The phone never rang.
It sat on the floor. By his mattress. A black plastic brick. He stared at it. In the dark. For hours. Willing it to light up. To vibrate. To make a sound.
It didn't.
He knew her number. Kyoto dorm. He'd dial it. Listen to the ring. Four times. Five. His throat would get tight. He'd hang up before the voicemail. Every time. Coward.
He called from payphones. Different ones. So the number would be strange. Unknown. She'd pick up. Maybe.
Once. She picked up.
"Hello?"
Her voice. A thousand miles away. Tinny through the bad receiver. It punched him in the gut.
He couldn't speak. Just held the phone. Listening to her breath. "Hello? Who is this?"
He hung up. Slumped against the glass of the booth. Shaking. He'd spent his last coin for that. To hear her say "who is this."
Idiot.
They got evicted. End of April. His mom broke down. Really broke. The kind where they take you somewhere. She went to her sister's in Fukuoka. He didn't go. Stayed in the city. A friend's couch. Then another friend's floor. A sleeping bag that smelled like old beer.
Got a job. Warehouse. Loading boxes. His body ached. A new, deep ache. Not like rooftop cold. A grinding. His hands got rough. Cracked.
He bought a cheap phone card. Called the dorm again. A woman answered. Not Aoi. A supervisor. "She does not accept calls from this number," the voice said. Cold. Final. Her father's work.
The static was total now. A wall of it. White noise. He was on one side. Shouting into it. She was on the other. Maybe shouting too. He couldn't hear her. She couldn't hear him.
He wrote a letter. On a greasy napkin from the convenience store. Aoi. It's me. I'm here. I'm figuring it out. The promise is real. Tell me you're there.
He didn't have an address. Just Kyoto Women's Dormitory. He mailed it. A shot in the dark.
No reply.
He imagined it. Thrown away. Unopened. Intercepted. He imagined her reading it. Crumpling it. Forgetting it.
He started smoking the cheap brand. The ones that tasted like burning paper. He'd smoke on his break. Behind the warehouse. Staring at a chain-link fence. The mint taste was gone from the world. Just ash.
He saw her once. In a crowd. On the street. His heart stopped. He ran. Shoving people. Got to her. Grabbed a shoulder.
A stranger. A girl with similar hair. She looked scared. "Get off me, creep."
He backed away. Mumbled sorry. Hid in an alley until his breathing slowed. He was seeing ghosts. His brain was making her out of nothing. Out of want.
The year bled. Summer was a hot, wet misery. The warehouse stank of sweat and cardboard. Autumn came. Cold again. A different cold. Empty.
He turned sixteen. No one knew. He bought a can of coffee from a machine. Drank it alone on the curb. A celebration.
The phone never rang.
He stopped charging it. Let the battery die. The little screen went black. A tiny death. He threw it in a river. Watched it sink. A stupid, dramatic gesture. It felt like nothing.
The silence was complete. A vacuum. It wasn't peaceful. It was a pressure. Squeezing his skull.
He was a ghost. Haunting his own life. A outline of a person, filled with static.
Year one.
The year of the phone that never rang.
The year of the silence that grew teeth.
The year he started to forget the exact shade of blue on the roof.
The year the mint taste left for good.