Day 58.
She was gone.
I knocked on her door that morning—no answer.I called her phone—no reply.
Her mother said she'd gone out early.Didn't say where.Didn't leave a note.
"She's been quieter lately," she said."I thought maybe she just needed some air."
But I knew.Something was wrong.
I ran through the city.The park.The bookstore.The station.
Everywhere we'd ever been.Everywhere her memory might've dragged her towithout knowing why.
I kept thinking—what if she forgot who she was…and just kept walking?
What if she forgot where "home" was?
What if she forgot me?
At the train platform, I found her.
Sitting alone on a bench,feet swinging slightly,hands curled in her lap like a child lost in a dream.
Her eyes were glassy.Her lips murmuring something.
I stepped closer.
"Aoi…"
She looked up, slowly.
No recognition.
None.
Just silence.
Then—
"Are you… looking for someone?" she asked.
My chest cracked.
"I'm looking for you."
She tilted her head.
"I don't know where I'm supposed to be," she said."I walked too far, and now everything looks… wrong."
Her voice shook.
"I think I'm lost."
I sat beside her.
Took her cold hand in mine.
"You're not lost," I said."You're here. That's enough."
And for the first time,she didn't ask who I was.
She just leaned against me.
Later that night, she fell asleep in my arms.
And I whispered into her hair:
"Even if you forget where you're going,I'll always bring you back.""Because no matter how far you wander…my heart remembers the way to you."
In her notebook, I wrote:
"Day 58.Today I almost lost her.Not just to memory.But to the world."
"But I found her.And that's enough, for now."