The next morning arrived… quietly.
No fireworks.
No music.
No glowing lanterns, no goldfish running past my feet.
Just a muted, overcast sky hanging low over Osaka, like the world itself didn't quite want to wake up.
Even the trains seemed slower, more reluctant, their distant rumbling like the sound of a long sigh echoing between tired buildings.
I stood at the station platform with my backpack slung over one shoulder, hands in my jacket pockets, watching people shuffle past like clockwork puppets. No one looked up. No one noticed anyone.
Maybe I had become one of them again.
Ordinary.
Invisible.
But something inside me felt different.
Like I'd just stepped out of a dream and hadn't fully returned yet.
---
I had found my friends again.
Or rather… they had found me.
Completely by accident. Just like everything else on this strange trip.
One moment I was walking back toward the hostel, and the next I heard someone yell my name across the street—loud, sloppy, familiar.
It was them.
Laughing, cursing, throwing their arms around me like I'd risen from the dead. One of them almost cried, but turned it into a joke last second. Another shoved an energy drink into my hand like it was an apology for leaving me behind.
I didn't explain much.
Didn't need to.
I just said, "I met someone."
And of course, they all smirked. Nudged each other. Slapped my back like guys always do when they want to say more but don't know how.
They didn't ask about her.
Maybe they could tell not to.
Maybe I didn't want to share that part.
Some things don't belong in the group chat.
---
Now I was here.
Platform 5. Mid-morning.
Tokyo-bound train just minutes away.
I wasn't thinking about them.
Not even about the flight we had to catch tomorrow.
No.
My thoughts were somewhere else entirely.
They were with her.
Yui.
---
She stood across from me.
Holding a small yellow tote bag and a neatly folded umbrella.
She wasn't crying.
Wasn't dramatic.
She just stood there with that same quiet presence she always carried—like a breeze that doesn't ruffle your hair but stays with you after it's gone.
Like a favorite song without lyrics.
We didn't need music this time. The silence was loud enough.
We had come here together.
But we were leaving separately.
The kind of thing you always expect to feel more cinematic.
But this wasn't a movie.
This was real.
And real goodbyes don't come with violins or final kisses under fireworks.
Sometimes, all you get is a platform and too many things left unsaid.
---
She looked up at me. Eyes soft.
Then slowly reached into her bag and pulled something out.
A small white envelope.
Clean. Uncreased. Handwritten.
She held it out, and I took it with both hands like it might break if I wasn't careful.
On the front, written in large, careful, blocky English letters:
"Shiyamu."
She didn't smile.
But her eyes did.
Her fingers danced across her phone screen one more time.
She turned it to me.
"Read it after you go. Not now."
I nodded. Said nothing. Words felt too big. Too heavy.
There was a pause.
That kind of silence that feels like it's asking a question you don't know how to answer.
So I reached into my pocket.
Fumbled for a pen I barely remembered packing.
Pulled out the Osaka train ticket I'd used when we first got here—the one I almost threw away last night.
And I wrote something on the back.
Only one line.
No big goodbye.
No explanation.
Just the truth.
I handed it to her.
She read it.
And then, finally, she smiled.
Not the small, polite one.
The real one.
The one I'd remember every time I looked at a paper lantern or smelled matcha again.
She folded the ticket.
Tucked it gently into her tote bag like it was something precious.
She didn't ask me to translate it.
She didn't need to.
---
The train arrived.
Doors opened with a soft hiss, and a gust of air brushed past us.
I turned toward the sound.
Felt my feet move forward even though my heart was still standing on the other side of the platform.
I stepped in.
Turned around.
She was still there.
Standing exactly where I'd left her.
One hand holding the yellow tote. The other… lifted in a small wave.
I raised my hand too.
But I didn't wave.
Not exactly.
I let it linger in the air—part goodbye, part thank you, part please remember me.
I don't know what she saw in my eyes.
But I saw something in hers.
A flicker of something warm and wordless.
The kind of look that stays long after the person is gone.
---
The train doors closed.
The platform slid past in a blur of grey tiles and glass reflections.
She didn't chase the train.
She didn't run alongside it.
She just stood still.
Calm.
Like she knew chasing wouldn't change anything.
Like she had already said everything she needed to say.
And then…
She was gone.
---
Back in Tokyo, that night…
I sat in the dim hostel room, surrounded by the low hum of other travelers unpacking or scrolling through their phones.
The window was cracked open, letting in the sticky Tokyo air.
Everything felt familiar again.
But I wasn't the same.
I reached into my backpack.
Pulled out the envelope.
Held it in my hands for a few seconds.
Then opened it.
Inside was a single square of paper.
Folded neatly.
I unfolded it with care, fingers trembling a little like I already knew it wasn't going to be just a note.
And I was right.
It wasn't a letter.
It was a sketch.
Drawn in pencil.
Of me.
Sitting on a rooftop.
Looking at the stars.
Alone, but not lonely.
My hoodie was a little off. The hair not quite perfect.
But the feeling…
It was exactly me.
Exactly how she saw me.
And beneath the sketch, in small, careful handwriting, were just seven words:
"You were my favorite stranger."
—Yui
---
I stared at the drawing for a long time.
Longer than I expected.
Because somehow, that picture said more than anything I could've written on a train ticket.
I leaned back on the bed, holding the sketch against my chest.
Eyes closed.
Breathing slow.
Trying to remember everything—her laugh, her eyes, the way her fingers moved when she typed.
Trying to hold onto the memory before it started fading like everything else we leave behind on trips that change us.
---
My phone buzzed softly beside me.
A new notification.
I turned the screen over.
And there it was.
One Plus Notification
____________•••____________
You are one plus away…
From a memory you'll never want to forget.
____________•••____________