The rain had been falling since dawn.
Not hard, not violent just that steady kind of rain that lingers, whispering against rooftops and glass, as if the sky itself couldn't stop remembering something.
Yuto stood by his window, still in his school uniform, watching the city blur.
The droplets turned the streets into rivers of reflected light not that he could see their color, but he could imagine them. He had begun to imagine again lately, and that frightened him a little.
Somewhere inside him, that quiet voice the one that used to whisper draw, dream, believe had started to return.
He didn't know if it was because of Mika.
Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't.
But ever since that day on the bridge, ever since she'd looked at him with those heavy, tired eyes, the gray world had begun to shift in texture.
It wasn't bright. It wasn't colorful. But it wasn't empty anymore either.
His house was too quiet. It had always been that way since his father came back.
Yuto walked downstairs, each step echoing faintly against the wooden floor. The living room lights were dim, half the bulbs burnt out, the other half flickering like they were tired too.
His mother, Momo, sat at the dining table with a cup of cold tea between her palms.
Her face was gentle, but there were tiny cracks behind her eyes the kind only years of quiet sadness could leave.
"Morning, Mom," he said softly.
She looked up, startled for a moment, as if she hadn't expected to hear a voice.
"Yuto… oh, you're still here. I thought you'd already gone to school."
"It's Saturday," he said, smiling faintly.
"Oh," she murmured, eyes drifting back to her tea. "Right."
The clock ticked, the rain hummed, and silence filled everything in between.
"Where's Dad?"
Her fingers froze around the cup.
"He's out," she said after a pause. "He said he had something to take care of."
Yuto nodded slowly. He'd learned not to ask what "something" meant.
He sat by the window again later that day, sketchbook in hand. The pages were mostly empty white spaces and faint lines.
But he wasn't really drawing to finish something. He was drawing to remember what it used to feel like.
He drew a table, a cake, three smiling faces.
Then, as if a hand had moved on its own, he crossed out one of them.
He stared at it for a long time.
It wasn't hate. It wasn't anger. Just… distance.
His father was there, but not here.
He'd come back three years after disappearing body home, heart still gone.
Sometimes, Yuto could hear them talking late at night. Not shouting anymore, just talking, the kind of talking that feels more painful than yelling because it means they've already run out of things to fight about.
In school, Mika noticed he was quieter that week.
During lunch, she turned to him, resting her chin on her palm. "You look like you're somewhere else."
He blinked, then smiled faintly. "Maybe I am."
She didn't press further. She just sat beside him, unwrapping her lunch slowly.
"You always eat the same thing," he said after a while.
She gave a small shrug. "I don't like surprises."
Yuto chuckled softly. "Fair enough."
For a while, they ate in silence. Outside, the rain still whispered against the classroom windows.
Then Mika asked, quietly, "What kind of person was your father?"
The question caught him off guard.
He froze, the taste of rice fading from his tongue.
"I… don't know anymore," he said after a long pause. "He used to be the kind of person who made birthdays feel like holidays. But now, I think he's just… tired."
Mika didn't say anything. She just nodded once, her eyes lowered, as if she understood more than she wanted to.
After a while, she whispered, "I get that."
Their eyes met two different lives, carrying the same kind of ache.
That evening, Yuto came home to find his father standing by the window.
Touya Manabe hadn't changed much his shoulders still broad, his voice still low, but his gaze seemed to be stuck on something invisible.
"You're home early," Touya said without turning.
Yuto hesitated. "Yeah. We had a short day."
His father nodded. "Good."
The silence that followed was heavy not hostile, just empty.
Two people in the same room, separated by years that never really healed.
Touya finally spoke. "Your mother says you've been drawing again."
"A bit."
"That's good," he said, almost absent-minded. "You used to love that."
Yuto looked at him really looked. His father's face was lined with quiet exhaustion, but there was something else too. Regret, maybe. Or shame.
"I still do," Yuto said quietly.
His father nodded again. "Keep it up."
And then, as if he couldn't bear the silence any longer, Touya left the room.
Yuto stood there, staring at the space he'd left behind.
He didn't hate him. He wanted to for the lost years, for the broken peace, for the shouting that made color disappear but he couldn't. Because somewhere inside, he still loved the man who once baked him a birthday cake with his name on it.
That night, Yuto sat by his desk, staring at a half-finished drawing of the bridge the place where he first met Mika.
Outside, the rain finally stopped.
He opened the window, breathing in the cool air, the faint scent of wet earth.
And for the briefest moment, he thought he saw something a faint hue, a soft pulse of warmth in the night sky.
He blinked, and it was gone.
He smiled anyway.
Because even if the world was still gray, he could feel the color now.