Chapter 6: The Long Winter Train Ride

I didn’t plan the visit.

It happened the same way snow starts falling—without warning, without permission, without asking whether it was a good idea. One moment I was rereading Hanami’s latest letter, her soft handwriting looping across the page about how the koto club practiced right under her classroom. The next moment I was standing at the station, breath warm in the cold air, buying a ticket to her new town.

The sky was already dim.

A soft gray sank into everything, washing the world in quiet tones. Snow drifted down like pale feathers, thick enough to blur the buildings across the tracks. Winter was settling in.

I stepped onto the train just as the doors slid closed.

The inside was mostly empty. A few tired commuters. A mother with a sleeping child. A student nodding over a textbook. I chose a window seat, pressing my hand to the cold glass.

As the train pulled out, the snowy fields stretched into long, white lines. Houses flickered by like memories you see but can’t touch.

I leaned back and let out a slow breath.

“What am I even going to say to her?”

My voice was barely above a whisper, but in the quiet car, even my doubts echoed.

I took out her latest letter, the one I had folded and unfolded so many times the edges were starting to fray.

Kosuke,

I saw the first plum blossoms today, even though it’s still freezing. I thought they were brave. I wish we could see them together.

Do you still watch the stars every night? I hope you do. It makes me feel less far away.

—Hanami

I traced the last line with my thumb.

Every time she wrote about distance, she softened the word. She never said it bluntly. Never said far. Never said apart. She phrased it like she was trying to protect something delicate.

But distance is distance no matter how gently you speak it.

The train slowed with a sudden jolt.

A crackling announcement followed:

“Due to heavy snowfall, we will experience delays. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

A murmur passed through the carriage.

I just closed my eyes.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

Maybe showing up out of nowhere would make things worse.

Maybe she had already started settling into her new days—days without me.

My chest tightened.

I imagined her surprise. Her confusion.

Or worse—her polite smile.

The one she used when she didn’t want to hurt someone.

I shook the thought away and looked out the window.

The snow was falling harder now. Thick clusters of white spiraled in the train’s lights, and the tracks ahead looked half-covered, like the world was trying to slow me down on purpose.

Every delay added another layer of doubt.

Twenty minutes passed.

Then thirty.

Then an announcement about another stalled train ahead.

The air inside felt heavy.

I leaned my forehead against the window and watched the landscape blur into soft smudges of white and gray. For a moment, my reflection stared back at me—thin, tired, unsure.

“Hanami…” I whispered her name like a question.

What did I want to tell her?

That I missed her?

She already knew.

That her letters filled my days more than they should?

She probably knew that too.

That the space she left behind felt too big sometimes?

That was harder.

That I wished she hadn’t moved?

That might sound selfish.

What I really wanted to tell her felt too big to fit in a single sentence, too fragile to risk breaking with the wrong tone.

The truth sat quietly in my chest:

I didn’t want to be a memory she wrote about in letters.

I wanted to stand beside her again.

To hear her voice without paper in between.

Another announcement.

More delays.

The train groaned to life again, inching forward.

I took a deep breath and pulled her sketch of me from my bag—the one she drew by the library window. My face was turned toward the falling snow, caught in that peaceful moment I didn’t know she was watching back then.

I remembered that day so clearly.

The quiet.

The calm.

The feeling of belonging without needing to say it.

Something in me softened.

“I need to see her,” I murmured.

Not because I had the perfect words.

Not because I thought I could fix the distance.

But because some feelings can’t survive if you keep them folded inside envelopes.

Because winter is long, and I didn’t want this silence to grow into something that would swallow us.

The train finally began to move steadily.

Lights of small towns passed by like blinking fireflies. Snow thickened outside, covering everything—tracks, roads, rooftops, even the sky itself. It felt like I was traveling through a dream I wasn’t sure I’d wake up from.

But through all the doubts and delays, one thought stayed clear:

I wanted to stand in front of her.

Hear her voice.

See her eyes.

Know if she felt the same ache I did.

A part of me was afraid it was already too late.

Afraid she had grown comfortable in her new life.

Afraid she only missed the idea of me.

Afraid that when she saw me, something between us would feel different.

But I still stayed on the train.

Because even if winter makes everything slower, even if the journey takes longer than expected, there are some people you keep moving toward.

No matter how many delays there are.

No matter how uncertain the destination feels.

As the train approached her town, I tightened my grip on her letter, took a shaky breath, and whispered to myself:

“Please… let her still be waiting.”