Chapter 42 : The Questions They Can’t Escape

Hanami’s POV

The river looked almost unreal at night, the city lights trembling on the surface like scattered memories. We walked side by side, close enough that our shoulders nearly touched, yet far enough that the space between us felt like its own world.

I kept glancing at him.

His new haircut suited him more than I expected. He looked younger… no, not younger—he looked like the Kosuke I remembered. The one I tried so hard to forget.

The wind brushed past us, cold enough to sting. I shoved my hands into my coat pockets and forced myself to speak.

“Kosuke… did you ever get married?”

His steps slowed. He didn’t look at me at first. Then he shook his head.

“No.”

I waited for an explanation, but none came. The silence shook me more than the wind.

“…Why?” I asked, barely above a whisper.

It wasn’t a simple question. It was all the years, all the distance, bundled into one fragile thread.

He breathed out, long and unsteady.

“Because I couldn’t,” he said. “Not when I never stopped—”

He cut himself off, biting the rest back.

But I heard the echo of it.

And it made something inside me twist sharply.

I turned my face away.

He still cared? After all this time?

No. No, that couldn’t be. That shouldn’t be.

“What about you?” he asked, voice shaky.

I forced a smile, the kind that didn’t reach my eyes.

“I followed what my parents wanted,” I said. 

The truth hung in the air between us, too heavy, too raw.

Kosuke’s POV

Her answer hit harder than I expected.

She didn’t look at me.

She stared forward, pretending the river was more interesting than everything we were trying not to say.

I hated that she sounded resigned, as if her entire life had been pushed along by someone else’s hand.

But I also hated myself. Because I wanted to tell her the truth.

That I never stopped looking for her.

That I went to her college once, stood in the courtyard like an idiot, hoping she would walk out.

I almost said it just now.

“I never stopped—”

But the words froze halfway up my throat.

I wasn’t ready for her reaction. Not tonight. Not when she looked like she was holding herself together by the thinnest thread.

We kept walking along the riverbank. The cold made our breath visible, floating between us like pale ghosts of things unsaid.

Every few steps, our arms brushed.

Every time, she flinched but didn’t pull away.

I wanted to ask why she left.

Why she stopped answering.

Why she shut me out.

But all I managed was, “Hanami… are you okay?”

She nodded, but her eyes were shining.

A quiet, unsteady nod. Nothing more.

So we walked together in silence.

Her past beside her.

My regrets beside me.

The river reflecting everything we were too afraid to voice.

Tonight felt like a door creaking open.

But neither of us knew how to step through it.