Tokyo hadn’t changed much in a week, but something in the air felt off the moment I got back.

The sun was still low in the sky as I dragged my suitcase through the quiet streets. Cigarette smoke lingered at the bus stop outside the apartment, mixed with the scent of wet concrete and rust. The same smell I remembered from mornings with Aki—when he'd step out onto the balcony, hair messy, cigarette burning between his fingers, barely saying a word.

I missed even that silence.

Before I left, we fought. Something small—ridiculous, really. I think it was about the dishes, or how he always left his socks tucked under the couch. He'd rolled his eyes, I’d snapped, and he said, "We'll talk when you're back, alright?" That was the last thing. His voice in the hallway, low and tired, with just enough softness to make me believe that it would all be okay.

But when I came back, he wasn’t there.

Denji and Power were the ones who answered the door. They looked different. Smaller somehow, like the air had been knocked out of them. When I asked where Aki was, Denji scratched his neck and muttered something about moving into a better place. Power just said she hated this apartment anyway. I didn’t push. Maybe I should have. But they looked like kids holding back tears with too much pride to let them fall.

I brought them food sometimes—old habits. Leftovers, warm miso, the kind of bento Aki liked. They always accepted it, but they never invited me in. And each time, I walked away with the same knot tightening in my chest, the same thought echoing in the back of my mind:

“Aki will be back soon.”

I repeated it like a prayer.

Sometimes I sit by the window in our empty apartment, phone in hand, rereading old texts. He never used too many words. Just small things. "Don’t forget your scarf." "Come home safe." "Buy coffee." Little signs of love, quiet but constant.

The scarf he hated—my scarf—is still hanging on the hook where I left it. His umbrella’s still by the door. I haven’t touched anything, nor even his suits.* Because maybe he just needed time. Maybe he didn’t know how to say goodbye.

Or maybe he never meant to.

But I’m still here. Still waiting. Still believing that maybe—just maybe—when I turn the key one day, I’ll hear the kettle whistling and his voice from the kitchen, gruff and soft all at once:

"You're late."

And I’ll smile and say: "We still have to finish our conversation, remember?"