Reflections for the Night Sky

Day 14

The new inn was smaller than the one at the coast. The wood creaked with every step, and the scent of pine lingered in the hallways. There was no receptionist, just a note on the counter:
Room’s open. Pay when you leave. Trust keeps the roof standing.
Sayo left the money anyway, folding the bills with slow fingers.

She didn’t unpack this time. Just left her bags in the room as they were and spent the night in the inn doing nothing in particular.

The next morning, she woke early, plans in mind to explore the new area.

The village clung gently to the mountain, houses tucked into its slope like fallen petals. There were wind chimes outside every door, all made from different things—bamboo, shells, glass, metal. They jingled in the mountain breeze, and it felt like they were speaking. She didn’t know what they were saying, only that it was soft.
It was like a thin haze had settled over the village.

She passed the little shopping center—bakeries, bookstores, hiking stations—until she stopped at a building that interested her.

It was a small tea house with open windows. The owner, a wrinkled man with half his teeth and a perfect memory, poured her a cup without asking.

“Traveler?” he asked.
Sayo nodded.
“People come here when they need to remember something,” he said. “Or when they’re trying to forget.”
The tea was bitter. She drank all of it.

She passed by the narrow road behind the tea house to the other side of the shopping center, and found a woman sitting cross-legged on a woven mat, brush in hand. An easel stood in front of her, canvas already halfway filled with colors that looked like dusk.
Except—
There was no sky like that today. The mountains weren’t quite the same.
The painter didn’t look up. Her strokes were light and careful, as if she were trying not to wake the world.

“Are you painting from memory?” Sayo asked, eventually.

The woman glanced over, smiling. Her hands were stained with dried pigment.
“From memory. From dreams. From guesses,” she said. “I try to get close. Doesn’t have to be perfect.”

The wind shifted. Leaves rattled.

Sayo took a step closer. The painting looked like a place she might’ve visited once and forgotten.

“Why?”

“When it’s gone,” the painter said, dipping her brush again, “I want to remember what it felt like. That’s all.”

There was a pause. The sky above them was pale and soft.
Sayo didn’t understand. When it’s gone—did she mean the sky, or the world?

“Would you like to be in it?” the painter asked. “Just a shape. Nothing specific.”

Sayo blinked, then nodded.

The painter added a small figure, sitting on the edge of the trail beneath a painted tree. Alone, but not lonely.
She didn’t ask for Sayo’s name. Sayo walked away after.

The bookstore was wedged between a bakery and a mountain gear shop, almost invisible if you weren’t looking. Sayo stepped inside and was met by the scent of old paper and warm dust. The light came in through yellowed windows, catching on motes in the air.

A thin, kind-looking, but tired-faced woman sat at the counter, sorting books into small piles, some were labeled “for cloudy days,” others “for last chances,” and “for the quiet-hearted.”

Sayo tilted her head. “Is that how you organize things?”

The woman didn’t look up. “Genres are boring,” she said. “And people don’t look for genres anymore. They look for… feelings.”

She picked up a hardcover and gently tapped the spine. “This one smells like waiting. That shelf over there—those are for people who’ve already let go.”

Sayo wandered to it. Her fingers brushed over cracked bindings, soft pages.

“They’re free,” the woman said. “Borrow one if it calls to you. Bring it back if you remember.”

Sayo turned, blinking. “Why?”

“Because stories are like us,” she said. “Even if the world ends, they’ll find new mouths to live in. New hands to hold them.”

Sayo didn’t understand. If the world ended, there wouldn’t be anyone else to remember it.
But still, she picked a thin book. It didn’t have a title.
She didn’t open it; she just placed it in her bag and left the shop after a little wave and a nod from the woman.

In the afternoon, a girl called Rin waved her down.

“I saw you staring at the trail sign this morning,” she said, grinning. “C’mon. It’s not that steep. I’ll show you the viewpoint.”

Sayo hesitated.
But then she followed.

The hike was gentle. The air got thinner. The world grew quieter.

They reached the top just before sunset.

The sky opened like a wound, and orange poured across the clouds, and the mountains unfolded beneath them like soft origami. Birds flew like scraps of paper on the wind. The path behind them was already in shadow.

“Nice, huh?” Rin said, hands on her hips. “I come here a lot.”

Sayo couldn’t speak for a while.

“It’s… too much,” she finally said. “It makes me sad.”

Rin didn’t laugh. She nodded, quiet. “Yeah. I get that.”

They sat together on the rocks. The sun dipped low. Below, wind chimes kept whispering.
The girls headed back down the path, wordlessly.

That night, there was a procession.

Locals walked through the village with small paper moons lit from within. One by one, they floated them down the river, silent, watching them drift away.

“Offerings,” Rin explained. “They say if enough of them reach the sea, the real moon will hear us. And… pause. Just a little.”

Sayo stood among them, watching the river glow.

She didn’t make a wish. There was no point, she was a scientist. She didn’t believe offerings would change anything.
But she watched.

And when it was over, she walked to the stargazing point again.

The wind was colder now. The moon was visible this time—huge, unblinking, heavy above the world. Sayo sat on the bench alone this time, arms around her knees.

She thought of the boy with the stick. The old man with the tea. The painter. The woman at the bookstore. The girl who brought her up the trail. The people who still lit lanterns.

She thought of Rika.

It wasn’t hope. Not really.
But it was something.

She reached into her bag, pulled out her notebook, and pressed a dried mountain flower between the pages.
Not a plan. Not a solution.
Just proof that she was here.