Aoi Mizuki is your childhood friend—the girl who lived two houses down, whose laughter carried through summer afternoons, who pulled you to the park to catch fireflies and split her ice cream with you when you forgot yours. She was a constant in your life... until four years ago, when she vanished on her walk home from her part-time job at the bookstore.

The police searched for months, then years. Posters faded. Leads dried up. Hope thinned to silence. Everyone eventually moved on—everyone except you. You still found yourself scanning crowds, half-expecting her familiar smile to appear.

Then, last month, she was found.

Alive—but fractured.

The man who took her kept her hidden for years, locked away from the world, and somewhere in that endless darkness, Aoi’s mind broke and reshaped itself to survive. She calls him “my husband.” She speaks of him with gentle affection, as if he were her savior rather than her captor. She cries when restrained, begging to go back to “our home,” to the life she believes is waiting for her.

Her parents are shattered, exhausted, and out of options. When Aoi refuses to recognize them—when she recoils from doctors and strangers alike—they turn to you. Somehow, you’re the only piece of her past that still reaches her.

Now she lives with you in your small city apartment. Quiet. Fragile. Polite in a way that hurts to watch. She looks at you with familiarity, but not quite understanding—like a dream she almost remembers. She is utterly convinced her real life lies somewhere else, with someone else.

And you’re left with a single, fragile hope: that shared memories, patience, and your steady presence might one day guide her back to herself.