Chapter 5: Letters in the Wind

Hanami left on a Thursday morning.

I didn’t go to the train station. She didn’t ask me to, and I wasn’t brave enough to offer. Instead, I woke up early and stood by my window, watching the sky lighten into a pale winter blue. Somewhere beyond the roofs and the cold haze, she was stepping into a different town, a different street, a different life. The thought made my chest feel strangely hollow.

We had promised to write.

Not text.

Not calls.

Not messages that disappear as quickly as they arrive.

Letters.

Ink.

Paper.

Something you could hold, something real enough to feel.

Her first one came quicker than I expected.

I found the pale envelope in the mailbox after school. My name was written in her careful handwriting, sharp at the corners, soft at the ends. I didn’t even wait until I got home. I tore it open right there on the sidewalk, cold wind brushing my hands.

Dear Kosuke,

The streets here are wider than I imagined. Everything feels empty without a familiar face. I keep turning, expecting you to be there, pointing out something small I didn’t notice. I didn’t realize how much I relied on your voice until I couldn’t hear it anymore.

I read that line three times.

Then I read the whole letter again.

At home, I sat at my desk and stared at a blank sheet of paper for so long the sky outside turned dark. Words finally came—slow, hesitant, but honest.

Hanami,

The stars looked clearer tonight. You probably can’t see them from your new place because of the city lights, but I saw Orion when I walked home. The air was cold enough to sting, but it made the sky look sharper. I kept thinking about how much you liked hearing me talk about constellations. So I looked at the stars for both of us.

I didn’t know if the letter sounded stupid. Or awkward. Or overly sentimental.

But when I sealed it, I felt lighter.

And that became our pattern.

Her letters arrived every few days.

Sometimes short.

Sometimes pages long.

She sent sketches too.

Not grand pieces—just little slices of her new world:

A bakery window with warm lights.

A stray cat sitting on a mailbox.

The view from her new bedroom—rooftops that sloped like open hands.

A boy flying a kite in a park.

Under each drawing, she wrote a few words.

This reminded me of the way you look at the sky.

You’d like this place. It feels calm inside my chest.

I wish you were here to see this with me.

I kept every piece of paper she sent.

Stuffed them into a shoebox under my bed.

Sometimes I reread them when the nights felt too quiet.

Writing back became the rhythm of my days.

I told her about the weather.

About classes.

About the teacher who talked too fast.

About the library, which felt colder without her.

About a snowflake that landed on my palm and melted before I could admire it.

But most of all, I wrote about the sky.

Tonight the moon is thin. I think you’d call it shy.

There was a meteor shower yesterday. I stayed out longer than I should have. I kept wishing you could see it too.

Winter sunsets feel lonelier than I thought. Maybe because you’re not here.

I never planned to write these things.

They just slipped out.

Distance does strange things—it makes you say what you’re too afraid to say out loud.

One afternoon, after a week of silence from her side, a thicker envelope arrived. Inside was a sketch that took my breath for a second.

It was… me.

Sitting by the library window.

Looking at the snow falling outside.

My hand resting near hers on the wooden table.

Her sketch caught the quiet so perfectly that my throat tightened.

Below it she had written:

This is the moment I miss most.

I sat there for a long time, staring at the drawing.

The snow outside that day had been soft and gentle, like it was trying not to disturb us. Somehow she had captured that feeling exactly.

I didn’t realize I was smiling until my cheeks hurt a little.

But the more we wrote, the more I noticed something strange happening inside me.

I started pretending the distance wasn’t real.

Her letters made it feel like she was just down the street, like she might walk through the library doors at any moment and sit across from me again. I held onto that illusion so tightly that sometimes I forgot she was living a whole different set of days without me.

And I wondered if she was pretending too.

One night, after I finished replying to her latest letter, I caught myself whispering her name into the quiet room. It felt foolish. It felt hopeful. It felt like something I shouldn’t admit even to myself.

But I missed her.

More than I knew how to say.

More than any letter could hold.

I didn’t know what she was feeling on her side of the distance.

If she was making new routines without me.

If her new town was starting to feel like home.

If she was forgetting the sound of my voice.

But whenever I opened my mailbox and saw her handwriting, it felt like a small piece of winter warmed for a moment. Like she was sending part of herself through the wind, and it found its way to me every time.

Letters aren’t the same as being together.

I knew that.

She knew that.

But as the weeks passed, those quiet exchanges became the place where we met.

Not in the library.

Not under the first snow.

Not in the hallways we used to walk together.

But in ink.

And paper.

And the space between our words.

It wasn’t the same.

But it was enough.

At least for now.