Chapter 1.3
The bookstore's overhead lights flickered once, a dim buzz that almost went unnoticed beneath the murmured conversations and the soft rustle of turning pages. Ayame Takigawa stood behind a folding table with a stack of books beside her, sharp black font etched into the snowy covers. Her name stared up at her from each one.
She smiled when readers approached. Signed with graceful strokes. Nodded politely at the compliments. But her eyes never fully lifted.
"Your descriptions feel like dreams," one woman said. "Like I've been there."
Ayame smiled again. "Thank you."
The reading had gone smoothly—at least outwardly. She had read through the first chapter, her voice low but steady, even as her hands trembled under the table. Her editor, standing near the back of the small crowd, gave a faint thumbs up.
The pressure hadn't eased.
---
Her phone buzzed just after she got home.
Ren: "You better not work through the New Year again."
She stared at the screen.
Ren: "Ayame-neesan. Seriously. Come home. Even Mom's asking."
Even Mom.
Ayame typed a reply, deleted it. Rewrote a new one. Then I didn't send it.
She dropped the phone onto the floor beside the couch and curled it into herself, a blanket clutched tight around her shoulders. The apartment buzzed with the dim hum of the fridge and the soft drip from a tap she hadn't fixed. Shadows pressed in along the edges of the bookshelves, reaching down.
She pressed her palms over her eyes.
Her chest hurts.
Not sharply. Not suddenly. Just full. Tight.
She hadn't cried during the reading. Or when her editor, after applause, mentioned gently that her second draft lacked urgency.
"You're good at quiet, Ayame. But quiet needs contrast. Something raw. Real."
Raw.
Ayame breathed slowly, her teeth clenched. She didn't know how to be raw anymore. Her words felt like masks—pages folded into shapes that only resembled something alive.
She reached for her tea. It was cold again.
---
Later, she stood on the balcony.
The city was a lattice of fog and neon. Quiet this high up. The street below was far enough to seem unreal—tiny people walking beneath umbrellas, tiny headlights threading through puddles.
And there again.
A cat. White as untouched snow. Sitting on the rail across from her, her back straight, her tail curled over its paws.
It's eyes meet hers. Blue. Deep. Unblinking.
"Are you following me?" she whispered.
It didn't move.
She blinked.
It was still there.
Then, to her surprise, it leapt silently from the railing and landed gracefully on her side of the balcony. Ayame took a cautious step back.
The cat approached without hesitation, brushing against her legs with a low, warm purr. It looked up at her, blinking slowly, like it had been waiting all day just for this.
"Meowr…" The cat said to her softly.
"Bold little thing," she murmured, crouching.
It responded by pushing its head into her palm. "I'm still curious how you can appear like this to me and vanish so quickly…" She mumbles in her breath.
She stroked its fur—softer than anything she expected, and warm, impossibly warm despite the winter wind. It purred louder, its tail curling around her arm as if to say, I found you.
A laugh escaped her, quiet and broken, the kind of sound that trembled at the edge of tears as she crouched down at the cat's level.
The cat nudged her cheek. Before slowly circling around her feet one more time with its tail lingering at her skin.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, it slowly walked away and bounded back to the opposite rail with one effortless leap and vanished over the ledge.
Ayame stood there for a while, her hand still outstretched, the ghost of warmth lingering on her skin.
She didn't go back inside right away.
---
Work emails stack up. She answered them all. Briefly. Formally.
She stared at her open draft. Deleted a paragraph. Rewrote a sentence. Deleted it again.
Her laptop's screen reflected her face—tired, pale, framed by loose strands of hair she hadn't bothered to fix. She leaned closer, squinting at herself. At the faint smudge of fatigue under her eyes. When she was ten, climbing the garden wall to rescue a kitten, she had been too warm from such little things, despite countless times of being scratched and bruised in the process.
She didn't remember crying then.
She didn't remember much.
Her fingers hovered over the keys.
A bell in the snow. A whisper like frost.
Too vague. Too dreamlike.
She pressed delete.
---
Noa called once during the week. Ayame didn't answer. The voicemail was short.
"You promised me, remember? You said if you started drifting again, I could pull you back. Let me."
Ayame listened twice. Then deleted it.
She curled up on the couch and stared at the ceiling. The water stain near the light fixture looked a little like a mountain peak. Maybe.
Outside, the wind howled faintly.
---
Her notebook is filled with fragments.
A figure in the storm.
She walked until the snow forgot her name.
Eyes like glass that remember everything.
She didn't know who the woman was.
But she kept writing to her.
---
Ren texted again on Friday.
Ren: "We're going to the shrine this year. The big one near the old cedar. Remember?"
Ren: "I'll save you a fortune slip."
She stared at the message.
Typed: "Thanks."
Didn't send it.
The words weren't enough. Nothing was.
---
That night, she dreamed of snow.
Of footsteps behind her that didn't leave any print.
Of a bell. Distant. Beckoning.
And eyes—blue and burning cold—watching her from the edge of a world she couldn't name.
End of Chapter 3 — A Paper Fortress