Chapter 10: Ocean Without Sight

—Because some things are too big for words, and I’m the idiot who tries anyway.

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There are two reasons people go to the ocean:

1. To escape.

2. To pretend the horizon means something.

I wasn’t here for either.

I was here because a blind girl wrote three words on a diner napkin, and somehow that became my religion.

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The sea smelled like salt and secrets. Wind slapped my face like an unpaid debt. Waves crashed against the shore in slow, endless violence.

And there she was.

Yume. Standing barefoot at the edge of the world like she owned it. Arms out. Hair whipping wild around her face. Laughing like she’d just robbed God and gotten away with it.

I watched her run across the sand, her shoes dangling from one hand, her feet sinking into wet earth like she belonged more here than anywhere.

For someone who couldn’t see, she moved like she could. Like the dark didn’t scare her because it had always been home.

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“You’re quiet,” she called, spinning toward my voice.

“Observing,” I said.

“Sounds creepy.”

“Accurate,” I admitted.

She laughed again. It blended with the wind, the waves, everything. For a second, the world didn’t feel like it was falling apart.

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She turned back toward the ocean, her smile softening.

> “Describe it to me.”

“The ocean?”

“No, the giant puddle behind you. Yes, the ocean, idiot.”

I walked closer, hands in my pockets, heart doing that thing where it pretends it’s not panicking.

“…Blue,” I said. Brilliant start, Kazuki. Nobel Prize material.

She raised an eyebrow. “Wow. Vivid. Stunning. A true poet.”

I sighed. “Shut up. I’m thinking.”

I stared at the water. The horizon stretched like infinity forgot to end. The waves rolled in and out like the world’s slowest heartbeat.

“It’s…” The words crawled out like they didn’t want to.

“…It’s like someone took every shade of blue and smashed them together until they started fighting. And under the sunlight, it looks alive. Like it’s breathing.”

I stopped. That was… the most I’ve ever said about anything that wasn’t punching someone.

She didn’t laugh this time. Just smiled.

> “That sounds… beautiful.”

“It’s not bad,” I muttered, because admitting things is dangerous.

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She walked forward until the water kissed her toes. Gasped at the cold, then laughed again. A real laugh—loud, messy, alive.

I wanted to bottle that sound. Smash it into my bones so I’d never forget.

She turned back toward me, arms still wide.

> “Kazuki… if this was the last thing I ever heard…”

Her voice dropped. Quieter than the tide.

> “I think I’d be okay.”

Something in me cracked like a cheap glass under boiling water.

I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets so she wouldn’t see them shake. Then I clenched my fists in the sand until it dug into my skin, grounding me in the only way I know how.

Because what do you say to that?

Nothing. You don’t say anything.

You just… swear silently to burn down the world if it means she doesn’t get to say goodbye that soon.

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We sat after that. Side by side. The ocean in front of us, stretching out like a promise neither of us believed in.

She leaned her head on my shoulder without asking. And I let her.

Because maybe this was her dream. And maybe… it was mine too.

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When the sun started bleeding orange into the waves, we still didn’t move.

And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like fighting.

I just felt like staying.

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