The moonstone pulsed gently under her fingers.
Not glowing. Not shimmering. Just… pulsing. Like a heartbeat that no longer belonged to her.
Yuzume sat cross-legged before it, her hands resting on her lap. The shrine was quiet again, but this time not in a peaceful way. The quiet had weight. Edges. It pressed against her thoughts like fog wrapping around her chest.
She hadn't told Riku.
Not yet.
He had asked fewer questions lately, as if afraid the answers might unravel something they'd only just stitched together. But Yuzume could feel his eyes linger longer. Could feel him notice the way her steps grew slower. The way her voice faltered during songs.
And she had noticed the journal.
The one he kept taking out, flipping through, whispering to himself under the old peach tree. She pretended not to watch, even as her heart clawed up her throat.
That afternoon, while she prepared the offerings, he found a folded paper tucked between the journal's final pages. A letter, written in a softer hand.
To my daughter, Kaede, if you ever return…
Riku stared at the name for a long time. Longer than he should have. He knew it. Not from the shrine, not from Yuzume, but from a hospital file. A birth certificate. A voice on the phone once begging him to understand.
He read on.
You took him far away. I understood why. I never held it against you. But I always hoped you'd send him back. Even just once. So he'd know where he came from.
His hands trembled.
You may not believe in spirits, Kaede. But they believed in you. They blessed us the day she appeared under the lavender tree. I never found out why. Only that she was alone. And needed love. Just like we all do.
His mouth felt dry.
He reread it. Twice. Then turned to the front of the journal, where an old charcoal sketch of the shrine was barely clinging to the inside cover. And beneath it:
Riku Hanabira.
His chest tightened.
He found her on the porch that night, watching the stars. Her tail curled around her knees, hair gently tousled by wind that didn't quite touch the trees.
"You knew," he said, softly.
She looked up at him. "I know a lot of things. I'm older than I look."
"You knew who I was."
"Not at first," she admitted. "But… you look like him. When you tilt your head like that. When you grumble about tea."
Riku smiled, small and aching. "He wrote about you."
"He always did. I told him not to. He said stories are the only way we stay alive."
He sat beside her. Silence lingered.
"I think I came here," he said finally, "because my mom asked me to. She passed. But in one of her last notes, she said to go back and apologize. To say she was sorry for leaving. For not believing. For not saying goodbye."
Yuzume didn't speak.
He turned to her. "She said she missed her father's stories. And his silly little poems. And how he always left pickled radish on the table, even when no one liked it."
Yuzume's eyes stung.
Riku added, more quietly, "She said she didn't deserve to be forgiven. But I think he already did. A long time ago."
They sat in stillness, the veil's shimmer barely visible beyond the hill.
And somewhere far above, the stars dimmed, just slightly.
As if the world was holding its breath.