If I had to measure the passage of time in units other than days, hours, or months, I suppose I would choose words. Or rather, pages. Words are strange things; some linger on the skin like dust particles dancing in a shaft of sunlight, others sink into the bone and rot, but most simply vanish into the ether once printed onto paper.
Three years.
In the world of publishing, three years is an eternity. Enough time to become a veteran, to build a library of bestsellers that fill shelves in every bookstore chain from Ginza to Shimokitazawa. Enough time for readers to grow up, enough time for school uniforms to fade from fashion trends and be replaced by business attire and casual chic.
Enough time for me to wake up every morning and feel as though I am reading a story written by someone else, while my own life is just a faint, flickering echo in the background.
I stared at the cursor blinking on the monitor, rhythmic as a dying heart. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Chapter thirty-eight of Volume Five. Beyond the Moon. It was a masterpiece of plotting, according to the reviews. Complex themes of identity, redemption, and the fragility of memory. My editor called it "my treasure." Readers in the letters section wrote long essays analyzing the protagonist's journey to find what they had lost.
They praised the emotional depth. They marveled at the psychological realism.
But sitting here, with the hum of the air conditioner filling the small soundproof room of my high-rise apartment, I didn't feel anything. Just a vast, yawning ocean of static noise, waiting to be filled.
I rubbed my temples, the tips of my fingers stained permanently dark blue from fountain pen ink and the constant friction of holding a pencil while sketching out dialogue trees.
It started subtly, three months ago, right after the release of Volume Four. A migraine behind the eyes. A name trying to surface like a bubble rising from deep water, only to pop before I could read it.
And then, yesterday, standing in front of the mirror while brushing my teeth.
A photograph lay face-up on my desk, the graduation day shot. Seven faces, five years younger, framed under the falling sakura petals. Kousuke's stoic grin. Sumire's gentle wave. Hiro's chaotic thumbs-up. Kei's mischievous pout. Alicia's bright smile. Yuka's composed, sharp look. My own reflection in the center.
My finger hovered over the glass of the frame. Somehow, I recalled the memory from that day...
Yet, I didn't remember the smell of someone who clung to the back of my jacket when I went to the Enoshima candle...
I tried to recall the voice. I tried to hear a laugh, a greeting, a whisper.
Nothing.
Just a silence heavier than lead, settling into the marrow of my skull.
...
The knock on my door broke the trance ten minutes later. Not the polite, hesitant rap of a delivery driver, but the authoritative, impatient pounding of someone who knew exactly where you were and exactly why you should let them in.
"Open up, Himeya! I know you're staring at the wall again!"
I groaned, pushing myself back from the keyboard. "Come in, Haru-nee."
The sliding door opened with a creak of well-worn wood, revealing my older sister leaning casually against the frame, arms crossed, wearing a hoodie that probably belonged to our father. Her green hair was tied back like a ponytail as usual, likely because she'd been too busy sketching deadlines to bother with a trip to the salon.
She stepped inside, kicking off her shoes and dragging her drawing equipments. "Smells like stale coffee and deadline in here. Again?"
"Just inspiration," I lied, gesturing vaguely toward the laptop.
"I saw your editor posted on Twitter. 'HaruHime-sensei, we have a request.' You look like you'd rather swallow your own tongue than deal with it." She walked over, grabbing a mug from the counter, sniffing it suspiciously before pouring a fresh cup of hot tea into it from a thermos she'd produced out of nowhere.
"Don't worry, it's herbal. Good for stress. Though I suspect you need caffeine more than anything."
She placed the mug in front of my elbow and slumped into the guest chair, crossing her legs. "So? Tell me. What's broken this time?"
"The work," I said automatically.
"No. The work is fine. Your sales are still up. Your ratings on BookStation haven't dropped below S-grade." Haruka leaned forward, her gaze sharpening. "This is about the... gap. The space inside your head."
I froze.
"How did you..."
"It's written all over your face when you write," she said softly. "You stare at the screen like you're waiting for a ghost to type for you. You write scenes of happiness that feel like funeral dirges. You describe colors in black and white. And I'm an artist, Himeya. I know when the shading on a drawing has no soul."
I gripped the handle of the teacup, the warmth seeping into my fingertips but failing to reach my chest. "Do you ever wake up and wonder if you've forgotten a part of yourself? Not a skill. Not a habit. A person."
Haruka went quiet. The hum of the refrigerator was suddenly deafening.
"That happened to me," she said finally, her voice dropping an octave. "When I was in High school. First year serialization..." She trailed off, running a hand through her messy bangs. "I kept getting headaches whenever I looked at old photos. One day I realized I was drawing a character who looked exactly like a person I know well."
"What did you do?"
"Didn't finish the draft for two months," she admitted. "Then I erased it."
"That seems extreme."
"Haha, looking back, it was a blessing."
I looked down at my coffee table. There, partially hidden under a pile of manuscripts, sat the photo from three years ago. The corner was curling up.
"I'm scared, Haru-nee," I whispered, the confession slipping out before I could stop it. "I'm scared that I have forgotten someone that I loved."
Haru-nee saw me and she sat next to me as if she was pretending to look at the screen of my laptop. "So, you're telling your older sister?"
"Haru-nee, I didn't even remember what happened during my second year of high school..."
"I see... did you suffer because of that?" She smiled, a sharp, cynical thing that was uncharacteristic for her usual cheerful persona.
"I hate you sometimes."
"I know." She stood up, stretching her spine until it cracked audibly. "Look. I'm leaving tomorrow, I want to see mom and dad. But before I go, eat your food. And listen. Tomorrow, you won't write Chapter Thirty-Eight."
"Wait—"
"In the middle of it." She pointed a finger at my forehead. "You'll close the laptop. You'll walk to the park near Shinjuku. You'll sit on a bench and close your eyes. If a memory comes, good. If nothing comes, that means it's not yours to carry anymore. Either way, you win."
"But..."
"Trust me, HaruHime-sensei. You can't find a lost star by staring blindly at the sky. Sometimes you have to wait for it to rise."
She grabbed her bag and sauntered toward the door, pausing only to look back over her shoulder.
"Oh. One more thing."
"Yeah?"
"They said the moon will be beautiful tonight."
"Huh?"
Before I could ask further questions, the door slid shut, leaving me alone in the silence once more.
I closed the laptop. The cursor stopped blinking.
I didn't pack a bag. I didn't check the news. I put on my coat, the same one I wore on graduation day. I tucked the photo from the desk into my inner pocket, right against my heartbeat.
Outside, the Tokyo rain was beginning to fall again. The neon lights of the Shibuya scramble reflected in the puddles on the pavement, blurring into streaks of electric red and blue. It felt like the sky was crying.
I walked out into the hall, the key clicking loudly in the lock.
I didn't know if finding the name would bring me closure. I didn't know if knowing would make the emptiness less painful.
But as I descended the stairs, step by step, I made a decision.
The future was no longer a horizon I could never reach. It was a road I was walking, blindfolded but determined, hoping that somewhere in the mist, a hand would guide me.
The automatic doors of my apartment complex slid shut behind me, severing the warm, sterile air of my sanctuary from the damp chill of the evening. The lobby smelled faintly of disinfectant and floor wax—a sterile, manufactured scent that tried desperately to mask the smell of rain drifting in from the open vestibule.
I stepped outside.
The rain had softened to a mist, fine enough to cling to eyelashes without making them heavy, turning the streetlights below into blurred halos of gold and white. Tokyo breathed at night. It didn't sleep; it merely changed rhythm. The roar of expressways became a low-frequency hum beneath the ground, vibrating against the soles of my shoes.
My coat collar was turned up, shielding my neck from the biting breeze that cut through the district. My hand instinctively found the breast pocket of my blazer, fingers curling around the edge of the photograph tucked inside. I could feel the paper texture through the fabric, a phantom sensation, like holding a warm stone against my skin.
Just walk, I told myself. Don't think. Just let your feet choose.
But thoughts were sticky things, like watercolor paint left in the sun. They spread across my vision before I could wipe them away.
I moved away from the commercial hub, letting the chaotic density of Shibuya fade behind me. I walked through back alleys where ramen shops closed their shutters and salarymen leaned against brick walls, smoking cigarettes they didn't really want. Here, the neon signs flickered less reliably. The concrete cracked, revealing patches of moss that dared to grow in the cracks of civilization.
Every corner felt like a question mark.
A convenience store bell chimed—Do-do-don—as someone entered ahead of me. The sound triggered a phantom reflex in my mind. I wanted to ask what flavor of coffee the person next to me liked, or if they knew how many pages I had remaining. But no one was there. Only shadows stretched long under the sodium lamps.
I passed a bicycle rack near a station. A single umbrella lay discarded against a pole, blue and patterned with white flowers.
My boots slowed.
The moon
The image flashed in my mind, sharp and sudden, before dissolving like smoke. The smell of rain-drenched earth returned for a fraction of a second, lingering in the air. I stopped abruptly, gripping the railing until my knuckles whitened.
"Who," I whispered, the word barely audible over the passing taxi. "Who are you?"
The rain picked up again, gentle sheets of silver dropping onto the asphalt. I didn't run. I didn't hide under a canopy. I let the water soak into my hair, my shoulders. Maybe the dampness would wash something clean, or maybe it would only make the stains heavier.
Eventually, the terrain began to rise. The grid of the city opened up, giving way to the slope of a hill. My legs burned with fatigue, but my mind was wide awake, hyper-aware of every shift in the wind direction, every change in the soundscape.
I found it shortly after. A small signpost half-hidden by overgrown shrubbery, Sakuragaoka Park.
It wasn't near Shinjuku. It was a hidden gem, tucked away in a valley where the skyscrapers bowed slightly lower to allow the light of the stars to pierce through. The path was paved with gravel that crunched softly underfoot, leading upwards toward a viewing platform.
I climbed.
With each step, the clutter of the city full of the honking cars, the shouting vendors, the constant digital notifications of a life lived online. Here, above the clouds of smog and neon, the world felt quieter.
And then, suddenly, the path leveled out.
I stood still, my chest heaving slightly, not from exertion, but from the sheer scale of what lay before me.
Tokyo sprawled out below us like a circuit board made of diamonds. Thousands of windows glowed, millions of points of artificial light merging into a vast, shimmering sea of color. Red taillights flowed along the highways like rivers of blood; amber office buildings stood as islands in the dark, the pale glow of the subway tunnels pulsed underground.
It was beautiful. And yet, it was empty.
I walked to the wooden railing, gripping it with both hands. The wood was cool, rough against my palms. I stared into the distance, searching for a horizon that refused to stay still.
"Haru-nee said the moon would be beautiful tonight," I murmured, tilting my head back.
High above, pierced by a thin layer of cloud cover, the moon hung suspended. It wasn't full, not quite, but it was bright enough to cast a soft, ghostly luminescence over the city. It reminded me of the title of my current manuscript.
Beyond the Moon.
Why had I chosen that phrase? Why had I written a story about two strangers finding each other under such a sky, when I couldn't even recall the name of the person standing beside me in the most important memory I possessed?
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. The screen reflected the moonlight, i opened up my lime and I saw the draft text.
[Don't forget that I will always be there for you.] Shin Himeya
a text that I intended to send to someone, but who...?
"Did we meet under the moon too?" I asked the empty air. "Or did we just meet in the classroom, in the library?"
A tear formed in the corner of my eye, hot and salty. I swiped it away angrily. Weak. Even I hated the weakness in it.
I sat down on the wooden bench overlooking the view. It was old, weathered by seasons and time, just like the rest of us. I placed the photo on the bench between us.
The silence here was different from the silence in my apartment. In the apartment, the silence was heavy, suffocating. Here, the silence was spacious. It allowed room for things to exist that weren't there yet.
I remembered something else. A detail from the Kyoto trip during my second year as a member of the literature club.
The Yukata...
Uguisu-senpai and someone were looking at me...
Her laugh was so energetic.
She wore a red yukata.
These fragments floated in the darkness of my mind. Fragile. Delicate. If I grabbed too hard, they would break. If I didn't grab them at all, they would drift away forever.
But standing here, looking at the sprawling metropolis that housed millions of stories, I realized something crucial.
I closed my eyes.
I stopped listening to my brain. I stopped analyzing my memories. Instead, I listened to my chest. The place where the heart beat hardest, where the ache resided.
...
Suddenly, my eyes were flashed by the moonlight.
"Supermoon..."
Quietly I set my gaze upon it. It is beautiful.
"Took you long enough." A voice of a girl can be heard behind me.
I looked behind me and there she was, standing 6 feet away from me. She walked to me and the moonlight who covered the park, covered her too.
A short-red haired girl with a moon-shaped necklace was standing next to me. She walked again until she was stopped by the railing.
I walked and stopped next to her.
"Fate is cruel, right?" She said,
I nodded.
I don't know why, I want to cry but my heart wouldn't let me. Somehow this feeling of mine is not sad but happiness.
"Touka."
She looked at me, "Welcome back, Himeya."
The name floated through the air, suspended in the cold night breeze like a fallen leaf caught in the current of a river. Touka.
It wasn't just sound. It was a key turning in a lock I didn't know existed. My breath hitched, a jagged inhale that threatened to shatter the fragile composure I had built over these three lonely years. My heart, usually a steady rhythm against my ribs, as if trying to punch its way out of my chest to meet hers.
I took a step closer, my boots crunching softly on the gravel. The distance between us seemed to shrink rapidly, the six feet narrowing until there was only space for a whisper.
"Why," I started, my voice cracking before I could even finish the word. I paused, swallowing the lump that had formed in my throat, tasting like salt and old paper. "Why do you look at me like that?"
Touka tilted her head slightly, a small, sad smile touching her lips. The moonlight caught the silver chain around her neck, illuminating the crescent pendant she wore a moon cut from starlight, a gift from my mother. I remembered the shape of it without remembering her face. That paradox alone made my vision blur.
"Because I've been waiting for this moment longer than anyone knows," she said softly. Her voice was raspy, worn down by years of silence, holding the weight of every second we hadn't spent speaking. "And you came."
"I... I don't understand," I whispered, stepping right up beside her at the railing. The city sprawled below us, a sea of lights that suddenly felt dim compared to the brilliance above. "I don't remember anything about you. Not the school, not all about our memories."
"Promises are written in ink," Touka said, looking up at the massive, bloated orb of the moon filling the sky. It hung low and heavy, a supermoon that seemed to press against the atmosphere, demanding to be seen. "But the heart writes in scars."
She turned to face me then. Her eyes were red-rimmed, glistening with unshed tears. Short red hair framed her face, fluttering in the wind, and her hands gripped the wooden railing so tightly her knuckles turned white.
"I remember everything," she said. "Every minute I spent wondering if you'd come back. Every day I watched the stars knowing you might be writing our story somewhere else, just without your own name in it."
My hand trembled as I reached out. For a moment, fear held me back, terrified that if I touched her, she would vanish like mist in the morning sun. But the pull was irresistible. The gravity of her presence was stronger than the laws of physics. I placed my hand over hers on the railing.
Her skin was warm. Real.
"I changed things," I realized. The words tumbled out before I could censor them, the pieces clicking into place like the final chapters of a manuscript finally binding themselves together. "You stayed alive, but I... I paid the price."
"Not just you," Touka corrected, turning her hand over to intertwine her fingers with mine. Her grip was desperate, to hold me. "We both did. You wrote a new future for me, Himeya."
"To save you...," I finished, the realization hitting me with the force of a physical blow. "From the accident at Fujisawa with Masuoka. I didn't just write a sequel. I sacrificed my past to buy your present."
The memory flooded in all at once. Not as images, but as feelings. A decision made in desperation. A trade-off offered to an invisible deity who lived in the margins of reality. One life for another. One memory for one future. I had erased us to pay this memory.
"Haruka..."
"That's why you can't remember me," she whispered, tears finally spilling over, tracking hot paths down her cheeks. "Because part of you is gone to keep the rest of us safe."
"It hurts," I choked out, my knees weakening as the truth settled in my gut. It hurt more than writing a thousand drafts. It hurt more than watching my books sell out. Because it meant I had given away a piece of myself voluntarily, just so she could breathe free air tomorrow. "I hated being empty. But I hate losing you more."
Touka laughed, a sob caught in the middle of it, breaking the beautiful silence of the park. She leaned forward, burying her face in the crook of my shoulder. Her body shook, silent sobs that mirrored the storm inside me.
"I waited three years," she confessed into chest. "I thought maybe you forgot. I thought maybe it was just a dream. But when I saw the headlines... when I read 'Beyond the Moon'..." She pulled back slightly, her eyes searching mine with an intensity that burned. "I knew you were still fighting. Even if you didn't remember how."
We stood there under the weight of the supermoon, two people bound by a love that transcended logic and memory. The city lights blurred behind my lashes as I allowed myself to cry, releasing the years of stagnation, the hollow nights, the ache that had no name.
I wiped her tears with my thumb, the motion instinctive, though my hand didn't remember how to reach her. My heart remembered.
"We're here now," I said, pulling her into an embrace, holding her tighter than I had ever held a single human being. "The blank page is closed."
Touka rested her head on my chest, listening to the frantic heartbeat that had slowed down only for her. "Not entirely," she murmured. "Some stories don't end until they are truly finished."
"The moon witnessed it," I said, looking up at the celestial body that had lit the stage for our tragic comedy. It glowed brighter, casting a silver path across the Tokyo skyline, connecting the distant points of light back to this hillside. "It will always watch over us."
I kiss her.
I have been waiting for this moment... a moment under the big moon, with my loved one.
And as the wind rustled the trees above us, carrying the scent of rain-drenched earth and white lilies, I realized I didn't need to remember the words anymore. The feeling was enough. The ink was fresh. The page was waiting.
Somewhere in the darkness of the city, the cursor blinked, ready to accept new input.