Hiroshima, Japan. Summer, 1945.
The cicadas screamed louder than usual that afternoon. Or maybe it was just her heart. Aiko stood in the garden, holding a letter so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. Her yukata swayed with the gentle wind, though nothing could calm the storm that raged within her.
"Aiko-san! Another letter?" called her grandmother from inside the paper-walled house.
Aiko turned, eyes shimmering. "From Haruki. He's alive."
Her grandmother's face relaxed slightly. She had grown used to watching Aiko stand at the gate every morning, hoping for news, fearing the worst. They had already lost so many. Her father to the air raids in Tokyo. Her younger brother, Toshiro, to pneumonia last winter. Her mother, too, had stopped speaking. Grief had taken her voice. But Haruki's letters were the thread Aiko clung to.
Haruki was a soldier, sent to the Pacific front two years ago. He had promised to return. Promised to marry her under the cherry blossoms that bloomed each spring near the Shukkei-en garden. Every letter he sent ended the same: "Wait for me, Aiko. I will come back. Even if I have to walk through fire."
The war had turned Hiroshima into a grave of silence and prayer. Air raid sirens wailed daily. Food was scarce. But Aiko never missed a day at the mail center. Haruki's words gave her breath when the world felt too thin.
July 30, 1945
That night, under a flickering lantern, Aiko unfolded Haruki's latest letter. Her eyes traced every kanji with reverence.
Dearest Aiko,
The jungle is suffocating. But I dreamed of you last night, in that white kimono with the red sash. We were running along the riverbank, like children. I woke up with tears in my eyes.
Many boys here talk about death like it's waiting in the next shadow. But I think of you, and it feels like I can outrun the war. Just a little longer, Aiko. I can feel the end coming. Maybe not today. But soon.
Tell your grandmother I still remember her plum wine. I miss it almost as much as your laugh.
With all the love this battered heart can give,Haruki.
She held the letter to her chest and looked at the stars. Somewhere out there, he was alive. And that was enough.
August 5, 1945
That morning, the sky was too clear. Hiroshima had been spared so far from the worst of the war's destruction, but whispers spread daily: something big was coming.
In the marketplace, Aiko stood with her cousin, Kenta, trading their last ration stamps for rice. An old woman beside them muttered, "They say Tokyo burns every night. Maybe we are next."
Kenta shrugged. "Then let them come. What's left to fear anymore?"
Aiko didn't answer. Her eyes were fixed on a child chasing a paper crane down the alley. A symbol of peace, folded in innocence.
August 6, 1945 - The Day the Sky Cried Fire
The morning was ordinary.
Aiko helped her grandmother cook rice porridge. Her mother was humming softly—a sound that hadn't escaped her lips in months. It was almost like hope had come to visit. Haruki would be home soon. Maybe next month. Maybe by autumn.
At exactly 8:15 AM, the world ended.
A flash. Then silence.
Then a roar so loud, it erased sound.
The walls collapsed inward. The windows exploded. Fire bloomed like a demon from the sky.
Aiko woke buried under splinters and smoke. Blood ran down her forehead. The house was gone. Her grandmother—her mother—were nowhere. She crawled into the street, choking on ash.
Bodies. Fires. Screams. Melting faces. Charred children. The smell of death and burning hair.
Hiroshima was no longer a city. It was a nightmare.
She screamed for her mother. For her grandmother. For Haruki. No one answered.
The people around her were dazed, walking naked, their skin peeling off like cloth. Some carried limbs. Others just moaned.
A boy wandered past her, clutching a burnt doll, whispering, "Where is my sister? Where is my sister?"
Aiko collapsed next to a pile of rubble, her ears ringing with phantom sounds. The silence was unbearable.
But the sirens didn't return. This time, they had come too late.
August 7, 1945
Aiko awoke in a makeshift hospital on the outskirts of Hiroshima. She was covered in bandages. Her arms burned. Her throat tasted of smoke.
Beside her, a nurse whispered, "You are lucky. You were far enough from the center."
She did not feel lucky.
They found her grandmother's body two days later. Her mother was never recovered.
Aiko didn't cry. Not at first. Grief had solidified into something colder.
In the following days, the dead were everywhere. Piled in streets. Floating in rivers. Families wandered, clutching photographs and calling names into the ruins.
August 12, 1945
A stranger arrived at the hospital. A soldier, one leg in a sling, clothes torn and eyes sunken. Aiko saw him and froze.
It was Haruki.
But not the Haruki she remembered.
His hair was singed. His arms scarred. But his eyes—oh, his eyes were still his.
They didn't speak. They just fell into each other, like stars crashing. For a long time, the hospital walls heard only their sobs.
Haruki had been on leave, traveling back to Hiroshima to surprise her. He was on the edge of the city when the bomb fell.
"I was coming to see you," he whispered. "I was almost there."
"You were there," she answered. "In my dreams. In my letters. Every night."
He stayed by her side every day after that. They cleaned wounds. Fed orphans. Helped dig graves. The city had become a tomb, but within it, they found a heartbeat.
August 15, 1945
Japan surrendered.
The emperor spoke on the radio. A soft, unfamiliar voice in a country raised on iron.
"The war is over," Haruki whispered, looking at the radio like it might vanish.
Aiko sat beside him in silence. They didn't cheer. Didn't smile. There was no joy.
Only silence.
That night, Haruki handed her a small box.
Inside: a ring. Simple. Worn.
"I was going to give it to you the night I came home," he said. "Before..."
Aiko looked down at her burned hands. "I am not beautiful anymore."
Haruki cupped her face. "You are the most beautiful thing left in this world."
They married the next week.
1955 - Ten Years Later
Aiko and Haruki lived in a small rebuilt home near the river. They had no children. The doctors had told Aiko the radiation made it too dangerous.
But they had a garden. And each spring, cherry blossoms bloomed again.
They hung a photograph of her mother and grandmother in the hallway. Each August, they placed flowers beneath it.
Sometimes, at night, the sirens would sound again—not real, but in dreams. Aiko would wake, breathless.
Haruki would hold her hand and whisper, "It's over. We survived."
She would nod. But sometimes, she would look at the night sky and whisper:
"This place is loud once in a blue moon... and sometimes, the echo never leaves."
Epilogue
Hiroshima healed, slowly. Buildings rose from ashes. Parks replaced ruins. But the memory remained in the shadows, in the silence between laughter.
Aiko and Haruki grew old together. They never missed a memorial. They folded paper cranes every year. One for each soul lost.
And every letter Haruki had written her during the war—burned around the edges, ink faded—was kept in a box by the window. Their love story, written in bombs and silence.
Their story.
A story of a place that was loud once in a blue moon.
And two hearts that survived the sound.