The rain kept going through the night and into the next day. By evening the whole street felt washed thin. The air outside the shop tasted like metal and bus exhaust. The kind of weather where people walk fast and don’t look at each other.

Kenji opened as always. He wiped the counter. Checked the flowers. Adjusted Daniel’s photo. Smoothed the little paper under it. Looked once at Miles’s Colorado postcard. Read the line about the air being clear. He liked that line.

Then he waited.

Sometimes waiting felt like work. Sometimes waiting felt like prayer.

It was almost ten when the door opened again. Logan came back. Not walking this time. Almost stumbling. His jacket half zipped. Guitar case in one hand. Not carried. Dragged.

He dropped into the usual seat without asking. No hi. No smile. He just put his forehead down on his arms and let out one long breath like he had been holding it for hours.

Kenji watched him a moment. Then he said softly Sit up. Eat first. Fall apart after.

Logan let out a weak laugh into his sleeve. You always like this.

Yes.

Logan sat up. His face had that stretched gray look that comes from not sleeping and not eating and thinking too much. His eyes were red. His hair was wet like he had walked here instead of finding shelter.

Kenji didn’t ask questions yet. He started a bowl. Daikon first. Soft egg. Fish cake. Konnyaku. A square of tofu that had soaked all day. He let the broth run over it slow.

Logan watched. His breathing began to even out just from the smell.

When the bowl hit the counter, he didn’t say thanks. He just ate. Fast at first. Then slow. Then slowest. He finished. Set the chopsticks down like they were heavy.

Kenji poured tea. Logan wrapped his hands around the cup and closed his eyes.

You didn’t ask for money, Logan said after a moment.

No.

Good, he said. Because I don’t have any.

Kenji nodded. You can pay with time.

Logan let out a weak laugh. Is that your thing. You talk like that and people just accept it.

Yes.

He shook his head once, but he was smiling now. His eyes softened. He took a long drink of tea. Then his shoulders dropped in that way that means I might tell you the truth now.

I tried to sleep under the bridge by the tracks, he said. Near the freight line. Thought I’d be fine. I’ve done it before. But some guys came through around two in the morning. Took thirty bucks and a pack of strings. Didn’t take the guitar. Guess I should be grateful.

Kenji’s eyes flicked toward the guitar case. You play for money.

Yeah, Logan said. On the street mostly. Bars sometimes if they don’t check ID. I make enough for food most days. Enough for a bus sometimes. Enough for a bed once in a while. He rubbed at his face with one hand. Not enough for a bed tonight.

Kenji nodded. You will sleep in the booth.

Logan blinked. What.

Back booth, Kenji said. After I close. It’s warm enough.

Logan stared at him. For real.

Yes.

Why.

Kenji looked at him. You’re breathing.

Logan let out something halfway between a sigh and a sound that could have become a cry if he let it. He swallowed it.

He ran a hand through his hair and said quietly I don’t want to be a problem.

Too late, Kenji said.

That got him to smile for real.

They sat in quiet a while. There was a soft hum from the sign and the light click of the kitchen fan. Outside, a city bus hissed at the stop and moved on.

When Logan finally spoke again, his voice was lower. Tired, but honest.

You ever notice how people talk about home like it’s a place, he said. He picked at the rough edge of his guitar case as he talked. Like a thing you can go back to. Like it’s waiting. Porch light on. Bed turned down. All that movie stuff.

Kenji waited.

But for some of us, he said, home isn’t a place you go back to. It’s something you’re still trying to find. And every time you think you’re close, somebody tells you no.

Kenji nodded once. Who told you no.

My mom’s boyfriend, Logan said. He leaned back on the stool and looked up at the ceiling. He told me I don’t live there anymore. Which is funny, because I didn’t know that until he said it.

Kenji kept his face calm. When.

Three days ago, Logan said. I was at the door with my stuff and my guitar and I asked if I could crash on the couch. He said we talked about this, you said you were gonna figure out your life, you said you were going to be a man, and men don’t crawl back. He said you’re not a kid anymore. He said nobody’s gonna fix you.

Kenji stirred the broth.

Then he told me, Logan said, that if I kept showing up she’d lose him. And she needs him more than she needs me.

The last words came out flat. Too even. Practiced. Like he had repeated them in his head enough times to sand them down so they wouldn’t stab every time.

Kenji said quietly Your mother did not say that.

Logan laughed under his breath. No. She didn’t have to.

They sat with that.

Logan drummed his fingers once on the counter. It wasn’t angry. Just restless. A kind of small motion that kept him from shaking.

He said I know I’m not easy. I know I talk back. I know I don’t do what people want. I know I’ve left places without saying goodbye. I get it. I get why people are done.

He looked up at Kenji, and the look was open and young and raw in a way that didn’t match his voice.

But I don’t think I deserve to freeze, he said.

No, Kenji said.

Or starve.

No.

Or disappear and have it be normal.

No.

Logan nodded. Okay. Good. I just needed somebody to say that out loud.

Kenji poured more tea. You are allowed to still be here.

Logan let the words sit. His face shifted. Some of the tension in his mouth finally let go.

Then he said, almost small I haven’t heard anybody say that in a long time.

The clock on the wall ticked. The rain softened to a mist. Cars moved slower on the street. Night was doing that thing where it starts empty and then gathers weight.

Kenji reached for the box of postcards near the register. He slid it toward Logan.

Take one, he said.

Logan raised an eyebrow. You selling them.

No. They’re for starting sentences.

Logan laughed. You and your sentences.

He pulled one postcard out at random. It had a picture of some highway at sunrise. Pale pink sky. Empty asphalt. The kind of picture that feels lonely and safe at the same time.

He found a pen. He stared at the blank side so long that at first Kenji thought he might not write at all.

Then he began.

His handwriting wasn’t clean, but it was careful.

Dear Me
Do not disappear

He stopped, staring at what he had written.

That’s all I got, he said.

That is enough, Kenji said.

Logan nodded. His throat moved like he was swallowing something sharp. He slid the postcard back into the box. Keep it here, he said. Just in case I forget.

Kenji put the postcard in the box with the others. He did not hide it. He did not frame it like a relic. He let it live with the rest. Equal.

After that, Logan leaned his guitar against the wall and rubbed his face again. You really gonna let me crash here.

Yes, Kenji said.

What if I steal something.

Then I will be sad, Kenji said. But I will still feed you next time.

Logan blinked. That actually made him laugh, full and surprised. Dude, you’re dangerous.

No, Kenji said. I am stubborn.

Logan nodded, still amused. That tracks.

They stayed up a little longer. Logan played soft, quiet chords. No lyrics this time. Just sound. Kenji prepped tomorrow’s broth. Peeled daikon. Tied konnyaku. Tested heat. They moved around each other like two people who had known each other longer than they actually had.

Near midnight, Kenji turned the open sign to dark.

He pointed toward the back booth. Logan carried his guitar case and slid into the seat. He set the case on the floor and used his rolled jacket as a pillow.

You need blanket, Kenji said.

Logan shook his head. I’ll be fine.

Kenji went to the small shelf anyway and brought back an old gray jacket. He set it on the table. Logan looked at it without touching it.

Whose was this, he asked.

My wife’s, Kenji said.

Logan froze. I can’t take that.

You’re not taking, Kenji said. You are borrowing warmth.

Logan swallowed. His face changed again. Softer. More careful. Like someone holding glass.

Thank you, he said quietly.

Good night, Kenji said.

Night, Logan whispered.

Kenji turned off most of the lights. Only the warm light over the counter stayed on. The broth sat low and steady on the smallest flame. The room felt held. Safe. Like a lantern cupped in two hands.

He stood for a moment in the doorway to the back, listening.

He heard rain.
He heard the low hum of the fridge.
He heard, for just a second, the smallest sound from the booth.

Not crying. Not talking.

Humming.

Logan. Soft. Barely there. Humming to himself like a child trying to keep the dark from swallowing him whole.

Kenji closed his eyes.

He whispered to the room Thank you for bringing him here.

Then he whispered one more thing, to the broth, to the walls, to the quiet

Keep him through the night

He turned away and let the shop breathe.

Outside, the city kept moving. People hurried past in the rain, on their way to somewhere, on their way from something. Some looking for a place to sleep. Some looking for a reason to keep walking.

Inside, in the back booth of a small oden shop in Portland, a boy with a guitar slept for the first time in days without being afraid of the door.

The broth simmered low like a heartbeat.

And for one night, that was enough.