Echoes on Paper

The silence in Kenji’s apartment wasn't just an absence of noise; it was a presence. It had weight, pressing in on him, thickening the air until breathing felt like a conscious effort. Three years today. Three years since Akari’s laugh had been stolen from the world, leaving behind this suffocating stillness.

He sat at his desk, the screen of his work laptop casting a cold, blue light on his face, illuminating the dullness in his eyes. Spreadsheets blurred into meaningless grids. His fingers rested on the keyboard, motionless. Outside the grimy window, the city murmured, a distant, uncaring drone that only amplified the quiet emptiness within his four walls.

His gaze drifted, as it often did, to the corner of the room. Dust lay thick on the surfaces there – on the neglected bookshelves, the stacks of old manga, and most pointedly, on the digital drawing tablet and its stylus, lying like relics in a forgotten tomb. Art had been his air, his voice, his connection to everything vibrant. He and Akari had practically shared a soul through shared sketchbooks and collaborative doodles. Now, the thought of picking up a pencil felt like touching fire. It belonged to the Before. To her.

His phone buzzed – a message from his mother. Thinking of you today, Kenji. Take care. He read it, the familiar pang of guilt mixing with the ever-present grief. She worried. He knew he should clean, should air out the apartment, should pretend at normalcy. Sighing, he pushed back from the desk, the chair scraping reluctantly against the worn floorboards.

He started with the closet, pulling out a dusty cardboard box that sagged under the weight of forgotten things. Ticket stubs from movies they’d seen, ridiculously cheesy keychains, old video games… and then his hand brushed against something firmer. A sketchbook. Not one of his recent, professional ones, but older, smaller, its plain brown cover softened with age. His breath caught. He knew this one. Near the spine, faint but distinct, was a doodle they’d made together years ago – his more practiced, hesitant lines forming a caricature of their grumpy cat, intertwined with Akari's bold, wobbly, brightly coloured additions that turned it into a sort of feline space ranger.

He shouldn’t open it. He knew he shouldn’t. It was a box of pain best left sealed. But his fingers betrayed him, tracing the worn cover before easing it open.

The pages whispered as he turned them. A drawing of that same cat, this time undeniably Akari’s work, proudly signed with a backwards ‘A’. A fantastical landscape they’d imagined together. Studies of his own hand next to her drawing of a misshapen flower. Each page was a landmine of memory. He felt the familiar wave building – the crushing weight in his chest, the burning behind his eyes. It washed over him, relentless and suffocating.

He sank to the floor, the sketchbook open in his lap. This ache… this gaping void where she should be… it was unbearable today. His gaze fell upon the scattered pencils near his desk, untouched for so long. One had rolled slightly apart from the others. Without conscious thought, his hand reached for it. The graphite felt alien, cold against his skin. He turned a page in the old sketchbook, finding one miraculously blank, stark white amidst the faded colours of the past.

He had to. Just once more.

He began to draw. The initial lines were hesitant, shaky, his muscles forgetting the familiar dance. But the image burned behind his eyes, clearer than anything else in his grey world. Akari. He drew her as she was on her last birthday – beaming, eyes alight with excitement, that stubborn lock of hair falling across her forehead. Grief guided his hand, desperation fueled the strokes. He wasn't just sketching; he was pouring his entire, shattered soul onto the paper. The rhythmic scratch, scratch, scratch of the pencil was the only sound, a counterpoint to the roaring silence. Graphite smudged beneath his palm, a dark mirror to the unshed tears blurring his vision.

He focused on her eyes last, trying to capture that impossible spark, the sheer life that had defined her. He pressed the pencil point down, adding the final highlight, a tiny fleck of white in the dark pupil.

The air stilled.

A warmth, gentle and distinct, bloomed on the back of his hand resting beside the drawing. He frowned, pulling his hand back. Had he been leaning on it too hard? Then, the lines on the paper seemed to ripple, just for a heartbeat, like a reflection on disturbed water. His own reflection stared back, wide-eyed. And beneath the sound of his own frantic pulse, almost imagined, softer than breath, he heard it.

A whisper.

"…Nii-chan?"

Kenji froze, ice flooding his veins. Every muscle locked. He snapped his head up, scanning the empty room, the dusty corners, the indifferent furniture. Nothing. Silence pressed back in, absolute. His breath hitched in his throat, loud in the stillness.

Trembling, he looked back down at the sketchbook. At the drawing. Akari’s graphite eyes stared back. They were just pencil lines. Weren’t they? But the depth he’d tried so hard to capture seemed… different. Charged. Alive.

The warmth was gone. The whisper hadn't repeated.

He touched the page tentatively. Just paper. Just graphite.

Had he imagined it? A hallucination born of exhaustion and overwhelming grief? It had to be. It was impossible.

And yet…

He stared at the echo of his sister on the paper, the silence around him no longer just empty, but thrumming with a terrifying, fragile, impossible question.