Chapter 40: The Thread Pulls Tight

POV: Hana Kimura

The seventh night smelled like cedar and cold wind.

Dinner dishes had been washed and stacked, my brothers had retreated to their rooms, and the house had fallen into the gentle quiet that always came after winter sunsets here. The kind of quiet Tokyo never allowed.

I sat on my childhood bed, wrapped in an old quilt my mother had stitched when I was twelve. The familiar hum of her workshop downstairs buzzed faintly through the floorboards—a lullaby I hadn’t heard in years.

Seven days.

Seven days since I’d left Tokyo.

Seven days of pretending that everything around me wasn’t shaped like the absence of one particular man.

I held my phone, staring at the last message I’d sent him.

I arrived safely. Thank you.

He hadn’t responded.

Of course he hadn’t.

He was busy saving both our reputations. Working through board meetings. Facing investors. Putting out fires I accidentally helped ignite.

He wasn’t ignoring me—

just… surviving in a world far bigger than mine.

Still, a small ache pressed against my ribs.

I shouldn’t bother him.

I shouldn’t intrude.

I shouldn’t—

My thumb moved before I could think.

Me:

Are you doing okay? You look tired in the last press photo.

The moment I hit send, regret detonated in my chest.

What was I thinking?

Why did I say it like that?

I buried my face in my hands, mortified.

He wouldn’t reply.

He couldn’t.

He was—

My phone chimed.

I froze.

A message.

From him.

Kaito Minami:

I’m managing. When will you return?

Not formal.

Not distant.

Not restrained enough.

My breath hitched.

He had been waiting.

Maybe not consciously, maybe not desperately—but still waiting.

I typed carefully, forcing myself to keep my fingers steady.

Me:

Maybe tomorrow. Mom wants me to stay one more night, but… I think I’m ready to come back.

For a long moment, no reply.

I set the phone on my desk and tried to exhale the tension out of my shoulders.

Through the window, light snow drifted across the street—soft, quiet, gentle. The type of snow we used to get every winter. I leaned closer to the glass to watch it fall.

That’s when I saw him.

Or—I thought I did.

A tall figure stood near the end of the street, just barely under the glow of the lamppost. Bundled in a dark coat, posture straight, head tilted toward my house.

He wasn’t moving.

Not walking, not waiting for a bus.

Just… standing there.

Watching.

A chill crawled down my spine.

Tokyo was hours away.

And yet—

No.

It couldn’t be him.

He wouldn’t come all this way without—

The figure shifted, turning slightly, and for one breathless second—

Something about the way he held his shoulders.

The line of his jaw beneath the mask.

The stillness.

Kaito.

It felt impossible.

My heart slammed into my ribs so hard it hurt.

Before I could react, before I could rush downstairs and fling open the door—

He stepped away into the shadows.

Gone.

As if he had never been there at all.

“Hana?”

Mom’s voice floated through the hallway, soft and concerned. “Are you still awake?”

I swallowed, tearing my eyes from the window.

“Yes, just… just getting ready for bed.”

She lingered, as though she sensed something stirring.

But she didn’t push.

The floor creaked as she returned downstairs.

I pressed my forehead against the cool glass.

Why would he come here?

Why wouldn’t he tell me?

Why stand outside in the cold just to leave?

I sank back onto my bed, heart racing.

My phone buzzed again.

Kaito Minami:

Tomorrow is fine.

Nothing more.

But I could feel the weight beneath the words—the careful control, the unspoken relief, the exhaustion bleeding through the gray edges.

He didn’t know I’d seen him.

He didn’t know he hadn’t hidden well enough.

He didn’t know how close I had come to running outside.

I lay down beneath the quilt, the snow still drifting outside, and closed my eyes.

Tomorrow.

I would return.

And the thread—

thin, gray, fragile—

would finally shorten again.

But now I understood something I hadn’t before.

He hadn’t just been waiting.

He had been watching over me.

Quietly.

From however many miles away.

As I drifted toward sleep, the image of him under the lamppost stayed with me—

a silhouette drawn in gray,

standing at the edge of my bright little world.

And for the first time all week…

I didn’t feel alone.