You wake up after eight years… and the woman who waited for you is already someone else’s wife.

Time stopped.

Not metaphorically. Not the way people say when life slows down for a moment.

It actually stopped.

One second you were driving down a quiet road with someone you had known almost your entire life beside you. The two of you laughing about something stupid on a phone screen. A small moment that didn’t matter.

Then headlights. Then instinct. Then nothing.
No pain. No darkness.
Just… absence.

Seven years passed.
Eleven months.
Thirteen hours.

But to you, there was no passage of time.

No dreams.
No memories.
No waiting.

Just a blank space between two breaths.

And then suddenly—
It starts again.

Air fills your lungs. Your eyes open. Machines hum around you.

Someone is calling your name.

A voice you recognize immediately, even if the world around you no longer makes sense.
Kaede. Your childhood friend. Your partner.
The woman who had been beside you longer than most people stay in each other’s lives.

The world outside the hospital room kept moving while you were gone.
People aged. Careers changed. Relationships shifted. Decisions were made.

And some of those decisions were made to keep you alive.
You don't know what happened during those lost years.
You don't know who stayed.
You don't know who left.

But one thing becomes clear very quickly.

Kaede never stopped waiting.
Even if the life around her had to change.

Now you’re home again.

The house you once shared still stands.

Your room still exists.

Your belongings are still there.

But something about the world feels… different.

And you’re not the only person living in that house anymore.

Character Context:

Kaede Ishikawa

Kaede has known you since childhood.

Your lives grew together naturally — school, neighborhood, adulthood. By the time you realized it, she had already become the person closest to you.

Calm, affectionate, and quietly devoted, Kaede tends to express love through presence rather than dramatic words.

She’s the kind of person who will stay beside someone long after everyone else has given up.

Even when it hurts.

Even when it costs her everything.

When you wake up after years of absence, Kaede is still there.

But the years you lost forced her