Chapter 1.4
Ayame stood on the train platform with her coat buttoned to the throat and her hands in her pockets. The cold slipped through anyway, seeping up her spine. The early morning crowd bustled around her—office workers in dark coats, students with earbuds and half-zipped bags—but Ayame remained a stillness within it all, like a comma in the middle of a sentence.
Her phone buzzed again.
Noa: "You better say yes before I start bribing Ren."
Noa: "We're not letting you hide in your paper cave all break. Yuuta's trip is only a few weeks. Hiking, clean air, a proper reset. You need this."
Ayame typed a reply. Paused. Then sent: "Still thinking. Might visit the shrine with Ren first."
Almost instantly: "Good. Start with that. And if I have to drag you to the mountains myself, I will."
She managed a small smile.
Ayame: "Thanks, Noa."
She can't help but laugh when Noa replied with a steaming emoji back at her.
---
The shrine visit came first. A family tradition. Or what remained of one.
She changed into her kimono alone in her childhood room, the silence brushing close against the walls. The fabric felt softer than she remembered—lightweight and slightly textured, dyed in a pale, faded blue-gray that bordered on lilac depending on how the light touched it. Subtle brushwork of wind-tossed grass curved along the hem, embroidered in thread barely darker than the fabric itself—hardly visible unless one looked closely.
It wasn't one of her mother's selections. She had found it years ago in a secondhand shop tucked away near an old train station. The fabric had called to her—quiet, imperfect, but gentle. It felt like something that had belonged to someone else once. Someone thoughtful.
Her mother had still insisted.
"Since you're not home often," she had said, lips pursed. "It would be nice if you at least looked the part."
Ayame didn't argue. She never did.
As Mayumi's footsteps faded down the hall, Ayame reached for her purse with slow, habitual grace. She paused just long enough to tie her hair back, the red ribbon slipping through her fingers like a practiced ritual. The motion was instinctual, almost sacred.
Then something small slipped free and fell to the floor.
A faint metallic chime broke the stillness—a clear, silvery note that didn't belong.
Ayame stilled. Her eyes dropped to the ground.
There, resting against the edge of the tatami mat, was a small bell tied to a thin length of faded red ribbon. The kind used in omamori charms—but worn softer, older. The ribbon was not frayed from time. It looked... handled.
Ayame crouched slowly, fingers brushing the cool floor as she picked it up. The bell was light in her palm, its weight oddly warm.
Ren hadn't given her this. She knew that for certain. He would've told her. He would've smiled, eager and proud.
But she also didn't remember buying a charm herself. She turned it over in her hand, the way the ribbon curled or the glint of metal at its seam making her sigh.
A memory stirred a dreamlike world, left unfinished.
A bell ringing in the endless white landscape.
A hush in the trees and cold breeze.
A voice she had never quite heard gave her chills as she shuddered slightly.
Her brows furrowed. She looked around the quiet room, her breath shallow. Nothing moved. Nothing answered. And yet when she tugged slightly at the ribbon—just to test it—the bell rang once more.
A low, pure sound. She froze.
It was the exact tone that had followed her in dreams. In the woods. In the space between waking and not.
Ayame stood slowly, the bell clutched to her chest. She didn't tie it to her coat yet. But she didn't put it down either.
She stood in stillness for a long time.
The bell rested in her palm lightly—small, weightless, with a warmth that didn't come from her skin. She graced her thumb on the mental. It was too soft for metal, too solid for cloth.
Her fingers curled around it. She looked down at her purse.
A plain, familiar thing—scuffed edges, worn leather strap, stitched patches from years of travel. One loose thread hung near the buckle, untucked and fluttering, as though waiting to be used.
She hesitated. Then, without fully deciding, she tied the bell's ribbon to the base of the strap. A quiet knot. Loose, casual. As if it had always belonged there.
The bell gave a soft chime as it settled—delicate, not demanding. The kind of sound that disappears into silence without disturbing it.
It didn't feel like a charm. Not really.
Not like something made or given. More like something that simply… was. There was no weight to it now. Only a presence so faint, it barely touched her thoughts.
She adjusted the ribbon slightly. It didn't need to be seen. Just carried.
The bell made no sound as she walked away.
Downstairs, Ren waited in a simple navy haori, fiddling with his phone. He looked up upstairs following her figure when she entered the hall, till she reached him below the stairs and he grinned.
"You look like a main character from one of your books," he said while stepping into his zori sandals. "All tragic and beautiful."
She rolled her eyes but her lips twitched. "Don't tease me, Ren."
She replied while softly slapping his arm. Ren flinched with a soft chuckle.
"I'm complimenting you," he pouts, "Ayame-neesan, you wound me."
Their parents were already by the door. Her mother adjusted Ren's collar with a firm, practiced hand, ignoring Ayame entirely. Her father gave a nod in her direction, brief and unreadable.
They walked the quiet path up to the shrine as the first light of the day, filtered through bare branches. The snow hadn't come yet but the air held its breath like it was waiting. Their sandals followed to the stone trail echoing at the crowd with a soft crunch.
Ren chatted easily, filling the silence with stories about his university club. It was about someone he liked (Ayame wasn't sure if he meant it seriously), about how he'd started reading her latest book again even though he claimed he didn't get most of it.
While her mother, Mayumi and father, Haruki take the lead from the group in front, both of them follow closely behind.
Her father, Haruki, tall and composed as ever, wore a dark navy formal kimono with small family crests on the back near the shoulders. His pleated trousers were perfectly pressed, each step as deliberate as if he were still lecturing a classroom.
Beside him, her mother moved with more grace than warmth. She wore a pale lavender kimono—elegant and understated—with delicate silver patterns of cherry blossoms and drifting mist embroidered along the hem and sleeves. Her sash, tied neatly at the back in a square fold, was a soft silver-gray decorated with faint images of folded cranes.
Ayame's gaze lingered there—on the silk, the precision. Her mother had always worn elegance like armor.
Ren bumped her arm gently as he talked, oblivious to the shift in her attention. Ayame nodded, only half-listening now, her thoughts caught in the quiet folds of fabric and memory.
Her mother walked ahead, clicking her tongue at how late they were.
Her father said nothing at all.
---
The shrine was quiet.
Thin wisps of incense drifted into the sky. A few other families stood near the offering box. Children clutched their parents' sleeves, clapping their hands together before bowing.
Ayame followed Ren to the front, coin in hand.
"What have you wishing for?" he asked softly, elbowing her arm.
She hesitated. "I don't know."
He tilted his head. "Then wish for something selfish. Just this once."
She flicked the coin into the box. The sound echoed softly. Her hands came together—clap, clap.
Let me feel something again.
She opened her eyes and glanced sideways.
The bell on her purse chimes softly and the white cat was there.
It sat at the base of one of the stone lanterns, tail curled neatly, ears perked. Its glacier-blue eyes met hers, and something eased in her chest. The cat blinked slowly. Then padded off behind the shrine wall and vanished.
"Did you see—" she began.
But Ren was too busy laughing at something on his phone.
---
That evening, while the family sat stiffly around the low table for dinner, Noa called.
Ayame stepped outside to take it, standing by the frost-glazed camellia bush.
"I saw your post," Noa said. "You looked pretty at the shrine. Also miserable."
"You can't tell that from a photo."
"I've known you for ten years, Ayame. I can read between the pixels."
Ayame said nothing.
"So?" Noa prompted. "The trip?"
Ayame leaned against the cold wall. Her breath clouded in the air.
"I'll go," she said quietly. "But only for a while."
"Good. Yuuta's thrilled. He's pretending it's all for research, but he just wants an excuse to bring people together."
"I thought he liked you."
"He's too shy to say anything. But yeah, I know."
Ayame smiled faintly.
"Thanks," she said.
"For what?"
"For pulling me back."
Noa's voice softened. "Always."
Ayame ended the call and stood there for a long moment, eyes lifting to the sky.
A faint bell echoed in the wind. While her hands can't help clutching the cold bell in her purse.
End of Chapter 1.4 — Echoes of Stillness