The bell above the door chimed softly.

  It was a sound Yuki had heard a thousand times before, and yet, on that rainy afternoon, it struck different. Maybe it was the rhythm of the raindrops tapping against the windows, or maybe it was the way the stranger entered—not like a customer, but like someone returning from far away.

  She was soaked. Her coat clung to her, black hair dripping, eyes wide with hesitation and something else—urgency.

  “Sorry to barge in…” she murmured, voice low and tired. “Do you have a towel?”

  Yuki blinked. “Uh… yeah. Just a second.”

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  He dashed into the back room, heart strangely unsteady. By the time he returned with an old clean cloth, she was at the poetry section, one hand hovering over a familiar spine.

  “A Sky Split by Silence,” Yuki said, recognizing the book.

  The girl turned. “You’ve read it?”

  “I shelve it every week,” he said, offering her the towel. “It was written by—”

  “Yamato Shirou,” she finished, her fingers brushing over the cover reverently. “He… was my grandfather’s friend.”

  Yuki froze.

  “That’s not possible,” he said, quieter than he meant to. “Yamato Shirou was my grandfather.”

  She stared at him. Then, slowly, from the folds of her soaked coat, she pulled out a battered leather journal.

  It was old, its pages yellowed and edges water-damaged—but on the inside cover was a name. One Yuki hadn’t seen in years.

  "To Hana. From Shirou. May our words find what our voices cannot."

  Yuki swallowed.

  The stranger gave a nervous smile. “I think we were meant to meet.”