The morning sun slipped through the blinds like it was trying not to wake anyone. It failed.

Yuuta shuffled into the kitchen with his hair still tangled from sleep, a pencil tucked behind one ear like it belonged there more than in his hand. He reached for the kettle, missed, blinked twice, and found it on the second try.

Across the room, Sena sat cross-legged on the floor, organizing ink bottles by opacity levels like her life depended on it. Hiro was on the couch, a blanket over his head and a spoon sticking out of a cereal box resting on his chest.

“Morning,” Sena said without looking up.

Yuuta grunted. It passed for a greeting.

Shiho was already awake—of course. Headphones in, sleeves rolled up, hunched over the tablet like she was in a standoff with the panel. The glow of the screen made her look colder than she was. Or maybe she really was that cold.

No one talked much before noon in this house. Not because they couldn’t. Because silence was easier.

“You all look like ghosts,” Hiro muttered from under his blanket. “Sleep paralysis demons. I feel safe.”

“Then get up,” Yuuta said, voice rough. “Ghosts don’t make deadlines.”

“Deadlines aren’t real,” Hiro replied. “Just government propaganda.”

“Deadlines are real,” Sena corrected, tapping her planner. “I color-coded them.”

“Even worse,” Hiro groaned.

The morning bloomed slowly—like most of them did. Coffee brewed, mugs passed from hand to hand without words. There were shared looks, half-smiles, a kind of rhythm that only came from people who had lived under the same roof long enough to stop pretending.

Midday arrived, and with it, the chaos.

Papers rustled. Screentones were argued over. Sena knocked over a bottle of ink and apologized eight times. Yuuta scribbled on napkins. Shiho said nothing, but changed an entire storyboard panel without warning. Hiro wandered into the pantry, pretending to look for snacks while eavesdropping like it was his divine duty.

Then came the break.

They gathered around the small kotatsu table. Not because they had to, but because habits form like sediment—layer by layer.

“You ever think we’re all just badly drawn characters in someone else’s manga?” Hiro asked, mouth full of senbei.

“No,” Sena replied.

“Yes,” said Yuuta.

Shiho didn’t answer, but her eyebrow twitched.

The conversation drifted. From art references to old anime shows, from Yuuta’s bizarre dreams (“I was a shrimp tempura fighting taxes”) to Sena’s childhood fear of mascots. Hiro told a story about accidentally confessing to a mailman. It wasn’t clear if it was true. No one asked.

For a while, it felt easy.

But even in the laughter, there were currents. Glances exchanged between Shiho and Yuuta that lasted half a second too long. Sena’s fingers tightening around her mug. Hiro watching them all, saying nothing when he could’ve joked.

Later, as the sun dipped, Yuuta stared out the window with a sketchpad in his lap. Not drawing. Just… thinking.

Shiho passed behind him, paused, and said nothing.

Sena sat nearby, sketching quietly. Her pencil moved like it had somewhere to go. Like she didn’t.

Hiro sat on the couch, typing something into his phone. He paused, deleted it, and tucked it away.

The light faded, and still, no one moved to turn it on.

Just after the kotatsu chatter faded and the soft light of late afternoon draped itself over the room, Hiro’s phone buzzed violently on the table.

He groaned. “Work emergency.” he muttered, already rising with a stretch. “Apparently, someone can’t align speech bubbles without summoning me like a ghost.”

Before anyone could make a snarky remark, Sena’s phone buzzed too. She glanced at it and her brows knitted. “Editors want to meet now. Something about last-minute plot changes.”

Yuuta blinked. “That sounds… urgent.”

“It always is.” Sena muttered, already grabbing her bag. “They said it’s about your serialization too. I can’t just ignore it.”

As Sena stuffed papers into her bag and Hiro argued with a hoodie that refused to sit right, Shiho quietly rinsed her coffee mug in the sink.

The sound of conversation blurred around her. She didn’t speak. Didn’t need to. In this house, even her silence had learned to become furniture—present, but seldom noticed.

“We’ll be back in a bit.” Sena called, half to Yuuta and half to the hallway. Hiro followed with a lazy wave.

Shiho gave a small nod without turning.

As the door shut behind them, the apartment felt different. Not quieter—just… thinner. Like a thread had been tugged loose.

She stood for a moment in the kitchen, drying her hands on her sleeves. Her eyes drifted toward Yuuta, who was flipping through sketches on the low table, the light hitting his face just right. For a second, something in her expression cracked. Not enough to see clearly. Just a subtle shift. Longing, maybe. Guilt. A memory too fragile to name.

But when Yuuta glanced up, she blinked the look away.

“Need help with anything?” she asked, voice steady as ever.

“I was just gonna make cup noodles.” he said, scratching his head sheepishly.

Shiho smiled—genuine, brief. “Still the same, huh?”

The words slipped out before she could stop them.

Yuuta paused. Looked up.

“Have we met before?” he asked.

A breath hitched in her chest. “I… meant your reputation,” she recovered quickly, eyes flicking back toward the cupboard. “Everyone in the studio circles knows you only eat instant food.”

An odd, delicate silence settled over the room. Not uncomfortable—but different. Yuuta fidgeted, standing in the middle of the kitchen like he’d forgotten how to exist. Eventually, he cleared his throat.

Shiho caught herself, blinked like she’d stepped too close to the edge. “I mean… you’ve always had tragic cooking skills, that’s all.” She shrugged. “It’s endearing.”

He didn’t press further. Instead, he set water to boil and pulled out two noodle cups.

They ate in a companionable quiet place at the small table. It wasn’t a meaningful conversation—not about the past, not about memories. Just idle talk: manga trends, dumb fan comments, Shiho’s hatred of low-res references. But there was something grounding in the normalcy of it.

Meanwhile—

Outside, the evening had dimmed into dusk as Hiro and Sena crossed paths near the train station.

“Yo,” Hiro said. “You done with your ‘emergency’?”

“Yeah,” Sena exhaled. “Stress levels: murderous.”

Hiro gave a half-smile. “Wanna grab a drink? I could use one.”

“God, yes.”

They ended up at a quiet izakaya with warm lighting and terrible music. It didn’t take long for Sena to get into it. One drink in, she was venting. Two drinks in, she was fuming.

“She’s always around him,” Sena muttered, cheeks flushed, words slightly slurred. “Just hovering. Like—why can’t she just do her job and leave?”

Hiro stayed quiet, letting her speak.

“She left him once, you know? She left. And now she’s back and acting like she belongs again.”

“She’s scared too.” Hiro said, quietly. “People do dumb things when they’re scared.”

Sena blinked, caught off-guard by the softness of his tone.

”You… ever fallen in love?” Sena asked drunk but cautious.

Hiro was startled by the sudden interrogation. He slowly looked up to Sena as he lowered his glass. 

His eyes were glassy, but hollow. As if a poor attempt at hiding something that can break someone without even talking about it.

Even after being drunk, she saw those eyes, a little too well.

“She…” Hiro’s voice cracking, but in a low tone, “Wasn’t how I looked up to her. And I just… couldn’t do anything.” He spoke but his eyes gazed beyond Sena. She sat still, respecting his silence more than her frustration at the moment.

“And it was never completed.” A tear running down his left eye. His throat aching it to let go, but his mind fighting it. 

Hiro with a clink of the glasses on the table besides snapped back into reality. He smiled. A smile that said he held it back.

Sena watched him drink his last glass of drink as he forced it down his throat.

“I guess you can call me a muse who kept singing the praises of someone who utterly despised his entire existence.” 

Sena watched his smile, and let out a laugh.

“A poor creature you are huh Hiro.” Sena said as he held her glass up high. “Come on! Don’t be an eyesore now, you can drink and let it out with me! Hahah!” And she chugged the entire glass down in one sip.

Hiro laughed as he sat with Sena.

The rest of the izakaya hangout went Sena chugging multiple drinks and Hiro eating up like a beast.

Hiro finished his beer and gently nudged her upright. “Come on. Let’s get you home before you start challenging strangers to arm-wrestling contests.”

—

By the time they returned, the apartment lights were dim. On the balcony, Yuuta and Shiho stood quietly, watching the night deepen.

Hiro squinted up. Sena, now barely walking in a straight line, leaned on him like a sack of potatoes.

He made a choice.

“I’m home!” he yelled.

Yuuta looked down. “Oh. Uh—one sec.” He stepped inside as Shiho backed off to the shadows.

Sena, eyes glassy, blinked at him. “Hey…”

Yuuta raised an eyebrow. “You’re drunk.”

“I am not.” She swayed. “Okay, maybe a little.”

She stepped closer and—without warning—wrapped her arms around him. “I like this guy,” she mumbled into his chest. “He’s stupid and overworks himself and never sees what’s right in front of him.”

Yuuta blinked. “…Okay?”

Sena hiccuped and added, “You remind me of him.”

Yuuta snorted. “Sure. Let’s get you to bed, romantic mystery narrator.”

He tucked her into her room, pulled the blanket over her, and stood by the doorway for a moment—brows drawn, eyes unreadable. Then he closed the door.

The apartment had quieted again. A soft, humming stillness—the kind that settles when people sleep but dreams haven’t begun yet.

Shiho sat at the kotatsu, knees tucked up, her tablet dark beside her. The only light in the room came from the dim kitchen counter lamp, casting long, soft shadows that didn’t reach her eyes.

She opened her sketchbook.

Not work panels. Not backgrounds. Just blank, unlined paper.

Her hand moved automatically. A riverside tree. A girl sitting beneath it, knees drawn in, sketchbook on her lap. She shaded the ripples of water, then paused.

The face. It wouldn’t come.

Her pencil hovered. Then trembled slightly.

From the hallway, a sound—Yuuta’s soft voice, murmuring something as he helped Sena settle in for the night. Shiho tilted her head to listen, but the words blurred.

She looked back down. Her fingers tightened around the pencil. Slowly, she turned the page, tore out the sketch, folded it once, then again. She didn’t look at it after.

Instead, she slipped it into her bag and pressed it flat inside.

No tears. Just that distant, stretched-thin ache in her chest.

Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking

—

The next morning:

Sena sat at the table, nursing a coffee like it might erase her memory.

Hiro was already there, toast in mouth, legs crossed like he had no worries in the world.

Yuuta leaned against the counter, sipping his drink with a smirk.

“You’re quite silent for someone of your kind,” Hiro said casually.

Sena glared. “What do you mean my kind, you roach?”

Yuuta burst out laughing. “You said the exact same thing last night.”

Sena froze. “…I did?”

He nodded. “Complete with insults and mysterious confessions.”

Her face went red. “I… I didn’t—! No. That didn’t happen.”

Yuuta raised his hand. “It happens. Don’t worry. Everyone gets a little weird when they drink.”

Sena hid her face behind her mug. “I hate this house.”

Yuuta chuckled. “Nah. You just hate being seen.”

And just like that, the day moved on.

Quietly. Uneventfully.

But something had changed.

Small things. Unsaid things.

Lingering between them like pencil lines yet to be inked.

—end chapter 7