The morning after the bridge felt too still. The clouds had not moved, and the light in Sozuki's room—if it could be called a room—was the color of milk-thin glass. He had stopped trying to remember when he had last truly slept. Dreams came to him regardless: the lanterns, Hana's laughter echoing across the water, and then the sound of a door closing that he couldn't place.
He found her in the town square, sketchbook open on her knees, drawing the statue of a fox that guarded the shrine gate. Her eyes lifted the moment she sensed him, and she smiled as though the day had been waiting for him to arrive.
"You disappeared again," she said.
"I always do," he answered, trying to make it sound like a joke. It came out like an apology.
Hana patted the step beside her. "Then appear here more often."
He sat. The air smelled faintly of rain even though the stones were dry. A wind moved through the prayer ribbons, making them whisper. She drew in quick, sure lines; he watched the pencil move and wondered if, when he finally vanished for good, she might still draw him out of habit.
"Your lines are stronger," he said.
"I practiced." Her voice was light, but her eyes stayed on the page. "I keep thinking if I can draw you clearly enough, you won't disappear."
He laughed once, softly. "I wish that's how it worked."
She looked up. "Maybe it does."
They spent the morning running errands for the shopkeepers who adored Hana. She carried baskets of fruit; he trailed behind, holding the lighter things—though he noticed, uneasily, that the handles never quite pressed into his palms. Once, when she handed him an apple, it slipped through his fingers, hitting the ground without a sound.
"Sozuki?" she asked.
"Clumsy," he muttered, bending to pick it up. But the apple rolled straight through his hand before stopping at her foot. For a heartbeat they both froze. The world around them continued—vendors calling, bells chiming—yet none of it seemed to reach their ears.
Hana crouched, picked up the apple, and placed it in his hands again. This time it stayed. "See?" she said gently, as if speaking to a frightened child. "You're fine."
He nodded, though the skin of the fruit felt wrong, colder than before.
At noon the heat grew heavy. They climbed the hill behind the school, where a single vending machine hummed beside an abandoned classroom building. Hana pressed the buttons for two lemon sodas and handed one over.
"To summer," she said.
"To pretending it lasts forever," he replied.
They drank, sitting in the shade of the rusted roof. From here the town looked like a painting—patches of rooftops, the thin silver thread of the river, and the train gliding past like a moving scar of light. Sozuki tried to imagine what it would feel like to ride that train, to leave this place, to have somewhere to return to. But his mind couldn't build the picture; there was always a gap where his own seat should be.
Hana leaned her head against the wall, eyes closed. "Sometimes I wonder what will happen to this town in fifty years. Do you think it'll still be here?"
"I think it will," he said. "Even if we aren't."
She smiled faintly. "You talk like an old gramps."
"Maybe I am."
He hadn't meant it seriously, but the words hung between them with a weight that neither could laugh away.
Later, when the heat broke, they walked down to the shoreline. The tide was low, exposing long lines of wet sand and shells that glimmered like tiny mirrors. Hana kicked off her shoes and stepped into the water. "Come on," she called.
Sozuki hesitated at the edge. The sea always unsettled him; its pull felt too familiar, like something that had once tried to claim him. Still, he followed, the cool water sliding over his ankles. For a moment it was just two children playing, their laughter folding into the wind.
Then a wave rose higher than expected. Hana shrieked and ran back up the beach, drenched and laughing. Sozuki turned to follow—but the wave passed straight through him.
He stood there, untouched, the water swirling around his feet but never breaking against them. The water didn't cling, didn't leave a trace. He felt the cold only as an idea. The sound of the sea dulled, and in that muted world he saw himself reflected in the wet sand: pale, transparent around the edges, the horizon visible through his stomach.
Hana had stopped laughing. She stared, one hand pressed to her mouth. "Sozuki…"
He looked down, panicked, but the moment her voice reached him the image solidified again. He was whole—or close enough to pretend.
"It's just the light," he said, forcing a smile.
She nodded slowly. "Right. Just the light."
But her eyes didn't believe it.
They sat beneath the seawall until sunset. Hana spoke about small things—the sound of cicadas, the smell of grilled squid from the festival stalls—but her voice carried a tremor she couldn't hide. Sozuki answered in half-sentences, watching gulls vanish into the gold horizon. Each time the light touched him, he felt thinner, like the evening itself was pulling pieces away.
Finally she asked, "Sozuki… what are you afraid of?"
He thought for a long time. "That one day I'll look for the world, and it won't look back."
The waves kept breaking, slow and patient. She reached for his hand; for an instant her fingers slipped through air, then caught, meeting resistance that shouldn't have been there. He felt the faint warmth, the proof that he could still be touched.
"Then I'll look for you," she said.
He turned to her, voice barely a whisper. "Even if I'm not real?"
Her grip tightened. "You are, right now. That's enough."
Night fell while they sat there. Lights came on in the town below, each window a small, beating heart. Hana eventually drifted to sleep against his shoulder, her breath warm against his sleeve. Sozuki stayed still, afraid that moving might break the spell.
He looked at the sky, at the stars beginning to scatter. Somewhere among them, he felt the pulse of that forgotten door again—the one closing in his dreams. He knew now that it hadn't been a door to a room but to a life. A mother's voice fading behind it. A father's laughter swallowed by time. He had left, or they had, and everything since had been the echo.
The sea wind passed through him, gentle but final. He felt the world adjusting around the space he occupied, as if preparing for the day it would no longer need to hold his shape.
He whispered to Hana, "Thank you for seeing me."
She stirred but didn't wake. The tide crept closer, and for a moment he couldn't tell whether it touched him or merely remembered where he had been.
End of Part 1 of Chapter Four
CHAPTER FOUR — When the World Forgot to Hold Him (Part 2)
The next morning arrived in whispers.
Pale light seeped through the curtains of Hana's small house, soft enough to mistake for a dream. The cicadas hadn't yet begun, and in that hush the air seemed suspended—like the world was waiting to see if it should start moving again.
Sozuki sat by the window, his knees drawn close, watching the town slowly wake. People crossed the bridge with bent shoulders, the grocers lifted metal shutters, a child rode past on a squeaking bicycle. It was the same as every morning, yet he felt detached, as though there was a thin glass wall between him and the day.
Behind him, Hana stirred. "You didn't sleep again, did you?"
He turned with a small smile. "I don't really sleep, I think. Just… fade in and out."
Her brow creased. "That's not healthy."
He laughed quietly. "Maybe it's normal for me."
She sat up, rubbing her eyes. The blanket slipped from her shoulders, and sunlight brushed her with gold. For a second, the sight made his heart ache—a fragile, human warmth that he could never quite touch.
"Do you want breakfast?" she asked, already standing.
He nodded, though food didn't comfort him the way it used to. Still, he loved the way she prepared it.
They ate outside, on the wooden porch overlooking the street. Hana had made rice balls and miso soup; the steam curled up in the cool air, catching the light like drifting spirits. Sozuki watched it vanish.
"Do you ever think," he said suddenly, "that things disappear only because they finish their purpose?"
She tilted her head. "Like what?"
He gestured toward the steam. "Like that. It goes away, but maybe that's what it's meant to do. To rise, to disappear."
Hana set her bowl down. "You talk about vanishing like it's something beautiful."
"Maybe it is," he said softly. "Maybe what's sad isn't disappearing—it's being the one left to remember."
For a moment, neither spoke. The world was too quiet. Then Hana said, almost under her breath, "You sound like someone who's already gone."
He looked at her, and something in his heart trembled—something ancient, half-buried. "Maybe I am."
They spent the rest of the morning walking through town. It was a weekend; the streets were lively with chatter and bicycle bells. Children ran past holding festival masks, and the smell of fried dough and caramel filled the air.
At one stall, Hana bought two taiyaki, one shaped like a fish and one like a star. She handed him the star. "So you won't forget."
He smiled. "Forget what?"
"That you were here. That we shared this."
He took the pastry, feeling its faint warmth through his hands. "I could never forget you."
She looked confused, pretending to focus on her own taiyaki, but he noticed the tremor in her hand. He wondered if she already knew—if she'd been pretending not to, just to keep him here a little longer.
They sat by the river afterward. Children were releasing paper boats downstream, their laughter echoing across the current. Sozuki leaned forward, watching the small lights drift away.
"When I was little," Hana said quietly, "my grandmother told me the river carries memories to the sea. That everything we lose finds its way back there."
"Do you believe that?"
"I want to."
He nodded. "Then maybe… I should go see the sea again."
The afternoon stretched long. They wandered through an old park filled with rusted swings and a single clock tower whose hands had stopped. Sozuki climbed the steps and stood beside it, listening to the wind move through its hollow gears.
He thought of time—the way it moved for others but not for him. Every tick that didn't come felt like a small betrayal.
Hana joined him, breathless. "What are you doing up here?"
He smiled faintly. "Trying to see how the world looks when it forgets the hour."
She stepped beside him. "It looks lonely."
"Yeah," he said. "It does."
Below them, the town glowed with life: families at markets, couples under umbrellas, the glint of sunlight off car windows. Sozuki watched them as though peering into another dimension.
"Everyone keeps moving," he murmured. "Even when they're sad. Even when they lose something. They still move."
"Because if we stop," Hana said, "we disappear too."
He turned toward her. "Maybe that's what happened to me."
The words slipped out before he could stop them. She looked up sharply. "Sozuki…"
He stepped back. "I don't remember dying, Hana. But I don't remember living either."
The silence that followed was unbearable. The cicadas began at last, shrill and endless, like the world itself trying to drown the truth.
Hana's eyes filled with tears. "Don't say that."
"I have to," he whispered. "Because if I keep pretending, then when I really fade, you'll be the one left hurting."
"I'd rather hurt," she said, her voice breaking, "than forget you."
He looked at her then, really looked—at her trembling hands, at the salt on her lashes. The sun slipped lower, and in its dying light, his shadow vanished completely.
That night, the town held another festival—a smaller one, for the spirits of the departed. Lanterns floated on the river again, but fewer now, as though the living were running out of things to remember.
Hana and Sozuki walked side by side along the bank. She carried two lanterns, though he never touched his.
"Make a wish," she said, kneeling by the water.
He hesitated. "Do ghosts get wishes?"
"Yes," she said firmly. "Maybe more than anyone."
He looked at the blank paper of his lantern. Words gathered in his heart, quiet and aching. When he finally spoke, his voice shook.
"I wish I'd met you sooner."
Hana closed her eyes, her own tears falling silently into the river. "Then we might have had more time."
He smiled. "Maybe time was never ours to keep."
Together they set the lanterns afloat. The flames flickered, mirrored by the dark water, two lights drifting apart.
Hana turned to him suddenly. "Sozuki—if you start fading, promise me something."
He looked at her, the night wind passing through his hair like a whisper. "What?"
"Promise you'll let me remember you. Even if everyone else forgets."
He wanted to. He wanted to promise her everything. But he could feel it now—the hollow cold behind his ribs, the way the stars seemed to shine through him instead of upon him.
"I don't think I get to choose," he said softly.
She shook her head, tears spilling again. "Then I'll choose for you."
When the last lantern disappeared into the dark. "Hana," he whispered. "You made me feel real." "You are real," she said, clutching his wrist even as it flickered faintly, light scattering where their hands met. "Don't—please, don't—"
He smiled through the blur. "If I go, it's okay. You gave me what I was looking for."
"What was that?" she cried.
"A reason to miss the world."
And as he said it, the night dimmed around him. Not gone, not yet—but fading, like the afterimage of a dream upon waking.
Hana tilted her head down and placed her hands on her lap. "Then I'll remember for both of us."
Sozuki closed his eyes. For the first time, he felt warmth—not from the world, but from the memory she had given him. He thought that maybe this was what it meant to live: to be seen long enough to ache for leaving.
When dawn came, the river was empty. The lanterns had vanished. Only one thing remained on the shore—Hana's sketchbook, open to a drawing of a kid smiling beside another kid under a sky full of drifting lights.
The page fluttered in the morning breeze, and faintly, as if the paper still remembered, there was laughter.
TO BE CONTINUED...