The hotel breakfast ended at 9:00 a.m. sharp. She made a point of going down each morning at 8:45. Not because she was hungry, but because the routine gave shape to days that otherwise stretched out like fog.
She always sat by the same window. The staff had started greeting her with gentle nods and sympathetic smiles. No one asked questions.
After breakfast, she walked. Sometimes for an hour. Sometimes until her feet ached. She didn't use a map anymore. The city was safe, orderly, polite. It kept its distance, the way she needed people to.
In her second week at the hotel, she found a notice on a bulletin board near the lift,
Short-term local work available. Apply at the front desk.
She stood in front of it for a long time.
"Anything is better than doing nothing" she thought.
By the end of that day, she was folding paper in the back room of a small souvenir shop three blocks away. Origami cranes and fans, mostly. The pay was minimal, but the quiet work steadied her hands. The woman who ran the shop didn't speak much English, and that suited her fine.
It wasn't a life. Not really. But it was movement.
At night, she typed texts she didn't send. To her mother. Her sisters. Her best friend, who had sent her a silly meme the day before the bombs. The messages sat in a folder on her phone, drafts that would never leave.
One evening, she looked up how to say "I'm sorry" in the local language. She practiced it in front of the mirror, as if preparing to apologize to the world for still being here.
She started carrying a small notebook again. Not for anything grand, just thoughts, small moments. The way the sun hit the river in the morning. A conversation overheard on the train. The bitter, dark coffee the shop owner liked to drink between customers.
And then, one Thursday morning, the man arrived.
He wore a grey suit and a pin with the national crest on his lapel. He bowed politely when she opened her hotel room door, and introduced himself in slow, careful English.
"My name is Takashi Sato. I'm with the Ministry of Social Reconstruction. May I come in?"