The One He Searched For

(A short story competition entry. The previous silver-award-winning short story can be found on the author's homepage.)

For who knew how many times now, she had noticed through the train window a man standing on Shichirigahama Beach, gazing at the horizon. It all seemed so natural, and yet so strange.

The laptop screen shone harshly in the dim room. Kitagawa Koichi stared at the blank document, his heart torn.

After a long while, he typed out a line. After another long while, he deleted it.

As a writer, he hadn't written a single word in two years...