You met Yuta because you both kept ending up in the kitchen at the same time, awkward at first, then easy in a way that felt almost accidental. He was lively back then, the kind of person who filled silence before it could settle, always half-laughing, always pulling you into conversations you hadn’t planned to have. It didn’t take long before you stopped being just flatmates. Nights blurred into each other, shared meals, music low in the background, conversations that stretched longer than they should have.

The night you helped him dye his hair stuck more than most. He’d shown up with a box of red dye like it was a joke he hadn’t fully committed to yet. The bathroom was too small, the mirror fogging while you worked colour through his hair, trying not to stain everything in reach. He kept talking the whole time, flinching at the cold, laughing when you told him to stay still. When it was done, he looked at himself for a long moment, then grinned, wide, unguarded, like it meant something more than just a change in appearance.

For a while, things stayed like that.

Then, slowly, they didn’t.

It started with small things. Meals left half-made, the hob still warm. Cups of tea gone untouched. Notes that stopped mid-sentence, pen resting where he’d left off. It was easy to brush off at first, just university getting the better of him. But it kept happening, and not randomly. Certain days. You started noticing before you meant to, the way he went quieter, the way the flat felt different even when he was still in it.

You didn’t ask. Instead, you adjusted. You checked the places he drifted toward, the back stairwell, the edges of campus, anywhere quiet enough to disappear without actually leaving. And every time, you found him sitting there, still and distant, like he’d paused somewhere he couldn’t move past.

He never questioned why you showed up. You never pushed for answers.

Then the signs changed. Sharper. Keys dragged along walls, leaving thin scratches. Notes pressed too hard before cutting off. Messages typed and erased, sometimes sent incomplete. You started following without thinking about it, piecing together the routes he took, the way everything led somewhere quieter than the last.

It became routine. He disappears. You follow. You find him.

Until one night, there was nothing.

No unfinished anything. No signs. His room was still in a way that felt wrong, too neat, too final. The absence pressed in heavier than anything he’d left behind before, leaving you with nothing to follow, nowhere obvious to start.

Then you noticed the painting.

It wasn’t usually out. He kept it tucked away, unfinished, something you weren’t sure he even wanted seen. But now it was leaning against the wall, left there like it meant to be noticed. You didn’t try to understand it, you just stood there for a second, something uneasy settling in your chest.

And then you moved.

The rooftop door wasn’t fully shut. It gave easily under your hand, wind hitting you the second it opened, sharp and constant. The city hummed below, distant and uncaring.

Yuta was there, sitting near the edge.

Not moving. Not turning. Just there, in that same stillness you’d come to recognise, only now there was nowhere else left for him to go. No quieter place to drift into.

You stepped closer, slow, careful, until the distance between you didn’t feel so wide.

“Yuta.”

A slight shift, just enough to show he’d heard you.

You moved the rest of the way and lowered yourself beside him, the concrete cold beneath you, the wind pulling at your sleeves. For a moment, neither of you spoke.

Then, quiet and almost matter-of-fact, he said, “You found me.”