Airports smell like despair. Like disinfectant and tired perfume. Kenji hated them. He was picking up a fare. A corporate account. Long ride into the city. Good money.
He stood by the arrivals board. Names flickering. Cities. Times. A meaningless code. His sign said "TAKANO." Some salaryman. Probably in a hurry.
He scanned the crowd. A river of people. Wheeling suitcases. Kids crying. A wall of noise. Announcements in two languages. A constant, grating hum.
He needed a smoke. Bad. His throat was scratchy. He shifted his weight. Checked his phone. No messages. Never any messages.
Then.
A color. In the river of black and navy coats. A flash of deep green. Wool. A woman's coat. The cut of it. The way it fell.
His breath caught. Stuck.
Her coat. That last winter. Green. Not this deep. Lighter. But the shape. The way it moved. The memory was a physical thing. A hook behind his ribs.
He tracked it. The green. Moving through the crowd. Toward the international gates. A woman. Dark hair pulled back. He couldn't see her face. Just the back of her head. The set of her shoulders. A suitcase rolling behind her. Sleek. Silver.
It couldn't be.
His heart was a fist. Pounding. Once. Twice. A sick, hopeful rhythm.
She turned her head. Just a fraction. A profile. Sharp. A nose. A chin. It was blurred by distance. By people. Was it her? The ghost from the photo. The ghost from his head.
He took a step. Forward. Into the flow. A man bumped him. Snarled. He didn't hear it.
His mouth was dry. "Aoi." He didn't say it. Just shaped the word. No sound.
She kept walking. Smooth. Confident. Not the girl from the roof. A woman. A woman who belonged in airports. Who knew where she was going.
He took another step. His sign hung limp at his side. "TAKANO" was forgotten. The fare was forgotten.
He could catch her. A few running steps. Tap that green shoulder. See her face. Watch her eyes. See if they held the blue of that rooftop. Or just the flat glare of a stranger.
His feet wouldn't move.
What if it was her?
What would he say?
What if it wasn't?
The terror of being right. The terror of being wrong. They were the same. A vice around his chest.
She reached a security line. Joined the queue. A final turn. He saw three-quarters of her face. The light from the huge windows hit her.
It wasn't her.
It was. But it wasn't.
The bones were similar. The hair. But the mouth was different. Tighter. The expression was blank. Impatient. Aoi's face, even in stillness, had held a current. A live wire. This face was a closed door.
Or maybe time had done that. Closed the door. Smoothed the current out.
He'd never know.
He stood there. Frozen. As the woman in green showed her passport. As she walked through the arch. As she disappeared into the bright, sterile mouth of the gate.
Gone.
The crowd swallowed the space where she'd been.
His heart slowed. The sick hope drained out of him. Left a cold, hollow sludge.
A hand touched his arm. He jumped.
"Are you Kenji? For Takano?" A man. Suit. Briefcase. Annoyed.
Kenji blinked. Looked at his sign. Nodded. "Yeah. This way."
He led the man to the cab. Opened the door. A routine. Mechanic.
He got in the driver's seat. Started the meter. Pulled into traffic.
His hands were steady on the wheel. His breathing was even.
A near miss. A glimpse of a coat. A ghost made of green wool and bad lighting.
It wasn't her. It was never her.
But for ten seconds, his whole world had narrowed to a flash of color in a tired crowd. For ten seconds, the static had cleared. And the signal, real or imagined, had been so strong it hurt.
He drove. The airport shrank in the rearview.
The near miss wasn't about almost seeing her. It was about almost waking up. From the long sleep of his life. The shock of almost being alive again.
It passed. The numbness seeped back in. Deeper this time.
He turned the radio on. Loud. To fill the quiet she'd almost broken.