Ivy Winters: A Skylines Legacy by @occisims
She soaked in the bath Misaki had drawn for her — rose petals, warm water, the quiet of the rental around her — and tried to make sense of herself.
She was happy. That part was simple. What was less simple was the speed of it, the ease of it, the way three days had somehow felt like enough. She had written about love before — whole novels built around it — but she had always written it from a careful distance, the way you describe a country you've never visited. This was different. This was warm water and rose petals and a man in the next room who had thought to do something kind for her before she'd even asked.
Something is wrong with me, she thought, but she was smiling when she thought it.
She didn't know what this was yet. She wasn't sure she needed to. She just knew that for the first time in a long time — maybe ever — someone had taken care of her in the small, quiet way that matters most. And she was going to let herself have that. Cautiously. Carefully.
But she was going to let herself have it.
After her bath, she got dressed, and they went out into the neighborhood — no plan, just walking, just the two of them and the crisp mountain air. She hadn't expected the park. She hadn't expected much about Misaki.
He asked if she wanted to swing. She said yes so fast it surprised even her.
She couldn't explain it exactly — only that she had spent most of her childhood watching other people have simple moments like this one, and somehow never quite getting there herself. Misaki didn't know any of that. He just pushed the swing.
She laughed until her whole body was in it, leaning back into the air with her eyes up at the sky, weightless and completely present. Misaki was watching her with that look she was starting to recognize — quiet, warm, like she was something worth paying attention to.
Cautiously, she reminded herself. But she was still laughing.
They were both hungry, so they found the nearest food stall. Misaki ordered a tuna roll without hesitating, and when she asked if that was his usual, he smiled and said yes — always. She ordered one, too. It tasted the same as the night before, but somehow better sitting across from him, learning that small thing about him, tucking it away like the first page of something she wanted to keep reading.
After they ate, they stayed at the table for a while, not going anywhere, just talking and watching the clouds move slowly across the mountain sky. It was the kind of quiet that didn’t need to be filled. At some point, Misaki asked if she'd seen the National Park yet. She hadn't. He said she had to — that it was something you didn't leave Mt. Komorebi without seeing.
She looked at him and thought I don't want to leave Mt. Komorebi at all.
She didn't say that. But she thought it.
He was right. It was something you didn't leave without seeing.
They walked up through the torii gates into the quiet of the park, the snow coming down softly around them, and at the base of the mountain they stopped to make a wish. Ivy closed her eyes and made her wish without hesitating, then immediately felt the warmth of knowing exactly how far gone she already was. Selfish, she thought, amused herself. Three days, and I wish I could stay here forever.
She didn't tell him that.
They moved through the park slowly, taking their time at each shrine, just the two of them and the falling snow. At the last one, Misaki told her you were supposed to shout into the void. She looked at him. He looked at her. They both shouted, loud and ridiculous and completely unbothered; their voices swallowed up the mountain without ceremony.
Nothing answered back. They laughed anyway.
Before they left, Misaki pulled her close from behind and she held up her phone. The shrine sat quiet in the snow ahead of them, the mountain all around them, and for a moment neither of them moved — just two people standing still inside something neither of them had a name for yet.
