Mid-November,
The first real bite of winter had arrived overnight. The sky was the color of cold steel, and every exhaled breath hung in the air like a small ghost before vanishing. The ginkgo leaves that had blazed gold only a week earlier now lay in sodden, frozen heaps along the sidewalks, crackling underfoot like thin ice.
Haruto stood in his small apartment, the single overhead bulb casting harsh light over the rumpled futon and the faint, lingering traces of perfume and skin still clinging to the sheets. His phone buzzed on the table: an international number. His mother's voice, tinny through the speaker, sounded both apologetic and evasive.
"Someone important is arriving at Haneda tomorrow afternoon. We need you to go to Tokyo and pick them up. Bring them back home for a while."
"Who is it?"
A pause. Static. His father's muffled voice in the background, then his mother again, too bright:
"You'll know when you see them. Just… please do this for us."
