The train doors hissed open as the morning rush swept through Shibuya Station like a silent wave.
Shoes clicked, coats flapped, and the low murmur of the crowd rose and fell like ocean tides. Commuters flowed forward with mechanical precision, heads bowed to their glowing phone screens or caught in vacant stares, powered more by muscle memory than will. The smell of train grease mixed with faint traces of department store perfume and roasted chestnuts from a distant vendor.
Among them, Sakura Aihara moved like a well-placed comma—just enough presence to be noticed, but never enough to demand a sentence of attention.
She adjusted her square-framed glasses, tugged her scarf tighter against the February chill that bit like a snarky old cat, and marched toward the familiar exit escalator with a half-eaten rice cracker still in hand. Her backpack jostled with every step, and her tablet, textbooks, and folders jangled inside like an over-prepared bell tower.
Research paper due in two and a half days—no, two days and six hours, she corrected herself.
Tutoring shift at four.
Laundry still wet in the machine because she forgot to run the spin cycle.
And to top it off, she'd only slept three hours last night, thanks to a rabbit hole of academic journal PDFs and a particularly stubborn sock that got stuck behind the radiator.
There was no room in her schedule for detours. Definitely not for surprises.
And yet—fate, that drama-loving playwright of the universe—was sharpening its pen.
Sakura veered instinctively left, away from her usual bakery detour, and ducked into Roastery Gekkō—a small café tucked beside an ancient bookstore that seemed to have survived three generations of city remodeling by the power of sheer stubbornness. Gekkō meant moonlight, and the place lived up to its name. Dimly lit with soft golden bulbs, the café always smelled like a hug. No flashing screens. No top 40 hits. Just the warm hum of soft jazz and the hiss of steamed milk.
The baristas even wrote your name on the cups by hand. A miracle in an age of barcode existence.
She stepped up to the counter without looking, eyes still glued to a paragraph she'd rewritten for the fifth time.
"I'll have a vanilla soy latte. Hot."
A soft pause.
"Of course," came the barista's reply. Gentle voice. Slightly sleepy. The kind of tone you'd expect from someone who naps with cats or reads poetry in laundromats.
Sakura glanced up just enough to register a mop of dark hair, a green apron that hung off his shoulders like it belonged to someone bulkier, and a name tag turned inconveniently backward. Not that she cared. Baristas came and went like seasonal drinks.
She paid, nodded politely, and made her way to her usual corner seat by the window—a tiny square table with an even tinier view of a brick wall painted with an old mural of a crescent moon.
The jazz track had just transitioned into a slower, smokier number. Something with saxophone and melancholy.
She opened her tablet, brought up her draft titled "Socio-Linguistic Tension in Meiji-Era Poetry", and tried to pick up where she left off.
But her thoughts refused to cooperate.
She stared at the same blinking cursor for five minutes.
Then ten.
Then the saxophone solo looped again.
"Order for Miss… Sakura?"
She blinked.
Her head turned.
A cup was being held up by the same barista—mop of hair still messy, eyes blinking hopefully.
She stood and walked over, accepting the cup with a small, automatic "thank you." The cardboard sleeve was warm—too warm, actually.
She took a careful sip.
And nearly spat it back into the cup.
"…Sweet potato?" she muttered.
The barista paled. "Wait—what?"
She turned the cup gently, revealing the handwritten number. "You gave me number thirty-nine."
He blinked. "I gave you… mine."
Sakura paused. "Yours?"
He scratched the back of his head, sheepish. "Yeah. I just got off shift. I always order a sweet potato latte after work. It's kind of my reward-for-surviving-people thing. Guess I mixed up the cups. I'm so sorry."
She blinked again. Not in irritation, just mild confusion. "You drink sweet potato lattes on purpose?"
"Hey, don't judge!" he said, holding up a hand in mock defense. "It's comforting. Like drinking autumn. If autumn was purple and mildly suspicious."
A chuckle tried to escape her, but she smothered it into a polite cough. "Well, it's… unique."
He groaned dramatically. "Oof. That's worse than saying it tastes like sadness."
She raised an eyebrow. "You've gotten that before?"
"Oh, several times. One customer told me it tasted like 'a potato lost its way and became a dessert.'"
Sakura couldn't help it—she laughed. A small, short, proper kind of laugh. But a laugh nonetheless.
"I'll make you a new one," he said, heading back behind the counter.
"You don't have to," she replied, adjusting her glasses.
He was already retying his apron. "I insist. Otherwise I'll feel like I ruined your day. And I'm morally opposed to being the villain in anyone's Tuesday."
She watched him work quickly, with a quiet focus that suggested he took pride in getting things right—even when they were tiny.
A few minutes later, he returned with a fresh cup—properly labeled, warm but not scalding, topped with a perfect spiral of caramel drizzle.
He held it out like a truce offering. "Here we go. Peace in a cup."
Sakura accepted it. "Thanks."
"I'm Riku, by the way."
"Sakura."
He gave a dramatic gasp. "No last name? Mysterious café girl who drinks vanilla soy lattes?"
"I prefer keeping things simple," she said.
"Dangerous," he nodded. "That's how spy novels start."
She smiled. It was small, barely visible, but it reached her eyes.
"Well then, Miss Simple," he said, backing away with a small salute, "enjoy your corrected beverage. Hopefully zero percent root vegetables."
She returned to her table, fingers warming around the cup. Her eyes drifted to the caramel spiral. Perfectly done. Not rushed.
She took a sip.
It was good.
Too good.
The kind of good that made you want to close your eyes and hum softly. Instead, she opened her tablet again.
Her essay glared at her.
She glared back.
Across the café, Riku was wiping down a nearby table with an old rag and humming to himself. She noticed that the tune matched the jazz overhead.
He wasn't mouthing the lyrics like someone showing off.
He just knew the rhythm.
It was... oddly in sync.
Then her phone buzzed.
She glanced down.
A new notification.
____________•••____________
One Plus
You are one plus away from somethng unexpected.
____________•••____________
She frowned.
"What kind of app is this?"
No icon.
No app open in the background.
She tapped the notification.
Nothing happened.
No sound.
No redirect.
Just that one phrase:
____________•••____________
One plus away.
____________•••____________
She turned the phone off and back on.
Still there.
Still glowing faintly on the lock screen.
A strange chill passed through her—not fear. Not exactly. More like… being on the verge of remembering a dream.
She looked up.
And found Riku already glancing in her direction.
Their eyes met.
And for the briefest second...
...the café's jazz faded,
...the chatter dulled,
...the hiss of milk steaming stopped.
The entire world felt like it had leaned in.
Just a little.
Sakura blinked.
Riku gave a soft, puzzled smile. "Everything okay?"
She quickly turned her gaze back to her screen. "Yeah. Just… thinking."
"Thinking's dangerous," he said from across the room, a playful tone in his voice. "That's how surprises happen."
She didn't answer, but the corners of her mouth twitched.
And on her phone, the notification remained.
____________•••____________
One plus away from something unexpected.
____________•••____________
As if it knew…
Everything had just begun.