Chapter 1.2
Ayame Takigawa hated phone calls.
It's not because of what was said from her lips—but because of everything that wasn't.
As soon as her phone vibrated, her eyes dropped while staring at the screen as she picked up the phone.
Her gripped tightened, as her mother's voice on the other end of the line was soft and mellow, and oddly full of the careful, full politeness than their usual conversations.
Mayumi mumbles, "Will you be joining us this Sunday?"
Ayame stirred her tea with a spoon. "If Ren's free, I'll come."
"He always makes time." Mayumi assured her as her eyes flickered, lightly biting her lips.
The implication hung there—light, almost weightless, but undeniable.
Ayame let it settle, like she always did. "I'll bring something from the bakery."
Her mother hesitated. "If you like."
Thump. Her phone landed back at the table as she buried her face in her hands.
It wasn't that her mother was cruel. It was worse than that. She was cordial. Reserved. As if Ayame was someone she'd once met at a school function and then forgotten. Her father was quieter still—content to exist in the periphery, newspaper in hand, slippers aligned, always five minutes early for nothing at all.
Ren was the only one who called just to talk.
---
For a few days, Ren came to hangout with her while she cleaned up the stuff and sat on the couch sighing. As for Ren, he sat in front of the door, facing her direction.
"Do you still write about lonely women?"
Ren asked the question while tying his sneakers in her hallway, casual as if they were discussing the weather.
Ayame blinked up from her tea. "Is that how you describe my job to people?"
He grinned. "Only when I want to impress them."
"You should start lying better."
They stepped into the street. It was a grey morning—fog brushing low over the roofs, headlights glowing like ghosts through the haze.
Ren kept pace beside her easily. He'd grown taller this year, again, and now looked more like their father than she liked to admit. Except he smiled more. And he saw people.
"You okay?" he asked, not looking at her.
Ayame took a moment to say, "I'm fine."
"That's not what I asked."
Ayame glanced at the reflection of the two of them in the shop windows they passed—one pale, slim figure in black, one in a red hoodie too bright for the day as Ren's gaze fixed on her way.
"I've been stuck. Writing. It's nothing."
He let her deflect, but only once.
They stopped by a vending machine. He got soda. She got coffee in a can, though she wouldn't drink it.
"I read that short story you did in the magazine last year," he said. "The one with the girl who gets lost in a fog and talks to her dead grandmother."
"That wasn't—" she paused. "That wasn't about us."
"I know," he said, then added, "But I liked that she wasn't looking to be saved."
Ayame looked at him, surprised.
He shrugged. "It's a good story."
He didn't say he missed her. He didn't say they used to be closer. He didn't need to.
She felt it anyway.
---
Noa Serizawa had never been quiet a day in her life.
She came into Ayame's apartment like she belonged there, a band echoed as the door shut. Greeted by a short black-haired woman wearing an office uniform—a bag slung over her shoulder, cheeks pink from the wind, and carrying enough groceries to stock a cabin.
"You have nothing in your fridge, the last time I checked." she declared, as she was dumping things onto the counter. "Do you even eat? Or do you just survive on melancholy and overpriced tea?"
Ayame arched her brow. "Both."
Noa peeled off her coat and started unpacking. "Seriously though. You okay?"
"I'm writing."
"That's not an answer."
Ayame smiled faintly. "That's not a question."
Noa gave her a look that could curdle milk. "Yuuta's still asking about you, by the way."
"I'm not interested in Yuuta."
"I know. He's not interested in you either. He just doesn't know it yet."
They both laughed, the kind of laugh that lived between two people who had known each other since junior high—when Ayame was too shy to eat lunch with others and Noa had declared them best friends because "you look like you read good books."
They'd grown up different. Noa became bright, bold, the kind of person who joined clubs and wore sunglasses indoors. Ayame stayed quiet. But somehow, they never drifted.
They cooked together that night.
Noa chopped vegetables like she had a vendetta. Ayame handled the rice.
"You know," Noa said, tossing peppers into the pan, as the sound of shizzle echoed from the kitchen making Ayame's ears feel ticklish, "when I said hiking trip, I didn't mean, like, Mount Fuji. Just somewhere small. Cute. Instagrammable."
"I'm not bringing makeup into the woods," Ayame muttered as she gently stirred the rice pot by the sink.
"Good. That way I can be the pretty one."
She grinned widely before she threw a towel at Ayame's face.
Later, after dinner, they sat on the couch, both Noa and Ayame had their legs tangled under a blanket. A drama played quietly on TV. Neither of them watched it.
"I keep dreaming of snow," Ayame said suddenly, making Noa snap her head at her. "But it's not cold."
Noa tilted her head. "Like a memory?"
"Maybe."
"You should write that down." Noa said softly with a smile.
Ayame's fingers twitched. "I did."
That night, Ayame couldn't sleep.
She stood at her balcony, wrapped in a sweater two sizes too big, and watched the city below. A breeze lifted her hair. The neon signs flickered quietly across the way.
Then, movement.
There it was.
The cat.
White as bleached ash, perched on the railing opposite. It watched her with those eyes—clear, cold, ancient.
Ayame felt her breath catch.
"Are you lost too?" she whispered.
It blinked slowly at her before it jumped at the railing. Her gaze followed the cat's figure as she moved slightly at the edge.
And then, just as before, it was gone.
But her heart took longer to settle. As she sighed heavily looking down at the balcony staring down at the street.
As the streetlamps flickered subtly it dims as she closed her eyes.
---
The next day, she sat in her favorite café, notebook open, untouched latte steaming beside her.
She watched people move past the windows—rushed, loud, purposeful. A woman in a grey coat dropped her phone. A man in a hat ran after a child's balloon. Life flickered in glimpses, like scenes from someone else's story.
Ayame looked down at her page. She began to write.
She didn't remember what she was running from.
Only that it followed her like a shadow too white to name.
She paused.
Outside, a shape moved past the window—low to the ground, white, her gaze fixed along the street. While the silhouette of a white cat was faint by the glass, its glacier eyes fixed along her direction. She blinked looking at the passing cars. It was no longer there.
Her hand tightened around her pen.
Something in the quiet had shifted.
End of Chapter 2 — Things Left Unsaid