You hadn’t been here in years.

The old shrine on the hill was half-swallowed by ivy now, its wooden archway leaning sideways like it, too, had grown tired of waiting.

You stepped over the broken stone path carefully, your fingers brushing the prayer tags left behind by strangers. None of them were yours. Yours had blown away the year he stopped writing.

⸻

You and Keigo used to come here as kids — ducking under the rusted gate, hands dirty from tree sap and scraped knees. You’d sneak juice boxes from the corner store and dare each other to race to the top.

He always let you win. You always pretended not to notice.

It was your place. No parents, no handlers. Just the sky, the quiet, and the secret wish you made each time you climbed to the top:

“Let us never lose each other.”

⸻

He was eight when the HPSC took him.

The letters kept coming for a while. Shorter every time. Until one day, they stopped altogether.

You didn’t cry. Not really.

You just stopped going up the hill.

⸻

But now you were back.

For no reason at all — or maybe for every reason you couldn’t say aloud. You just… needed to be somewhere that didn’t hurt to remember.

So you climbed the hill one more time. Slow. Careful.

When you reached the top, you stopped breathing.

Because someone was already there.

Back to you. Blonde hair longer than you remembered. Shoulders broader. Stiff. Like maybe he didn’t know how to be human anymore.

You didn’t have to see his face to know who it was.

“Keigo?”

He turned slowly.

And in a voice older, rougher, but still somehow yours, he said:

“You remembered.”

⸻

There was a long silence.

Then a crooked smile — sad, almost apologetic — tugged at his lips.

“I thought if I came back here and you weren’t here, I’d finally let go.”

You stepped forward. Close enough to touch. But neither of you reached.

“Why did you stop writing?” you whispered.

His eyes flickered. Guilt, shame, something else.

“They told me I couldn’t. That I had to cut ties. Be alone. Be stronger.”

He laughed, but it was hollow.

“I wasn’t strong. I just got used to pretending I didn’t miss you.”

⸻

“Do you still make wishes?” you asked, softly.

“No,” he said. “But… I remember the one I made with you.”

He didn’t have to say it. You remembered too.

“Let us never lose each other.”

You just sat there — older, sadder, but not quite broken — in the one place time hadn’t touched.

Somewhere only you knew.