That night, the sky was painted in constellations.
Yuki stood at the edge of the water, toes curling into the cool sand. Waves shimmered with moonlight, each one whispering softly as if the ocean itself was asleep.
Ami waded into the sea, her dress floating like silk around her. "Come on, slowpoke!" she called, laughing. "The stars won't wait forever."
He hesitated. The water didn't scare him—it was something else. The stillness. The quiet. The feeling that if he went in, something might change.
But then she turned, held out her hand again, just like the first time.
And he went.
The water wrapped around him like a second skin—cool, clean, and strangely warm beneath the surface. They floated side by side, eyes fixed on the heavens above.
"I used to think stars were the memories people leave behind," Ami said, voice barely above a whisper. "The ones they don't get to keep."
Yuki turned to her. "Do you remember who you were… before this summer?"
She looked at him. Her smile faded, just a little.
"I remember feelings. Laughter. Sadness. Someone holding my hand really tightly. But names, places… they slip away."
Yuki nodded. He understood. He didn't know why—but he did.
Afterward, they dried off beneath a lantern hung on a driftwood post. Ami checked the notebook and smiled as she placed a gentle mark beside #3 – Swim under the stars.
On the walk back, something strange happened.
As they passed the park they'd seen that morning, the children were gone. The swings moved, but there was no wind. The shop lights were off, but no one had closed them. The cat in the window was frozen mid-stretch.
"Didn't you say there were people here?" Yuki asked, unease rising.
Ami didn't answer at first.
"Sometimes," she said finally, "they vanish when you stop needing them."
He looked at her. "Then… are they even real?"
She smiled, soft and sad. "Maybe they were never meant to be."
---
That night, Yuki couldn't sleep.
He stared at the ceiling of the small cottage Ami had shown him—a place already filled with warmth, like someone had lived there for years.
In his hand, he held the notebook.
His eyes drifted down the list again.
And stopped at the final item:
12. Wake up.
Why did those words feel like a warning?