Volume 4 – Chapter 1: Where the Ash Settles

Date: September 7

 Last 24 Days. 

The morning sky was dull and thick with the dead gray, which dulled the light long before it could ever reach the ground. The air was filled with lazy ashes-not dense like a snowstorm, but persistent, like the sound of the world crumbling-one silent flake at a time.

Kaito was sitting outside the shelter, leaning against that rusty wall, stretching his legs before him.  He watched the ash falling with aimless eyes while his fingers loosely cradled the chipped edge of a metal cup. There had no warmth left in it for well over an hour, and he had not moved. Movement seemed like a futile thing by now.

Inside, Rika was speaking a low-volume conversation with Kanna. After this argument, a peculiar sense of quietly shared mutual respect had set down between them, one neither born of accord nor disagreement, but of a certain tougher understanding of sorts. Kanna had stayed—stayed not just for the night, but stayed here.

Kaito closed his eyes. He heard Rika laugh: muted, delicate, the sort of sound that used to come out easier. Felt like a miracle every time it did these days.

He did not stir when Rika walked outside in search of him. Rika, too, had not asked him anything. She sat with him, brushed aside the ashes from his shoulder as if it were no matter—like it did not signify the end of everything.

“Are you cold?” she asked.

"No," he answered, almost vacantly. After a pause, he added, "Just thinking."

"About?"

He hesitated. "If this is all we have left... these last few weeks... I wonder what we're supposed to do with them."

Rika dropped back against the wall. "Live them. With whatever we got left."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one that makes sense anymore."

The two sat silently for a while, the kind of silence that holds no pressure, no suffocating burden. The kind that fills in the cracks.

Moments later, Kanna came with three mismatched cups of reheated tea, which she distributed without a word. She plopped down cross-legged in front of them, something in Kanna's expression read tired but clearer than before.

"I don't think I really understood you two," she said finally. "Not until now."

Kaito blinked; he looked over.

Kanna looked down into her tea. "I used to think it was a joke, honestly. Love. Marriage. Especially now. But maybe... maybe holding on to something, anything, isn't stupid. Maybe it's the only thing that stops us from disappearing completely."

Rika's smile was faint. "We don’t expect everyone to get it."

"I think I’m starting to," Kanna said. Then, under her breath, "Sorry I called it meaningless."

Kaito offered no reply. But he gave her a small nod. That was all that was needed.

The sky remained unchanged above them. But something very subtle had shifted in the space between the three of them. Not the world—just those in it. Maybe that would be enough.