Volume 2 – Chapter 20: The Weight of Returning

It was as if I were walking the streets of a place I dreamed about recently, but awoke too soon from that approximate sleep. The light was low, and long shadows slanted across the pavement. The air smelled unchanged — faint traces of spring on the wind — but something felt different. Maybe it was us. Maybe it was the burden of all we’d seen, all we’d done.

As we neared the house, I felt Rika’s grip tighten around my hand. She was tense, her breath only slightly unsteady. I didn’t blame her. My heart thundered in my chest, a frenzied pattern that had yet to calm down.

There stood the front door, an ordinary wooden frame that used to promise protection, normalcy. Now, it seemed a threshold to a past life — one we weren’t certain we could go back to.

Rika exhaled sharply. “Our families had to be worried sick.”

I nodded, swallowing hard. “Definitely.”

Three months. That’s how long it had been since we were last here. It didn’t seem real as I considered it. Only days before we left, everything still looked like the world we grew up in. And then—chaos. The world we knew was beginning to unravel, and we’d been swept up in the storm.

I grabbed the door handle, paused for one brief second, and opened it.

As soon as we entered, the quiet shattered.

“Kaito!”

My mother’s voice broke as she stepped forward quickly, eyes widened with disbelief and relief all at once. I hardly had time to respond before she wrapped her arms around me, clinging so tightly I could feel her shaking.

“Mom…” My voice was weak, breathy.

“You’re alive,” she whispered to him, as if saying it aloud could make it so. “You’re here.”

Rika’s mother was right behind her. She almost fell into her daughter’s arms, sobbing into her shoulder. I watched Rika’s face break, her usual guarded expression weakened by the sheer weight of feeling.

“You two…” My father’s voice broke with restrained emotion. “Where have you been? We thought we lost you.”

I tried to say something but couldn’t find any words. How on earth do I even start to explain? How could I describe what we had seen — what we had survived?

Rika glanced at me, and for an instant we both had the same thought.

We could not tell them everything.

Not yet.

“We … had to get out,” I managed finally, my voice hoarse. “Things were dangerous.”

My father’s expression darkened, his jaw clenching. “You thought there weren’t dangerous things going on here?” He sighed, rubbing his temples. “How many nights did we spend wondering if you were even alive?”

I flinched.

Rika’s mother cradled her daughter’s face, probing her gaze anxiously. “Are you hurt? Are you safe?”

Rika gave a slight smile, placing her hands over her mother’s. “I’m fine, Mom. Really.”

The tension in the air did not go away, but it softened, just a bit. So much to say, so much to explain. But at least we were home.

And at least, for the time being, it was enough.

—

[July 5 – 10:30 AM]

Sitting at the kitchen table, it all felt way too normal. Too still. Breakfast filled the plates before us, yet neither of us had much appetite.

The rim of Rika’s coffee cup was soon a silky scar of her fingers, they traced the line over and over. “It’s strange,” she murmured.

I glanced at her. “What is?”

“This. Being here. Like nothing happened.”

I knew what she meant. The walls were the same, the furniture intact, but we weren’t. Something in us had changed irrevocably, and no matter how hard we wished to pretend, the world beyond this house was evidence that things were no longer the same.

“I don’t think we can go back to the way things were,” I confessed. “Not really.”

As Rika looked down, her expression indiscernible, Then, after a moment, she said, “Kaito.”

I met her gaze. “Yeah?”

There was a pause before she spoke. “Let’s get married.”

But I was caught up short.

She wasn’t joking. There was none of the teasing lightness in her eyes that sometimes accompanied outrageous suggestions. This was real. This was serious.

My mind tried to keep up and blinked. “Are you…?”

She let out a small, nervous laugh. “I mean, we discussed it already, didn’t we? It’s about keeping together regardless of what happens.

I nodded, my heart pounding. “Yeah, but—”

“I’m tired of waiting, Kaito.” Her voice had firmness to it, but softness as well. “The world is falling apart. We’re not sure how much time remains. And if there’s one thing I do know, I want to spend whatever time we have left with you.”

I looked at her for a long moment.

Then, before I had even registered that I was moving, I leaned across the table, took her hands in mine and said, “OK.”

Rika opened her mouth slightly in surprise. “Okay?”

I smiled as I held her hands. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

And then: She laughed, her eyes alight with something I couldn’t quite name. A real, genuine laugh. “I can’t believe it was this easy.”

I laughed, a little bit of the tension in my chest released. “Me neither.”

There was still so much to unwound. Our families, the specifics, the reality of what happened next. But for now, one thing was certain:

We weren’t waiting anymore.

And whatever happened next —

We’d face it together.