The sky wept all night.
By morning, puddles lined every street corner like tired silver mirrors. Rain clung to signs, windows, telephone wires—too gentle to storm, too persistent to ignore.
Roastery Gekkō opened under gray light and the damp scent of wet cement. The bell above the door rang out into emptiness.
Riku was already there.
Earlier than usual.
Not out of necessity—he had the keys, he made the schedule—but because sleep had become unfamiliar. Not restless from noise, but from silence.
A silence that lingered after the jazz faded.
After the customers left.
After Sakura whispered, "I still don't know."
---
He moved through the opening routines without rhythm.
No humming under his breath.
No quiet scat lines tucked into breathy exhales.
No off-key humming of Coltrane.
Just silence. And cloth. And stainless steel.
He didn't notice Ayumu until the younger barista cleared his throat from behind the grinder.
"You okay, senpai?" he asked, adjusting the collar of his apron.
Riku blinked. "Yeah. Just… morning fog."
Ayumu glanced toward the machine. "You didn't order your sweet potato latte today."
Riku paused.
Right.
He hadn't.
It had become his own quiet ritual—a warm, ugly comfort that reminded him of a night he never told anyone about. A drink born of necessity, stubbornness, and broken lightbulbs.
But today?
Even that felt wrong.
"Not in the mood," he said, voice soft, eyes unfocused.
Ayumu nodded without pressing. Riku liked that about him.
The kid knew when to let silence speak.
---
Sakura didn't come.
Not at 9:32, when the morning crowd ebbed.
Not at 10:06, when the light softened near her corner window.
Not even in the strange hour before lunch, when she sometimes slipped in quietly like a whisper.
The seat by the window stayed empty.
And Riku kept checking the clock, not because he expected her to show up—but because some part of him believed she might.
Time stretched like taffy. Every tick louder than the jazz.
Even the music felt off.
Too brassy. Too cheerful. Not enough weight.
He muted it without telling Ayumu.
---
By noon, he took his break.
Not on the roof. Not in the alley.
Just inside, in the storeroom—legs bent awkwardly between a box of extra napkins and a crate of bottled syrup.
A paper cup sat in his hands.
Steam drifted from it in lazy swirls.
Sweet potato.
He hadn't meant to make it.
His hands had moved on their own.
Muscle memory. Nostalgia. Longing.
The first sip pulled him backwards—years and streets and mistakes ago.
Back to twenty-four.
To his first café, the one he tried to build from dreams and duct tape.
The one with the leaky ceiling and sticky counters.
Back to a cold night with unpaid bills stacked like sandbags.
With one cup of milk left.
One packet of puréed sweet potato.
And no customers left to disappoint.
He'd sat on that floor, drinking this same blend, half-laughing at his own stupidity.
It was raining that night too.
---
The bell rang.
Slow. Uneager.
Not the clip of a customer. Not the shuffle of a stranger.
Just… presence.
Footsteps. Light. Careful.
Riku didn't move.
He knew.
Then her voice, soft and level as ever, floated in behind him.
"I didn't come this morning."
"I noticed," he said, not turning around.
"I had class. Then a seminar. Then lunch. Then I sat on the train and let it loop six times."
He turned.
Sakura stood by the stacked crates, umbrella collapsed, hair a little damp at the ends. Her coat clung to her arms, raindrops glinting on the fabric.
She looked like a page left out in the weather too long.
"I thought about your dream," she said. "The sketch. The books. The corner table."
His fingers tightened around the cup.
"And?" he asked, voice careful.
"I thought it was romantic," she admitted. "Then I thought it was unrealistic. Then I thought… maybe it's just lonely."
That hit harder than he'd expected.
He looked down.
Let the silence settle.
Then said, "It was lonely. Until you sat there."
She inhaled, soft and shallow.
"I don't know how to be part of someone else's life," she said quietly.
"That's fine," he replied. "I don't know how to ask someone to stay."
The air thickened—not with tension, but with understanding.
No flinch. No flash.
Just the ache of two people telling the truth.
Then, she walked forward.
Closed the space.
Sat beside him.
Not across from him.
Beside him.
Their shoulders brushed.
Neither moved away.
---
For a long time, they just sat.
No music. No sound but the faint tick of the café clock.
The soft settling of rain on glass.
The shared breath of two people not quite healed, not quite broken.
Sakura tilted her head, eyes falling to the cup in his hands.
"…Is that?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Sweet potato. You remember."
"I couldn't forget," she said. "It was disgusting."
He barked out a real laugh.
She let herself smile.
It was small.
But it stayed.
---
Later, when she got home, she moved slowly.
Her fingers lingered under warm water at the sink, watching soap swirl down the drain like clouds breaking apart.
Her phone buzzed against the counter.
She dried her hands.
Picked it up.
____________•••____________
One Plus
You are one plus away from remembering why it matters.
____________•••____________
She stared at the screen.
Didn't swipe.
Didn't lock it.
Just… stood there.
Then, for the first time, she smiled at the message.
Not because she understood it.
But because, somehow, it felt like it was smiling back.