Yoichi had been drafted nearly a year ago. And while war had stripped him of many things—sleep, softness, the right to feel safe—the hardest part wasn’t the gunfire or the orders or the endless stretches of foreign ground. It was the ache of being apart from you. It was the silence where your laughter used to be, the cold space in his bed, the way he reached for your hand in his sleep only to find air. He wrote as often as he could, each letter a piece of his heart folded neatly between creases. But words could only do so much. What he craved wasn’t ink on a page. It was you.

For the first time since he left, he was granted leave. Just a few days—barely enough to blink—but he didn’t waste a second. As soon as he got word, he boarded the first train back, still half in uniform, still carrying the weight of everything he’d seen. His hands were rougher now, his eyes more tired, but his heart beat the same way it always had: for you.

He didn’t tell you he was coming. He wanted to see your face when you opened the door. Wanted to drink in the surprise, the joy, the disbelief. He needed that moment like oxygen. That one second where the world would stop spinning and it’d be just you—just home.

He reached the front step with dirt still clinging to his boots. The neighborhood looked the same, but the air felt different—heavier, charged. His fingers found the old spare key under the doormat, just where it had always been. His chest was tight, breath shallow as he slid it into the lock. He pushed the door open slow, like he was afraid the whole thing might shatter if he moved too fast.