Morning found the cabin washed in silver fog.

  The fire had long since died, but its warmth lingered faintly in the air between them. Aoi woke first, rising slowly, careful not to wake Yuki. She stood just outside the cabin door, eyes on the forest — the path ahead marked now by a soft line of red thread strung through low branches.

  Yuki joined her minutes later, map in hand, eyes clearer than they’d been in days.

  “He left a thread,” he said, almost to himself. “So we wouldn’t get lost.”

  “Or so we’d find what he couldn’t,” Aoi said.

  They packed lightly, keeping only what they could carry and the map that had brought them here.

  And then they walked.

  The red thread twisted through the woods, across small ridges, through gullies slick with moss. The deeper they went, the older the forest became. Trees grew in strange shapes. Some bent toward each other like conspirators. Others leaned back as if recoiling from something long gone.

  There were carvings on many trunks.

  Not words.

  Not symbols.

  Just tally marks.

  Dozens. Hundreds.

  Aoi frowned, tracing one line with her finger.

  “He was counting something,” she murmured.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Days,” Yuki said. “Or maybe… regrets.”

  They stopped at a stone arch — natural, formed by an ancient, fallen tree now petrified with time.

  Beyond it: a clearing unlike any other.

  Flowers bloomed in defiance of season — nightshade and lilies, bluebells and firegrass. The ground pulsed faintly, as if breathing. And in the center…

  A small gravestone.

  No name.

  Just one word, deeply etched:

  “Forgive.”

  Yuki approached it slowly, as if each step was a question he didn’t know how to ask.

  At its base was a folded piece of parchment. Unweathered. Placed no more than a day before.

  He opened it.

  Yuki,

  If you made it here, I’m sorry I ran. I thought I was protecting you. From the truth. From Rin. From me. But you came anyway. Of course you did.

  She’s alive. But she doesn’t remember you.

  That’s the price of what we asked the rain to take away.

  Follow the wind north. When the trees go silent, you’ll know you’re close.

  — S.

  Yuki read it twice.

  Then again.

  Then folded it carefully and tucked it into his jacket.

  “He thinks she forgot me,” he said aloud. “But I don’t believe that.”

  Aoi stepped beside him. “Because you remember her?”

  “Because love doesn’t vanish. Even if memory does.”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll help you find her,” she said.

  “I know,” Yuki replied. “But after… will you still walk with me?”

  A pause.

  Then, softly: “I already am.”

  They left the clearing behind.

  The wind stirred ahead.

  And somewhere, not far now, the trees waited to go silent.