Chapter 4: The First Letter Spoken Aloud
The letter trembled in Kakashi's hands.
He'd read it three times already—silently, to himself, before he'd found the courage to speak the words aloud. The paper was soft from handling, creased along the folds where he'd opened and closed it a hundred times over the years. The ink had faded in places. He remembered writing it. He remembered the exact moment—sitting at a cramped desk in a hotel room in Kumo, the heater broken, the window rattling with every gust of wind.
He remembered thinking: This is the one I'll send.
He hadn't sent it.
Kakashi cleared his throat. The lantern on Kyo's nightstand flickered, casting long shadows across the walls. The posters were still there—faded, curling at the corners, remnants of a childhood that had happened mostly in photographs. Naruto's grinning face. A map of the Elemental Nations. A crayon drawing of a silver-haired figure holding a kunai, the proportions all wrong, the smile too wide.
Kyo had drawn that when he was four.
Kakashi had never seen it until now.
He unfolded the letter carefully, smoothing it flat against his knee. The wood floor was cold beneath him. His back ached from sitting in the same position for too long. He didn't move.
"Dear Kyo," he read. His voice was steady for the first word. Then it cracked. "It's your birthday today. You're six."
Kyo didn't move. His knees were drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them, chin resting on top. His silver hair was still damp from the rain. His green eyes—Sakura's eyes, exactly Sakura's eyes—fixed on a point somewhere past Kakashi's shoulder.
"I know because your grandfather sent me a picture," Kakashi continued. "You with a cake. Wearing that ridiculous hat Kushina made you."
The hat. Red and orange, lopsided, with a pom-pom on top that kept falling into Kyo's eyes. Kushina had knitted it in a single afternoon, cackling the whole time about how it looked like a traffic cone. Kyo had worn it for three days straight. He'd refused to take it off, even for bed.
Kakashi had seen the picture. He'd stared at it for an hour. Then he'd written this letter.
"You were smiling," he read. "You looked happy."
The words blurred. He blinked. Kept going.
"I wanted to call you. I wanted to hear your voice. But I didn't know what to say."
Kyo's fingers tightened around his knees. Just slightly. Just enough for Kakashi to notice.
"What do you say to a kid you haven't seen in ten months? What do you say to a kid whose birthday you missed because you were helping your mother build a life on the other side of the world?"
The rain had stopped an hour ago, but the silence it left behind was heavier. Thicker. The kind of silence that pressed against your ears until you could hear your own heartbeat.
"I sat by the phone for two hours. I dialed your number three times. Hung up twice."
Kakashi's voice broke on the third sentence. He stopped. Breathed. Started again.
"The third time, it rang. Your grandfather answered. I couldn't speak. I just listened to him say hello, hello, and then I hung up."
He lowered the letter. Looked at Kyo.
"I'm a coward," he said. Not reading anymore. Just speaking. "Happy birthday, son. That's what the letter says. That's what I wrote. But I never sent it. I never called. I just sat there in a hotel room on the other side of the world and told myself it was better this way."
Kyo's jaw tightened.
"Better for who?" he asked.
His voice was small. Quiet. But it didn't shake.
Kakashi didn't have an answer.
He folded the letter carefully, precisely, and set it on the floor between them. The paper made a soft sound against the wood. Neither of them reached for it.
The lantern flickered again. Somewhere down the hall, Minato's snoring hit a particularly loud crescendo—a rumbling snort that echoed through the house—then faded back to its steady rhythm. Kushina had always said he sounded like a dying bear. Minato had always denied it.
Kyo didn't laugh. Didn't even smile.
He just sat there, still as stone, watching his father with those green eyes that saw too much.
"How many?" Kyo asked.
"Two hundred and forty-seven."
"That's a lot."
"Yeah."
"Did you write one every birthday?"
"Every birthday. Every holiday. Every time I couldn't sleep."
Kyo was quiet for a moment.
"Did you ever think about coming home?"
The question hit like a blade between the ribs.
Kakashi had known it was coming. He'd known since he sat down on this floor, since he opened the box, since he read the first word of the first letter. He'd known, and he'd thought he was ready.
He wasn't.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. The letter in his lap suddenly felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.
"Once," he said. His voice was barely a whisper. "I thought about it once."
---
The hotel room in Kumo had smelled like mildew and old cigarettes.
Kakashi remembered the carpet—threadbare, stained in the corner near the window, the kind of carpet that made you want to keep your shoes on. He remembered the bed, too soft, the sheets too thin. He remembered the way the wind howled through the gap in the window frame, a high-pitched whine that never stopped.
He'd been there for three weeks. Consulting on a border dispute. The kind of work that required him to sit in rooms with diplomats and warlords and pretend he cared about lines on a map. He was good at it. He'd always been good at pretending.
But he'd been sleeping badly. Worse than usual. He'd wake up at three in the morning with his heart pounding and no memory of the dream that had woken him. He'd lie there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster.
One night, he'd stopped counting.
He'd gotten up. Turned on the light. Sat at the desk—the same cramped desk where he'd written so many letters—and opened his laptop.
The airline website loaded slowly. The hotel wifi was garbage. He'd waited, tapping his fingers against the desk, watching the little spinning wheel like it was the most important thing in the world.
One-way ticket. Konoha to Kumo. Departing in three hours.
He'd stared at the screen for a long time.
Then he'd booked it.
---
"I had my bag packed," Kakashi said. "I had my hand on the door."
Kyo didn't move.
"I was going to leave. I was going to get on that plane and come home and—" He stopped. Swallowed. "And I didn't know what I'd say when I got there. I didn't know if you'd want to see me. I didn't know if I'd even be able to look at you without—"
He broke off.
The lantern light caught the edge of his face, the way his mouth was pressed into a thin line, the way his eye was glassy and bright. He hadn't cried in front of Kyo. Not once. Not ever. He'd cried in front of Sakura, years ago, when they'd first learned she was pregnant—tears of joy, messy and undignified, the kind of tears you didn't apologize for. He'd cried at Minato's funeral. He'd cried at Naruto's wedding.
But never in front of his son.
He was crying now.
"I stood there for an hour," he said. His voice was shaking. "One hour. Bag in hand. Hand on the door. And I kept thinking—what if he doesn't want me? What if he's better off without me? What if I show up and he looks at me like I'm a stranger?"
A tear slid down his cheek. He didn't wipe it away.
"So I didn't go. I unpacked my bag. I sat back down at that desk. And I wrote another letter."
He gestured at the box between them.
"That's what's in there. Every time I wanted to come home, I wrote a letter instead. Every time I wanted to call, I wrote a letter instead. Every time I—"
His voice cracked. Broke. Fell apart.
"I was so scared, Kyo. I was so scared of losing you that I lost you anyway."
---
The room was very quiet.
Kyo hadn't moved. His knees were still drawn up, his arms still wrapped around them, his chin still resting on top. His eyes were fixed on his father's face—on the tears, on the way his shoulders shook, on the way his hands were clenched into fists against his thighs.
He'd never seen his father cry.
He'd never seen his father do anything except smile. That lazy, easy smile. That I'm fine, everything's fine smile. The one that meant he was paying attention. The one that meant he cared. The one that meant nothing was wrong, nothing had ever been wrong, nothing would ever be wrong.
It was a lie. It had always been a lie.
Kyo had known that, somewhere. Deep down. In the part of him that remembered being five years old and standing at the window, watching his parents walk away. In the part of him that remembered every birthday without them, every holiday, every night he'd cried himself to sleep and woken up alone.
He'd known the smile was a lie.
But he'd never seen what was underneath.
Now he did.
Kakashi was crying. Actually crying. Tears streaming down his face, shoulders heaving, breath coming in ragged gasps. He wasn't trying to hide it. He wasn't trying to stop. He just sat there, on the floor of his son's bedroom, and let himself fall apart.
Kyo watched.
He didn't look away.
---
Minutes passed. Maybe longer.
Kakashi's breathing slowed. His shoulders stopped shaking. He wiped his face with the back of his hand—an awkward, childlike gesture—and looked at Kyo.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry you had to see that."
Kyo didn't respond.
"I should have—" Kakashi shook his head. "I should have come home. I should have tried harder. I should have been here. I know that. I've always known that."
Kyo picked at a loose thread on his blanket.
"Why didn't you?" he asked. Not angry. Not sad. Just curious. "You said you were scared. But scared of what?"
"Of you."
"That doesn't make sense."
"I know."
"It really doesn't." Kyo's brow furrowed. "I'm five. I'm not scary."
Kakashi laughed. It was a wet, broken sound, more sob than laugh, but it was something.
"You're not," he said. "You're not scary at all. You're just—" He stopped. Tried again. "I was scared of what you'd think of me. I was scared you'd look at me and see someone who left. Someone who chose something else over you. And I couldn't—I couldn't handle that. I couldn't handle you looking at me the way I looked at myself."
Kyo was quiet for a long time.
Then he unfolded his legs. Slowly. Carefully. He scooted forward on the bed until his feet touched the floor. Then he slid off the mattress and sat down on the floor, across from Kakashi, the box between them.
He was close now. Close enough to touch.
"You're weird," Kyo said.
"Yeah."
"You're really weird."
"I know."
"Mom says you're the smartest person she knows."
"Your mom exaggerates."
"No, she doesn't." Kyo's voice was firm. "She says you know everything. She says you can figure anything out. She says you're the best strategist in the world."
Kakashi didn't answer.
"But you couldn't figure out how to come home?"
The question hung in the air.
Kakashi looked at his son. At the silver hair. At the green eyes. At the stubborn set of his jaw, the same stubborn set Sakura got when she was pushing through something impossible.
"No," he said. "I couldn't."
Kyo nodded.
Slowly. Thoughtfully.
Then he reached forward and picked up the letter. The one from his sixth birthday. He held it in both hands, turning it over, feeling the weight of it.
"Read me another one," he said.
Kakashi blinked.
"What?"
"Another letter." Kyo held it out to him. "Read me another one."
---
The lantern burned low.
Kakashi read six more letters that night. The one from Kyo's seventh birthday. The one from the first New Year's they'd spent apart. The one he'd written after seeing a kid in the market who looked like Kyo. The one he'd written after the promotion, when Sakura had come home smiling and he'd felt his heart break in two directions at once.
Kyo listened to all of them.
He didn't cry. He didn't speak. He just sat there on the floor, cross-legged now, elbows on his knees and chin in his hands, watching his father's face as he read.
When Kakashi finished the last one, his voice was hoarse. His eye was red. His back ached from sitting on the hard floor for hours. But he felt lighter. Empty. The way you felt after a long run, or a hard fight, or a fever that finally broke.
He set the letter down.
"That's all of them," he said. "The ones that matter, anyway."
Kyo nodded.
He looked at the box. At the letters scattered around it. At his father, sitting across from him, tear-stained and exhausted and utterly, completely present.
"You should keep them," Kyo said.
Kakashi frowned.
"What?"
"The letters." Kyo gestured at the pile. "You should keep them. In the box. So you don't forget."
"Forget what?"
"Forget that you wanted to come home." Kyo's voice was matter-of-fact. "Forget that you missed me. Forget that you were scared."
Kakashi's throat tightened.
"I won't forget."
"You might." Kyo shrugged. "You're old."
Kakashi laughed—a real laugh this time, surprised and bright and entirely unexpected. It echoed through the quiet room, bouncing off the walls, filling the spaces that had been empty for too long.
"I'm not that old," he said.
"You're older than Mom."
"Your mom is a medical miracle."
"She says you're the miracle."
"I—" Kakashi stopped. Shook his head. "Your mom says a lot of things."
"She doesn't lie."
"No." Kakashi's voice softened. "She doesn't."
They sat there for a while longer. The lantern flickered. The house settled. Somewhere outside, an owl called out—a low, mournful sound that drifted through the window and disappeared into the night.
Kyo yawned.
"You should sleep," Kakashi said.
"I'm not tired."
"You just yawned."
"That was a fake yawn."
"Sure it was."
Silence.
Then Kyo looked up at him.
"Will you stay?" he asked. "Until I fall asleep?"
Kakashi's heart cracked open.
"Yeah," he said. "I'll stay."
---
Kyo climbed back into bed. He pulled the blanket up to his chin—an old habit, one he'd had since he was a baby—and watched as Kakashi settled himself on the floor beside the bed, back against the wall, legs stretched out in front of him.
"You don't have to sit on the floor," Kyo said.
"I don't mind."
"There's a chair."
"I'm good."
Kyo rolled his eyes. But he didn't argue.
The lantern flickered one last time, then steadied. The room was warm. The rain had stopped entirely, leaving behind a clean, washed-out silence.
Kakashi closed his eye.
He didn't sleep. He just rested—let his body sink into the floor, let his mind drift, let the weight of the night settle over him like a blanket. He could hear Kyo breathing. Slow and even. The way he used to breathe when he was small, when Kakashi would read him stories and stay until he was sure Kyo was asleep.
He'd missed this.
He'd missed so much.
"Dad?"
Kakashi opened his eye.
Kyo was watching him. Half-asleep, but watching.
"Yeah?"
"Are you going to stay?"
The question was simple. Direct. The kind of question only a child could ask.
Kakashi looked at his son. At the silver hair. At the green eyes. At the face that was half him and half Sakura and entirely, completely its own.
"Yeah," he said. "I'm going to stay."
Kyo nodded.
Then he closed his eyes.
His breathing evened out. His fingers relaxed. His face went slack, the way it did when he was truly, deeply asleep.
Kakashi watched him for a long time.
Then he reached over and pulled the blanket up, just a little, just enough to cover Kyo's shoulders. The way he used to. The way he'd always done, when Kyo was small and the nights were cold and the world was simple.
He didn't move from the floor.
He didn't close his eyes.
He just sat there, in the dark, and kept watch.
The floor was hard beneath him. His back had gone stiff sometime around two in the morning, a dull ache that radiated up his spine and settled between his shoulder blades. He didn't shift. Didn't stretch. Just breathed, slow and even, and listened to the small sounds of the house settling around them.
Kyo slept with his face half-buried in the pillow. One arm hung off the edge of the mattress, fingers curled loosely, the way they used to curl around Kakashi's thumb when he was small enough to hold in one arm. The blanket had slipped again. Kakashi pulled it up without thinking, tucking the edge under Kyo's shoulder the way he'd done a thousand times before.
A floorboard creaked in the hallway.
Kakashi's head turned. Old habit. His hand didn't move toward a weapon—there were no weapons in this house, not anymore, not the kind that mattered—but his body went still anyway, listening.
Footsteps. Soft. Bare feet on wood.
Sakura appeared in the doorway.
She was wearing one of his old shirts, the collar stretched, the hem reaching mid-thigh. Her hair was a mess—pink strands sticking up at odd angles, the way it always looked when she'd been tossing and turning. Her eyes found him immediately. Then Kyo. Then the box on the floor, the letters scattered around it like fallen leaves.
She didn't say anything.
Kakashi raised a finger to his lips.
Sakura nodded. She stepped into the room, careful, avoiding the creaky board near the dresser. She crouched beside Kakashi, her shoulder brushing his, and looked at their son.
Kyo's face was slack. Peaceful. Younger, somehow, in sleep. The permanent furrow between his brows—the one that had appeared sometime in the last five years, the one that made him look like a tiny, angry old man—had smoothed out.
Sakura's hand found Kakashi's knee. Squeezed.
He covered her hand with his.
They stayed like that for a while. The lantern had burned out hours ago, leaving only the grey pre-dawn light seeping through the curtains. It painted everything in shades of blue and silver. Kyo's hair. The posters on the wall. The letters on the floor.
Sakura's gaze drifted to the box. Then back to Kakashi. Her eyebrows lifted—a question.
He shook his head. Later.
She nodded. Leaned her head against his shoulder.
They watched their son sleep.
---
The market was loud.
Sakura had forgotten how loud Konoha could be. The vendor stalls, the merchants shouting prices, the kids running between legs and carts and piles of fruit. The smell of fresh fish and roasted chestnuts and something frying in oil. It was overwhelming in a way she hadn't expected. Five years in a quiet hospital wing, five years of sterile hallways and hushed voices and the steady beep of monitors—she'd lost her tolerance for chaos.
She moved through the crowd with her shoulders hunched, a basket hooked over one arm. Eggs. Rice. Miso paste. Simple things. Things she could have sent a assistant to buy, but she'd wanted to get out of the house. Wanted to breathe air that didn't smell like guilt and old letters.
Kakashi had stayed home with Kyo. She'd left them at the kitchen table, Kyo picking at a bowl of rice, Kakashi pretending to read a book. Neither of them had said a word about the night before. But something had shifted. Something small. Kyo had looked at his father—really looked at him—for the first time since they'd arrived.
It was a start.
Sakura stopped at a vegetable stall. The vendor was an old woman with weathered hands and a gap-toothed smile. Sakura pointed at the tomatoes. The woman weighed them, chatted about the weather, asked if Sakura was new to the village. Sakura said she was visiting family. The woman nodded, said something about how family was important, and handed over the bag.
Sakura paid. Turned. Started walking.
And then she heard it.
Laughter.
Not just any laughter. His laughter. High and bright and completely, utterly unguarded. The kind of laugh she hadn't heard in years. The kind that used to echo through their apartment when Kyo was small, when Kakashi would do something stupid like trip over a toy or get his mask caught on a door handle.
Sakura's feet stopped moving before her brain caught up.
She turned her head.
There.
Across the market square, near the fountain. Kyo was standing with a group of kids his age. Three of them—two boys and a girl, all roughly his height, all grinning. One of the boys was gesturing wildly, telling some story, and Kyo was laughing so hard he had to lean on the fountain's edge to stay upright.
His whole face was lit up.
His eyes were crinkled. His mouth was open. His shoulders were shaking. He looked—he looked like a kid. A normal, happy, carefree kid. Not the silent, watchful boy who'd sat on the floor of his bedroom last night and asked his father why he'd never come home. Not the boy who flinched when Sakura tried to hug him. Not the boy who looked at her like she was a stranger.
Just a kid. Laughing with his friends.
Sakura couldn't move.
She stood there, frozen, basket hanging from her arm, tomatoes pressed against her hip. The crowd flowed around her—people bumping past, muttering apologies, not noticing the woman standing still as stone in the middle of the market.
The girl said something. Kyo laughed again. The other boy clapped him on the shoulder, and Kyo shoved him back, playful, easy. They were talking about something—she couldn't hear what. Something funny. Something that had nothing to do with her.
He didn't look her way.
He didn't see her.
Sakura's chest tightened. Something hot and sharp pressed against the back of her eyes. She blinked. Once. Twice. The tomatoes blurred in her vision.
She should go over. She should call his name. She should walk up to him and say—what? What could she say? Hi, I'm your mother. Remember me? I'm the one who left. I'm the one who chose a hospital in another country over you.
The words died in her throat.
Kyo laughed again.
Sakura turned away.
She walked. Fast. Her sandals slapped against the cobblestones, and she didn't look back, didn't stop, didn't do anything except move. The basket banged against her hip. A tomato fell out and rolled into the gutter. She didn't pick it up.
She made it to the end of the market. Turned down a narrow side street. Stopped.
Her back hit the wall. Hard. The breath left her lungs in a rush, and she slid down, down, until she was sitting on the ground, knees drawn up, basket tipped over beside her. Eggs cracked. Rice spilled. She didn't care.
She pressed her palms against her face.
She didn't cry. She wanted to. God, she wanted to. But the tears wouldn't come. Just that hot, sharp pressure behind her eyes and a hole in her chest that felt like it had been there for years, growing wider, swallowing everything.
He was happy.
He was happy without her.
She'd known that, somewhere. She'd known it every time she called and he didn't answer, every time she sent a gift and got a polite thank-you note in Kushina's handwriting, every time she looked at photos and saw him smiling at someone who wasn't her.
She'd known it.
But knowing and seeing were different things.
Seeing was a blade.
Sakura sat in the alley for a long time. The market noise faded to a distant hum. The sun climbed higher, warming the stones, warming her arms, warming nothing else.
Eventually, she stood up.
She gathered the basket. The spilled rice. The cracked eggs. She wiped her face with the back of her hand—dry, still dry, always dry—and walked home.
Kakashi was in the kitchen when she came in.
He looked up from the cup of tea he was holding. His eye flickered over her—the dust on her knees, the ruined groceries, the way she was holding herself together with both hands.
"Hey," he said. Carefully.
"Hey."
She set the basket on the counter. Turned away from him. Started putting things in the fridge—the unbroken eggs, the miso paste, the vegetables. Her hands were steady. Her breathing was even. She was fine. She was fine.
"Sakura."
She didn't turn around.
"I saw him at the market."
Kakashi was quiet.
"He was with friends. Laughing." She closed the fridge door. Leaned her forehead against it. The metal was cold. "He looked happy."
"He is happy."
"I know."
"Did you talk to him?"
"No."
Kakashi set down his tea. She heard the cup clink against the counter, the soft pad of his footsteps as he crossed the kitchen. Then his hand was on her back, warm and solid.
"Why not?"
She didn't answer.
He didn't push. Just stood there, hand on her back, waiting. The way he always did. The way he'd waited for her in the hospital wing, in the hotel rooms, in the airports. Patient. Steady. There.
"I didn't know what to say," she whispered.
"To your own son?"
"Yeah." Her voice cracked. "To my own son."
Kakashi's hand moved—up, down, slow circles between her shoulder blades. She could feel the calluses on his palm. The roughness. The weight.
"He's angry," she said. "He has every right to be angry. But he's not—he doesn't—" She stopped. Breathed. "He doesn't need me."
"That's not true."
"It is true. I saw it. He was happy. He has friends. He has his grandparents. He has a life here. A real life. Without me."
"Sakura."
"I'm not—" Her voice broke. "I'm not part of it. I'm just the woman who calls sometimes. The one who sends gifts. The one who left."
Kakashi turned her around.
His hands cupped her face. Gently. Forcing her to look at him. His eye was steady. Calm. The way it always was, when things were falling apart.
"Listen to me," he said. "You are his mother. Not the woman who calls. Not the one who left. His mother. That doesn't go away. That doesn't stop mattering. It doesn't matter how long you've been gone."
"But I—"
"He asked about you last night."
Sakura's breath caught.
"What?"
"Before he fell asleep. He asked why you went to the market without him."
Her eyes widened.
"I told him you wanted to stretch your legs. He said—"
"He said what?"
Kakashi's mouth curved behind his mask. Just slightly. Just enough.
"He said you should have asked him to come with you."
Sakura stared at him.
Then she laughed. It came out wet and broken and half-strangled, more sob than laugh, but it was something. Something real.
"He's still mad," Kakashi said. "He's still hurt. It's going to take time. But he asked about you, Sakura. He noticed you weren't here."
She pressed her face into his shoulder. His shirt smelled like tea and laundry soap and the dust from the floor of Kyo's bedroom. It smelled like home. Like something she'd forgotten she'd missed.
"I don't know what I'm doing," she whispered.
"Neither do I."
"That's not reassuring."
"Wasn't meant to be." His hand found her hair. Stroked. "We're figuring it out. That's the point."
She pulled back. Looked at him. At the grey in his hair, the lines around his eye, the mask that hid the rest. He looked tired. He looked old. He looked like a man who'd spent five years carrying something heavy and never once complained.
"You read him the letters," she said.
"Yeah."
"All of them?"
"Six."
"Kakashi—"
"I know."
She wanted to be angry. She wanted to ask why he'd kept them from her, why he'd written them at all, why he'd packed them and brought them here like a confession waiting to happen. But the anger wouldn't come. Just the ache. The tired, bone-deep ache of two people who'd made a mess and didn't know how to clean it up.
"I should have told you," he said. "About the letters. About the flight I booked. About all of it."
"Not going."
"Where do we go from here?"
Kakashi looked at her. That steady look. That I've got you look. The one that had carried her through exams and surgeries and the hardest days of her life.
"Home," he said. "We go home. We stay. We figure it out."
"The hospital—"
"Can wait."
"It's a year. I committed to a year."
"Then we do six months. We do three. We do whatever we have to. But we do it together."
Sakura closed her eyes.
Kyo was still at school. He'd been gone when she got back, backpack slung over his shoulder, not looking at her. But Kakashi had made him lunch. Cut the crusts off his sandwich the way he liked. Put a note in his bag—a stupid note, just a doodle of a masked face and a thumbs up.
Kyo had rolled his eyes. But he'd kept it.
She'd seen him tuck it into his pocket.
"We need to talk to him," she said. "Actually talk. Not just letters and lectures. Not just—not just apologies."
"I know."
"And we need to be honest. About everything. The move. The plans. The—" The decisions. The choices. The years they'd spent prioritising everything except him. "We need to tell him the truth."
"He knows the truth. He's always known."
"But not from us. Not from both of us. Together."
Kakashi nodded. Slow. Thoughtful.
"Together," he echoed.
Sakura reached for his hand. His fingers laced through hers. Warm. Familiar. Like an anchor in rough water.
"Tonight," she said.
"Tonight."
They stood there in the kitchen. The spilled rice still on the counter. The broken eggs still in the basket. The house quiet around them, waiting.
Outside, the sun had climbed higher. The market was still loud. The kids were still playing near the fountain, laughing, oblivious.
Kyo would be home soon.
And this time, they'd be there to meet him.