Naoya could not sleep.
It was past midnight. He had been lying on his back staring at the ceiling for over an hour. Not because anything was wrong. He just could not get his brain to stop going.
This happened sometimes. He would lie down and close his eyes and his head would start replaying things — the train ride, the convenience store card, the girl on the floor counting fabric, the man with the headlamp — and then he would be wide awake again.
He sat up. He looked at the window.
He did not want to read. He did not want to look at his phone. He thought about making tea but the kettle made a sound when it boiled and he did not want to wake anyone up.
He got up and put on a hoodie and his shoes and went out into the hallway.
The house was quiet. The light under Shiori's door was off, which was new. He had not seen it off before. Ren's room was dark too. He went to the stairwell and looked up.
There was a door at the top of the stairs that he had not noticed before. Not a room door. A plain metal door with a bar handle. A rooftop door.
He went up and pushed it open.
The roof was flat. There were two old plastic chairs, a rusted railing along the edge, and a wooden box turned upside down that someone was using as a small table. An empty bottle was on top of it. Nothing fancy about any of it.
But from up here he could see the ocean.
He stood at the railing and looked at it. The water was dark and wide and far enough away that he could only hear it faintly — a low steady sound underneath everything. The sky had a few clouds but also a lot of stars. The town below was mostly dark and quiet.
He breathed in.
Salt. Cold air. Something he didn't have a name for but felt like space.
He stood there for a while and just looked.
Then he heard something.
A small sound. Fabric moving. He turned to his left.
There was a girl sitting in one of the plastic chairs. She had her knees pulled up to her chest and a pair of big headphones over her ears and she was looking out at the ocean. She had not moved when he opened the door. She had not turned around when he walked in.
She had not heard him at all.
Naoya stood very still.
He did not know who she was. He had met Hina, Ren, Tsuki, Shiori, and Daisuke. That was five people. He had been told the house had six tenants plus Daisuke. Which meant there was one more person he had not met yet.
He was looking at her now.
She was wearing a dark jacket and her hair was down and she was very still. Just sitting. Just listening to whatever was in her headphones. She looked like someone who came up here because she needed to be somewhere that was not inside.
Naoya understood that feeling.
He did not want to scare her. He thought about going back downstairs. But then he thought about the ceiling in his room and the hour he had already spent staring at it, and he stayed.
He sat down in the other plastic chair, the one a little further away, and looked at the ocean.
He was there for maybe four minutes.
Then she turned her head.
The moment she saw him she pulled her headphones down fast and her whole body went rigid like someone had grabbed her from behind. The chair scraped back. She was on her feet.
"Who are you," she said. It came out flat and sharp.
"New tenant," Naoya said quickly, holding up both hands. "Third floor. I just moved in three days ago. I couldn't sleep. I came up here. I'm sorry. I didn't want to scare you."
She stared at him.
He kept his hands up. He felt a little stupid with his hands up but it seemed like the right thing to do.
She was still breathing hard from the shock. She looked at him the way you look at something when you are trying to decide what it is.
"The door was unlocked," he said. "I didn't think anyone was up here."
A pause. She let out a slow breath.
"You should have said something when you came in," she said. Her voice had come down from sharp to flat.
"I didn't know you were here. I couldn't see you from the door."
"You could have said hello anyway."
"You had headphones on."
She looked at the headphones now around her neck like she had forgotten about them. She sat back down. Not all the way relaxed, but sitting.
"I'm Naoya," he said. "Tsukishima Naoya."
She did not say anything for a moment.
Then, "Riku."
That was it. Just Riku.
He lowered his hands. He sat back in his chair. He looked at the ocean.
Neither of them said anything for a while. The waves were still making their low sound far below. The wind moved a little.
Riku put her headphones back on.
Naoya looked at the water.
He stayed for about forty minutes.
She did not take her headphones off again. He did not try to talk to her again. They just sat there, two people on a roof in the middle of the night, looking at the ocean from different chairs.
When he finally got cold enough to want to go inside, he stood up and nodded toward the door. She had her headphones on so he didn't say anything. He just went.
He was at the door when something made him look back.
She was still looking at the water. She hadn't moved. The headphones were on and her knees were pulled up and she was exactly where she had been when he first noticed her.
He went back inside.
In the morning he found Ren in the kitchen and asked him.
"The girl on the roof," Naoya said. "Riku.
Which floor is she on?"
Ren looked up from his textbook. "Second floor. Room next to mine." He looked at Naoya more carefully. "Why were you on the roof?"
"Couldn't sleep. I found the door and went up."
"Ah." Ren nodded. "Yeah, that door's always unlocked. Riku's usually up there at night."
"I scared her," Naoya said. "I didn't mean to. She had her headphones on and didn't hear me come in."
Ren made a face. Not quite a wince. Something in between. "She doesn't like being startled," he said.
"She made that pretty clear."
"She'll be fine," Ren said. "She's just — she's careful about her space. Give her a couple of days."
Naoya poured himself some water. "What's she studying?"
"Media studies." Ren turned a page in his textbook. "Second year."
"She didn't tell me her last name."
"Hanamori," Ren said. He said the name the way you say a name when you want it to land without any extra meaning, just the name, but there was a small half-second pause before it that Naoya noticed and then forgot about.
He would not remember that pause for a long time.
He did not see Riku for the rest of that day. She wasn't at breakfast. She wasn't in the kitchen when he came down for lunch. He heard her once in the hallway on the second floor when he was coming back from the convenience store, but by the time he got upstairs she was already in her room and the door was closed.
On the second day she walked past him in the entrance hall. He said, "Hey." She looked at him. She did not say anything and kept walking.
On the third day she came into the kitchen while he was making toast. He moved to the side to give her more counter space. She opened the fridge and took out a carton of milk and poured it into a glass and stood at the counter drinking it, looking at nothing.
He finished his toast. He picked up his plate.
"I'm still sorry about the roof," he said. "About scaring you."
She finished the milk. She put the glass in the sink.
"You didn't lock the door behind you when you left," she said.
He thought about it. "No. I didn't know I was supposed to."
"You're not supposed to. I'm saying you didn't. Which means you plan on going back."
He thought about that.
"Maybe," he said.
She looked at him for a second. It was the most direct she had looked at him since the roof.
"If you go back," she said, "say something when you walk in. Even if you think nobody's there."
"Okay," he said.
"Okay," she said.
She left. He heard her go upstairs.
He stood at the kitchen counter and ate his toast and looked at the hallway she had just walked through.
He was not sure that counted as forgiveness. But it felt like something close to it.
He decided he would say hello from the door from now on whenever he went up. Even if he thought nobody was there.
Just in case.