C30 A Voice From Home

The phone buzzed against the floorboards, sharp in the silence of the room.

Arun stared at it, frozen. No one had this number—not here, not in Tokyo. The screen lit up with a name he hadn’t seen in months.

Mai.

His chest tightened. He almost let it ring out. Almost let it fade into silence like everything else. But his hand trembled as it hovered over the phone