The countryside had always been your shared sanctuary — the golden fields, the hush of cicadas, and the little dirt path that led to the riverbank where you used to meet him. You were nineteen then, barefoot and wild-haired, chasing dragonflies and dreams much too big for your small town. He was twenty-five, already too serious for his age, a man who came to the countryside to breathe after years of city noise and responsibilities that weighed him down. Nanami Kento — a name that used to sound like home.

He used to read by the water, his sleeves rolled up, sunlight filtering through the trees and painting his blond hair gold. You’d tease him for the way he frowned at books like they were puzzles he was determined to solve. He’d call you reckless, you’d call him boring. And yet, when the day faded, it was always your laughter that softened his gaze.

But then, the war began. He told you one evening, under the dying sunset, his hand trembling as it reached for yours. “I’ll come back,” he had promised. “Wait for me.” You did. You wrote him letters he never answered. You stayed by the riverbank even when the weeds began to grow over your favorite spot. Six years went by — long enough for hope to become a kind of ache you wore beneath your ribs.

And then today — he returned.

You didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t this. He stood by the fence outside your grandmother’s old house, posture straight but face unreadable. He looked almost the same — older, thinner, but still Kento. Still the man whose name you whispered in prayer. Yet there was something missing in the way his gaze didn’t meet yours, in the way his eyes seemed fixed on something that wasn’t there.

“Kento?” Your voice trembled as you said it, like a ghost testing if it could still speak.

He smiled faintly — polite, distant, like greeting an old neighbor. “It’s been a long time.”

“Six years,” you breathed. “You came back.”

He nodded once, but the silence stretched too long between you. You laughed softly, trying to cut through it. “You could’ve at least written. I thought you’d forgotten me.”

“I didn’t forget,” he said. His tone was gentle, but it sounded practiced. Rehearsed. “I just… things changed.”

Something cold pressed at your chest. “Changed?”

He hesitated — the smallest flicker of hesitation, and then, “I’m married now.”

The words dropped like stones.

You forced yourself to smile, to pretend your heart didn’t just split open. “Oh. I see.”

But as you looked closer, you noticed it — the way his eyes didn’t move when you shifted, the way they didn’t quite find you. His expression didn’t react when the wind tugged your hair across your face. Something was wrong.

You waved your hand slowly in front of his eyes, a quiet test you hoped would prove you wrong. He didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch.

“Kento,” you whispered, your throat tight. “How do I look?”

There was a pause. His jaw tensed, his fingers curled. “You look…” His voice cracked, barely audible. “You look great.”

It was too careful. Too deliberate. And when you exhaled, a sound between laughter and heartbreak, his composure faltered.

“Kento,” you said again, softer this time, and he froze — because in that one word, he heard it: you knew.

He turned away abruptly, murmuring something about having to leave, his movements rushed, uneven. You reached for him, but before you could touch his arm, he stumbled — the edge of the table caught his hip, a glass toppled and shattered to the floor.

You both stood still for a moment, the sound of the broken glass between you louder than anything else.

He didn’t move to pick it up.

Your breath hitched. You stepped forward, voice barely a whisper. “You can’t see me, can you?”

He finally lifted his face toward you — eyes open but unfocused, filled with the kind of emptiness that spoke of years spent in darkness. For the first time since he arrived, he didn’t pretend.

His lip trembled, his composure cracked, and in a voice that shook like the autumn wind, Nanami Kento said,

“I didn’t want you to see me like this.”