Late afternoon, light streamed diagonally through the cafe window.
The autumn sunlight was soft, mixed with the scent of coffee and a languid air.
Taking advantage of the lull, Reze had spread a textbook on one side of the table.
Pencil in hand, she thought for a while, then nodded and began writing characters in her notebook.
Hiragana, Katakana, and sentence practice.
Unfamiliar yet strangely familiar characters lined up in a row.
“Is your studying going well?”
Kuzen, who was wiping cups at the counter, asked.
His voice was calm and firm like an old violin.
“Yes~”
Reze answered with a bright smile.
“Some parts are a bit difficult, but when I change my way of thinking, it gets solved quickly.”
Kuzen smiled.
Seeing her frown while solving a problem and then soon smile somehow felt welcome.
It felt like briefly regaining something lost long ago.
“Such concentration is rare.
If you were a student, you'd be at the top of your class.”
Reze burst out laughing at his words.
“Hehe, is that a compliment? Then I'll have to try even harder.”
Her eyes held sincerity.
Initially, studying started merely from the desire ‘to be helpful to Denji’,
but now it was more than that.
The sensation of herself gradually changing into a ‘living human’.
She liked that.
However, on one side of that heart was an indelible shadow.
The Soviet experiment facility, windowless rooms, the smell of metal and blood.
Reze was born there, raised as an orphan.
The ‘Bomb Fiend’— a test subject meant to be used as a tool of war.
So, while she learned to read and write, it was simply ‘symbols for executing orders’.
It was an entirely different kind of thing from the ‘studying’ humans do.
She set the pencil down for a moment and looked at her fingertips.
Hands familiar with blood and gunpowder now held a pen.
“It's strange…”
She muttered to herself.
“Living so peacefully still feels awkward.”
Perhaps sensing her gaze, Kuzen spoke.
“Reze, you're really diligent. It's good to see.”
“Hehe, I want to get smarter than Denji.”
“Haha, Denji would be jealous if he heard that.”
Kuzen laughed while organizing the glasses.
A subtle pain was mixed into that laughter.
For a moment, the figure of a young girl overlapped before his eyes.
His daughter— the back of a child lost long ago.
That memory flashed like lightning, then became distorted with a ‘sizzle’—.
As if the memory itself was torn, it blurred.
He paused for a moment and looked at the cup.
“……?”
His mind went blank, then soon he laughed as if nothing happened and started wiping again.
Unaware himself that ‘a cross-section of memory is disappearing’.
Reze watched him and asked softly.
“It's about time Denji should be coming, but he's a bit late, isn't he?”
“That can happen. His work probably ran late.”
Kuzen answered calmly, but a subtle tension lay in his eyes.
He knew.
That somewhere in this city, a ‘surveillance gaze’ was watching them.
Denji was leaning back against a steel frame after finishing work at the construction site.
The sunlight was fading, and a warm breeze brushed past.
I should rest a bit— he thought, but before he knew it, he had fallen asleep.
The dream was familiar somehow.
A dark alleyway, an old streetlamp, and in front of it, a familiar small shadow spoke.
“Denji.”
It was Pochita.
His small chainsaw head still swayed, shining cutely.
“Pochita…!”
Denji reached out his hand with joy.
“It's been a really long time!”
Pochita tilted his head and laughed.
“Denji, are you happy now?”
Denji paused for a moment.
Then slowly nodded.
“Yeah. Pochita, I'm very happy now.”
“Good… then that's enough.”
Pochita's voice scattered softly like the wind.
“Denji, make sure to protect that happiness. And someday… show it to me.”
Denji couldn't answer.
He only smiled.
At that moment, Pochita's figure disappeared into the wind.
When he opened his eyes, the sun had almost set.
“Yikes—! Damn it, I'm late!”
Denji scrambled to his feet.
In the end, because he had fallen sound asleep, his quitting time was delayed, and he had to work a bit more.
“Denji~ did you get into trouble again?”
The moment he opened the cafe door, Reze asked.
Books were still open in both her hands, and her expression was full of mischief.
“That's not it! Mr. Matsuda gave me more work to do, that's all!”
Denji retorted, panting heavily.
Kuzen chuckled.
“Glad you made it back safely. Want a cup of coffee?”
“Yes! And I'm hungry, so I'll ask for a meal too.”
As Denji sat down, Reze approached.
“You dozed off again today, didn't you?”
“Huh, how did you know?”
“I can tell just by looking at your face~”
Reze laughed and tapped his forehead with her finger.
“You must be that tired. Rest a bit.”
Denji gave an awkward laugh and bowed his head.
“But you know… I saw Pochita in a dream today.”
“Pochita?”
“Yeah. A guy like an old friend. He asked me if I was happy.”
His tone was calm, but his expression was strangely clear.
“So what did you say?”
“I said I was happy.”
“Then that's good.”
Reze smiled.
That smile quietly swept over Denji's heart like a wave.
By evening, the cafe was quiet.
There were only two customers, and slow jazz flowed from the radio.
Reze opened her notebook and sat in front of Denji.
“Alright, now that we've memorized Hiragana and Katakana~ shall we move on to the next step, Student Denji?”
“Yes~!!”
Denji playfully raised his hand.
Reze chuckled at the sight.
“Good, today's simple sentence practice. For example— ‘私はレゼです.’ (Watashi wa Reze desu / I am Reze.)”
“Watashi wa… Reze… desu?”
“That's right! Well done~”
Reze praised with a laugh, and Denji scratched his head awkwardly.
“Ugh, it's hard, I tell you. I can manage speaking later, but the writing gets confusing.”
“Then I'll keep teaching you. I'll give you homework too.”
“Homework? Again?”
“Yeah, today's homework is to write ‘レゼ愛してる’ (Reze aishiteru / Reze I love you) three times~”
“Eek, that's too much!!”
“Hehe, look at you getting embarrassed already.”
Their laughter spread softly through the cafe.
Outside the window, streetlights turned on, and light reflected off the glass, swaying gently.
Kuzen quietly watched the scene.
His hand, which had been wiping a coffee cup, paused for a moment.
His eyes held both warmth and unease simultaneously.
He shifted his gaze beyond the window, far into the distance.
A crow was perched on a power line.
In the red sunset, its eyes shone with an out-of-place glint.
‘The surveillance continues…’
Kuzen muttered to himself.
And began wiping the cup again.
His face reflected in the cup wore the most serene expression in the world.
Yet beneath that serenity, a resolution rippled like waves.
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