Years had passed since she disappeard.
Kanji never searched for her. He never needed to. "Saruru" wasn't about chasing something. It was about accepting that some people are mean't to change you, not to stay. And she had changed him-with her soft presence, quit smiled, and the name he still whispered when the ocean wind grew warm.
But on the first morning of April in 2028, he found something odd in the mailbox outside of the cafe.
A folded piece of paper. No stamp. No name.
Just one line in handwriting he couldn't forget:
"The waves never took it away. I'm coming back to you Kanji."
His hand trembled.
He waited near the Sakura tree and their place.
The bench still creaked the same way. The lake still breathed gently. His heart skipping the beat. He was really nervous to meet her.
Then, as if time itself had looped around. She appeared infront of him.
She hadn't change much.
She still wore her long scarf. Still held her sketchbook like it was part of of her. Still smiled with her eyes before her lips.
"Saru?" He asked, breathless.
She looked at him, and something shimmered-not just in her eyes, like the air remember too.
"I always hated goodbye," she said softy, "But I realized I hated not knowing What we could' been more."
Kanji stepped closer. "Then why now?"
"I thought you forget about me"
"I named an entire feeling after you," he laughed
"You were never gone"
They didn't rush.
They started again. Slowly. Like rewinding their favourite song and letting it play by the second time.
They still walked by the Sakura tree. Still didn't take photos. But this time, they held hands. This time, they said "I miss you". This is time, Saruru wasn't just a fleeting moment-it was the begining of something real.
And from that day on, Whenever somoen asked about their love story, Kanji would say:
"It was called Saruru
It begin like a whisper and came back like spring.
And this time...it stayed."
