would happen if I discovered the truth by myself?”
Kenji looked down at his hands.
“I didn’t think that far ahead.”
“That is what frightens me,” she said. “You are used to solving problems by thinking about them carefully. But when it comes to something painful, you seem to believe that if you wait long enough, the problem will disappear.”
He gave a faint, sad smile.
“It’s a very poor scientific method.”
“Terrible,” Yuki replied.
For a moment, they almost laughed.
Then the silence returned.
Kenji explained that he had spent years feeling guilty about his daughter’s death. He knew, rationally, that he could not control every event in the world. Yet he often wondered whether he should have noticed something earlier, said something differently, or spent more time listening.
Grief had turned ordinary memories into questions without answers.
The community center had become his way of giving something meaningful
