The office building was a glass needle. Stabbing the gray sky. Kenji stood in the lobby. Shaking. Not from cold. From something deeper. A fault line in his guts.
He found her firm online. Easy. Her name. Her face. A professional headshot. Hair perfect. Smile calibrated. It wasn't her. It was a mask. But the eyes. The shape of them. A punch to the throat.
He didn't call. Just came. A bomb in an old coat.
The receptionist eyed him. Polished desk. Polished voice. "Do you have an appointment with Ms. Satō?"
"No."
"I'm afraid she's in back-to-back—"
"Tell her Kenji is here."
The name hung in the sterile air. A dirty word. The receptionist's smile tightened. She picked up a phone. Turned. Whispered.
He waited. Stared at the floor. Shiny tiles. His reflection was a blur. A stain.
Minutes passed. An eternity.
Then a click of heels. Sharp. Fast.
He looked up.
She was there.
Aoi.
Not the girl. A woman. A sculpture in a charcoal suit. Hair pulled back tight. No loose strands. Makeup flawless. A wall of professionalism.
She stopped ten feet away. Her eyes locked on him. No recognition at first. Just annoyance. A disruption in her schedule.
Then it hit. A flicker. A crack in the wall. Her breath caught. Almost silent. Her hand went to her throat. A tiny, betraying movement.
"Kenji." His name. In her mouth. After twenty-seven years. It sounded foreign. A relic.
He couldn't speak. Nodded. A stupid jerk of his head.
She recovered fast. The wall slammed back down. She glanced at the receptionist. At the open office behind her. People pretending not to stare.
"Follow me," she said. Turned. Didn't wait.
He followed. Down a hallway. Glass walls. People in cubicles. Heads down. The air hummed with keyboards. With silence.
She opened a door. A small conference room. Empty. A table. Chairs. A whiteboard with old scribbles.
She shut the door. The sound was final.
They stood. On opposite sides of the table. An ocean of polished wood.
She smelled like perfume. Something expensive. Dry. Floral. No mint. No smoke. Just this clean, dead scent.
He smelled like cab. Like rain. Like yesterday's cigarettes.
"You're alive," he said. His voice was a rusted hinge.
"Yes." A single word. A fortress.
"The memorial. The notice. I thought…"
"A former colleague. Same name. Aoi. Different kanji. The firm handled the estate. My name was on the notice." She spoke like reading a report. Flat. "A morbid coincidence."
A coincidence. A twist of the knife.
He laughed. A short, sharp sound. Like a dog's bark. "I mourned you. Twice."
She didn't flinch. "Why are you here?"
The letter burned in his pocket. He didn't pull it out. "You know why."
Her eyes were hard. Shiny. Like wet stones. "That was a lifetime ago."
"Not for me."
Silence. The hum of the building pressed in. A low, angry sound.
She looked at him. Really looked. Her eyes traced the lines on his face. The gray in his stubble. The wear in his jacket. He saw her calculating. The sum of his life. The total. Disappointing.
"You drive a cab," she said. Not a question.
"Yeah."
"I'm a partner here."
"I know."
"It's loud here," she said, suddenly. A non-sequitur. Her eyes flicked to the glass wall. To the busy world beyond. "Always loud. Phones. Meetings. Traffic. It never stops."
He understood. She wasn't talking about noise. She was talking about the static. The static that replaced their frequency.
"It's quiet in my cab," he said. "Mostly."
Another silence. Heavier.
She walked to the window. Looked out. Her back to him. A straight line. Unbreakable. "You shouldn't have come."
"You wrote me a letter."
She went very still. The only movement was the slow clench of her hand at her side.
"You had a plan," he said. "Spring. You were going to run. Find me."
She didn't turn. "That girl was a child. She believed in fairy tales."
"She believed in us."
Now she turned. Her face was a cold fury. "There was no us! There was a rooftop. And some cigarettes. And a stupid promise made by kids who didn't know anything! Don't you get it? Look at you. Look at me. This is the real world. It's loud. And it's cruel. And it doesn't care about your ghosts!"
Her voice broke on the last word. A crack in the ice. She looked away. Quickly. Ashamed of the break.
He took the letter from his pocket. The pink envelope. Faded. He placed it on the table. Between them.
She stared at it. Like it was a live wire.
"You waited for me," he said, quiet. "For a year. You kept your half of the photo. You had a plan. That's not nothing. That's not a fairy tale."
She didn't touch the letter. Just looked at it. Her mask was gone. In its place was a raw, exhausted pain. The face of the girl on the roof. Aged twenty-seven hard years.
"It's too late," she whispered. To the envelope. To the ghost. "It's just… too late."
The world was loud outside the door. Phones. Laughter. Life.
In the quiet room, the past sat on a table. In a pink envelope. Untouched.
The confrontation wasn't a reunion. It was an autopsy. And they were both on the table.