Chapter 28 A bridge of starlight

It was nearly midnight in Tokyo when Ren Amamiya stepped out onto the empty rooftop of his university’s music building. The city buzzed below—cars in motion, windows lit like fireflies—but up here, the world held its breath.
He closed his eyes. The wind carried a distant rhythm. A song only he could hear.
Tonight marked exactly one year since Yui Tachibana had left for Vienna.
Twelve months. Hundreds of messages. Dozens of songs. And still, a silence lingered in parts of him that music couldn’t quite reach.
But something had changed recently.
She was coming home.
Not for good—just for two weeks. A short spring break granted by her conservatory. Her message had arrived three nights ago:
> "I want to see Tokyo’s cherry blossoms again. And you. Mostly you."


Ren smiled as he remembered those words. She’d sent them with a grainy photo of her dorm window, pink petals smudged across the glass. The kind of blurry image only she could make beautiful.
He took out his phone. A notification blinked on-screen: Flight JL402: Landed.
His chest swelled with nervous hope.

---
The next morning, Ren stood in the crowd outside Narita Airport’s arrival gate. In one hand, he held a bouquet of white lilies and a single sakura branch tucked between them. In the other—a letter he never sent.
He scanned the faces, heart pounding with every stranger who wasn’t her.
And then—
Yui.
She looked thinner, paler, but her eyes glowed the same. Her suitcase bumped behind her as she stepped into view.
He didn’t move at first. He just stared, caught between disbelief and joy.
She spotted him, slowed.
Then broke into a smile.
He ran to her.
She dropped her suitcase and they collided in a quiet, breathless hug. No words. Just warmth.
No music.
Just them.

---
Later that afternoon, they sat beneath the blooming sakura trees by the riverbank—the same place they had once shared bento lunches and notebooks full of unfinished lyrics.
Ren offered her the flowers. She pressed them to her nose, eyes shimmering.
“I missed this smell,” she whispered.
He looked at her. “How long are you staying?”
She hesitated. “Just ten days.”
Ren nodded, his fingers curling slightly around the grass. “That’s enough time to write something new.”
She turned to him. “That’s why I came back.”

---
The next week passed like a dream.
They returned to the old music room—now a little more worn, the piano more out of tune. But to them, it felt sacred.
Yui hummed into her mic, barefoot, while Ren played. They barely spoke when they wrote. They didn’t need to. Their eyes spoke in measures and bars.
They called the new piece "Starlight Bridge."
A song about distance, but also reunion.
About promises kept.

---
One evening, under the flickering glow of the streetlights, Yui asked, “Do you still have the letter you never sent?”
Ren blinked. “Which one?”
“The one you wrote after I disappeared for ten days last winter.”
He hesitated. Then nodded.
She held out her hand. “Let me read it.”
He handed it over.
She read slowly, silently. When she finished, she folded it and held it to her chest.
“I thought I didn’t deserve you,” she said quietly. “Back then.”
Ren took her hand.
“I waited,” he said. “Not because I had to. But because I wanted to.”
She looked at him.
“I’m not perfect,” she said.
“I never wrote a song about perfect,” he replied. “Only true.”

---
On her last night in Tokyo, they performed "Starlight Bridge" in a small café where they’d once dreamed of debuting.
The room was full. Not with strangers—but with people they had touched. Friends. Teachers. Fans.
Yui’s voice trembled on the final verse:
> "And even if we fade with dawn, Your light will carry me beyond."


Ren’s violin followed with a soft solo that left the room in silence.
When it ended, the applause came like rain.
Yui turned to him, eyes wet.
“I’m not saying goodbye,” she whispered.
“I’m not letting go,” he answered.

---
As she boarded her return flight, Ren stood watching through the glass.
He didn’t cry.
Because he knew now—
Their song wasn’t over.
Just turning a page.