Ana climbed up the last flight of steps leading to her third floor flat, feeling heavy and out of breath.

It had been months since she had been here the last time; she only came once since her trip to Japan to pick up the most necessary things. But now she wanted to stand on her own two feet again, carry the responsibility for her actions on her shoulders, and live her own life without complicating her sister's.

Reaching the door situated at the end of a narrow, windowless corridor she slid her key into the lock, but even before she could turn it the door opened on its own accord, revealing her sister Kate.

"What are you doing here?" she protested, her heart beating in her throat, as she put her hand over her belly in an unconscious, protective gesture.

"I just brought your bags and some food Sister, you said you wouldn't have time to go shopping today. I didn't mean to scare you." Kate explained in lieu of an apology. "Anyway," she added, placing her hand over Ana's, which was still resting on her belly, "you should finally stop working, there's less than a month left before she is born, you both should rest..."

"You know that I finish next week. Don't make me feel guilty, Kate, teaching art is hardly a tiresome work. It's a pleasure." It was way better than spending her days waiting for the baby to be born, alone in her flat, lost in her memories.

"Fine, you always say that, there's no arguing with you, Ana. I'm off then, call me if you need anything."

Ana let Kate kiss her on her cheek before she made her way out of the flat, then called before the door closed completely behind her sister, "Thanks, Kate, for everything!"

Ana knew that she hadn't been behaving nicely lately. She wasn't quite herself since she got back from her trip to Japan, eight months ago. How much she missed him still... she realised with a pang in her heart. She took her shoes off her swollen, tired feet and walked into the kitchen.

There, on the table, sat a gift-wrapped packet. A piece of paper attached to it stated in Kate's handwriting -- 'I know I promised I wouldn't force you into celebrating, and I'm not. Happy birthday, Sister.'

Shaking her head at her sister's stubbornness, she opened the present, finding a book about Japan hidden beneath the layers of colourful paper. Ana ran her fingers along the contours of a couple of Tancho cranes dancing on a snow-covered field pictured on its cover, her eyes filling with tears. She appreciated Kate's thought, Japan had always been the country of her dreams, and her sister knew it... but she also knew what happened to Ana on the trip there last winter.

Ana only told Kate about how she fell in love last winter, about how she left half of her heart in Japan, with Kaito. She refused to explain anything to anyone else, not even to her parents. That was the reason why they ignored her now, and her sister was her only tie with the family.

But Ana was twenty-two, and whether her parents agreed with her or not, she felt old enough to become a single mother, accepting the results of her mistake. No, not a mistake. She would never regret what had happened between her and Kaito.

Sighing, she walked towards her living room, the only room of her studio flat, wishing to lay down and sleep... and dream. Lately, her dreams were more pleasant than her reality.

She didn't get far, though-- like a thick layer of snow, an infinity of snow-white origami cranes covered every single surface of her room. They were everywhere between the door and the window, sitting on the carpet, perched on furniture and picture frames, lying on her bed.

"Kate.... why?" she muttered, tears falling down her cheeks. It was one thing giving her a book on Japan, and another entirely flooding her flat with origami cranes and thus, even though unconsciously, re-opening the still not completely healed wound in her heart.

Ana waded through the sea of white birds carefully, not wanting to crush their fragile paper bodies under her feet. Knowing her sister's patience, they were one thousand and not one less... A magical number. She stopped by the window that offered a view of a pond spreading beyond the traffic-filled high road. The water's surface was teeming with white ducks and swans... The scenery always reminded her, though only vaguely, of another view-- the view of the Kushiro Mire.

The memories of her trip to Hokkaido started to trickle back, and she did not try to stop them. Staring out of the window, suddenly blind to what she was looking at, Ana saw herself the day when she and five of her fellow art students arrived at Kushiro art school last winter. They stayed six weeks, perfecting their watercolour skills in Japan. Ana had graduated since then and started working as an art teacher, but she knew she would never become as good as their teacher in Japan. Kaito...

Taking a deep, shaky breath, Ana turned away from the window, remembering him. She saw the look in his eyes the moment they first met. There was... something between them from that first moment, a sort of a... gravity pull they could not fight. It felt as if they had been waiting for each other their entire lives.

Her lips curled into a slight smile as she let her eyes travel over the walls of her room lined with many of her watercolours, most of them depicting the boreal marsh near Kushiro city and its Tancho cranes.

She remembered Kaito's smile as he told them that the word Tancho meant red-headed, even as his eyes rested on Ana's unruly ginger hair, making them all laugh.

With perfect clarity, her mind pictured for her the moment when he told them, his students, that there was supposed to be one thousand birds living in the marshland along the Kushiro River, and they were believed to live for one thousand years.

She recalled the... warmth growing within her as she fell in love with him during the six weeks, the warmth she could still perceive whenever she thought of him. Then she remembered the last two days when Kaito took them to Kushiro Wetlands to sketch the cranes. Ana felt again the pang of disappointment she had felt the very last morning of her trip, as she packed her luggage in her hotel room, knowing that there only was one day and one night left, and she had never had a chance to be alone with him.

She remembered the last afternoon in the park. It started snowing suddenly and Ana was so absorbed in sketching the cranes dancing like ethereal ghosts, their pristine, gossamer wings flitting gracefully among the huge, ephemeral snowflakes and the handful of bright orange rays of the setting sun piercing their way through the layer of snow-filled clouds, that she did not notice that it was only her and her painting teacher left in the observatory until she raised her eyes from her finished picture. He walked to her then and observed her watercolour, and, as if guided by a force he could not resist any longer, cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. She felt then that, somehow, this man whom she barely knew was her destiny, but instead of admitting it, she laughed off nervously the words expressing exactly what she was feeling when they came from his lips.

She recalled how, unable to part from him knowing that she would not see him again the day after, she let him accompany her to the door of her hotel room later and, against her better judgement, allowing her feelings to guide her, she invited him in. He did not refuse. How could he? They both knew that those were the last hours they had left...

Tears welled up in her eyes now, just like that morning when she woke up alone, with a single snow-white origami crane resting on the pillow next to her, realising that she didn't even have his phone number...

"If only he was here now... " Ana whispered, looking at the cranes absently, trying to shake off her memories and focus on the present again.

Her breath caught as a sudden, unexpected thought popped up in her mind. She slid her hand in her pocket and closed it around the paper bird she always carried with her like a talisman. The cranes in her room were only nine hundred ninety-nine-- she held the thousandth in the palm of her hand.

Perhaps it wasn't Kate who folded them patiently for her-- but it was definity her sister who found the man Ana loved, the father or her baby who had left her without a word of goodbye, without leaving her a way to contact him.

Just that he didn't. Ana unfolded the origami bird sitting in her palm carefully, revealing an address, a phone number, and a sentence scribbled in tiny letters, 'I know we hardly know each other, but I wish you would marry me. I have fallen in love with you.'

Her legs shook, and she let herself sink among the white origami cranes, feeling... dumb.

She thought he had simply left that morning, feeling embarrassed for what had happened between them, and never thought of her again. How many times did she cry since she got back, missing him? How many times was she tempted to call the art school in Kushiro to ask for his number... But she could not push herself to look for a man who never planned to stay in touch with her.

Just that he did. She had his number all along...

A tear dropped on the undone crane she held in her hand, and Ana wiped it off quickly, not wanting it to dissolve Kaito's unspoken words. She would never call him now, not after all these months, but this was proof that he had loved her too...

She pressed the piece of paper to her heart, remembering that one thousand cranes folded into origami meant your heart's desire would come true.

Maybe... If only it was really him who had made those cranes for her... If only he were really here...

Ana did not hear the door open, but when she raised her eyes, through the haze of tears, she saw her sister standing in the doorway.

"Kate... why, how...?" she asked, looking at her sister accusingly before her eyes landed on another figure standing in the semi-darkness filling the corridor.

"Kaito..." she whispered unbelievingly.

"Ana..." he whispered back, voice breaking, as he approached her. "You left... I could not find you..." he murmured, kneeling next to her. "I asked you to marry me..."

"I only found out now." She smiled at him, dabbing at her tears, feeling silly. "I thought it was you who left me..."

"Your sister told me you were pregnant... Ana... I understand if you don't want to marry me just yet, but... let me stay close... We're... about to become parents..."

"Meet your daughter then. Her name is Meraki," Ana said, taking his hand in hers and placing it on her belly.

"You couldn't have chosen a more beautiful name." His voice shook with the emotions he tried to suppress as he stood up and pulled her to her feet gently, then wrapped her in an embrace.

"I... missed you so much," she admitted, looking into his eyes.

"It wasn't that difficult to find him, Sister." Kate spoke from the door. "I had to call that art school a few times and be quite insistent, but in the end, they gave me his number. And the moment he knew how heartbroken you still were, he got on the plane."

"How long have you been here?" Ana asked him, well aware that folding all those cranes must have taken him a while.

"Ten days. Your sister refused to tell me where you lived until she got to know me at least a little. She made me meet those friends of yours who visited Japan with you, too," he said, turning to Kate with a smile.

"What... should we do next?" Ana asked, trying to catch up with her fast changing reality.

"I'm here to stay, if you want, or take you back home with me if you prefer, Ana. I love you," Kaito said, sealing her lips with a kiss.

"Fine, fine, just wait till I'm out. Call me if you need anything, Sister," Kate said, leaving them alone.

"Thank you, Kate!" Ana and Kaito called at the same time, even as the door closed behind her.