🌿 The Secret Meeting

Date: A few days after the garden changed
Weather: Misting rain and too many questions

Journal entry by Rika

Papa's been quiet again.

Not the kind of quiet where he hums while he’s planting, or gets lost in one of his garden tales. No. This is the heavy kind. The kind that follows you around the house like steam after a bath, clinging to your skin and making your chest feel stuffy.

It started the morning after it happened, the room with the glowing lanterns, the journal that spoke, and those strange doors with different symbols. I can still hear the hum of the light when I close my eyes.

But Papa…
He won't talk about it. Not even a whisper.

And I caught him slipping into the forbidden room. The one with the rusted carrot symbol on the knob, you know, the door he once told us was just "a locked pantry that he forgot how to open."

Liar.

Something's not right, and I’m not the only one who knows it.

Noriko’s Entry — same page, taped in

I didn’t want to believe Rika at first.

Dad's been through a lot. We all have. But seeing him stare out the window with a face full of gone? That’s not normal. Especially not for him.

He hasn’t picked up his camera since the doors opened. The light in the garden has changed, and he’s not chasing it. That’s how I know something’s wrong.

We’re meeting tonight. Just us kids. Rika called it, of course. Fumiko already tried to bring snacks, and Minato’s packing tea like we’re going to war.

And maybe we are.

Minato’s Entry — a smudged corner in soft green ink

We sat in the Room we call 'Little Light', the one behind the greenhouse that still smells like old citrus and compost.

I made lavender tea because everyone’s nerves are fried, and it’s the only thing I know how to offer. Comfort in a cup.

We each shared what we remembered.

The voice. The journal. Papa’s face when he heard it.
I can still hear it too, not the words, but the way it felt. Familiar. Warm. Like spring after a long winter.

But it scared him. And it broke something in him.

And I think we need to fix it.

Fumiko’s Entry — scribbled sideways in glittery orange pen

OKAY so...

We KNOW that voice was important. We KNOW it shook Papa up like when he thought he lost his garden gloves but they were on his hands the whole time. (Classic Dad.)

Also. We ALL saw the door with no symbol.

Also ALSO, I think it’s weird that the voice said something about us needing to know her.

Her.

HER?

There’s only one her Papa won’t talk about.

And I think it’s time we talk FOR him.

So guess what we’re doing?

A PLAN.
A big, messy, brave, slightly dangerous plan.

We're going into that door. Not to hurt him.
But because maybe... maybe we're the ones who’ve been waiting long enough.

Rika’s Closing Entry

We don’t need Papa’s permission to learn who we are. So we’ll go together, the 4 of us can handle our own now... we aren't so little anymore.

We need his truth.

For him.
For her.
But mostly for us.

Even if the next door doesn’t open easily...
We’ll knock until it does.

—Rika