold. And cold cuts; I prefer it to the despair that stains. But cold can splinter; the crack—I name it.
"If I were him…"—and there is no envy in this—"I would make absence into a chain: ten minutes of measured return, then emptiness again, until your rhythms become mine. What lives is tamed by time, not by caresses."
I do not care for their love, nor for their little tale. I care for time: how much of it they possess, how they spend it, where they let it seep away. 'Love' is the name humans give to a lever. I do not hide: I measure, I cut, I reassemble, I repeat.
This month tells me that she is useful whole, and useless if broken at random. Strike the wrong point and she stiffens and resists; brush the right one—not with hands, but with events—and she moves on her own. The brat calls it courage; I call it directed inertia.
As for her…
The step that does not falter, the scent of broth and salt, the bare neck under the light: they do not sate me, they instruct me. It annoys me that she does not tremble; it draws me in because she does not yield. A prey that knows the forest. Better this way: the cut will be clean.
When they meet again, they will make noise. Humans, when they start over, are loud. I will be there: not to bless the encounter, but to count the seconds, to catch where the breath falters and the eye trembles. I will record it. And when their rhythms fall out of sync again—as they always do—I will use that slip. A single instant is enough to bring down a giant.
A month without seeing each other is no tragedy: it is a workshop. In a workshop, there is no love. One observes, one chooses the blade, one fixes the hour.
.....
That day, the side door of the Red Sunset slammed once and stayed ajar: inside, steam fogged the windowpanes and even the mirrors, while voices rose and fell like waves on a restless sea.
Aiko's father was testing the new knife—tok, tok, tok—a round, steady sound, as always, on the cutting board. Her mother was rinsing lettuce in a steel basin and preparing squid-ink sauce, humming a crooked verse of a song. Kazuma wore a cat-print bandana tied too tightly across his forehead and was counting chopsticks along with forks with religious focus. Every ten, he lost count.
"Eight, nine, ten… thirteen?" He stopped, sighing dramatically. "Karma hates me."
"Count in silence," his mother said without looking up.
Aiko dried her hands on her apron, then wet them again: she had to step out for a moment to grab a crate of onions from the shop next door to prepare the soffritto mix. She picked up the plastic crate, the dry skins rustling against her wrists. The service corridor was a little bare, but it smelled faintly of basil.
As soon as she stepped outside, her phone buzzed in her back pocket. With damp fingers, she unlocked it clumsily; a drop slid across the screen and warped the letters for a moment.
Yuji — 10:18: Hi Aiko… If it's okay with you, I'd like to see you in person today. You decide where and when. If you'd rather not, I'll understand and… I won't write again. (I'll try stopping by the restaurant, okay?)
Aiko froze between the doorway and the sidewalk, the weight of the crate pressing against her hip, her heart giving just one harder beat before steadying again. She wasn't surprised; it was as if she had been waiting for that sound for a long time, without ever admitting it.
She lifted her eyes to the clear sky, inhaled, and half-closed them before typing with quick, steady fingers:
Aiko — 10:20: Behind the restaurant. In an hour. Fifteen minutes. We talk once and for all.
She slipped the phone back into her pocket, adjusted the crate against her hip, and went back inside. Kazuma watched her pass as if he had just seen an omen.
"How many tears are there in three onions?" he asked.
"The right amount," Aiko replied with a half-smile. Then she returned to the counter, the invisible timer already ticking in her head: sixty minutes to finish pre-service and measure her breath. After that, she would use small, straight words—once and for all.