Mamorenakatta

Takeru has always been invisible. Not by choice — just by circumstance. He survives by keeping his head down, doing what he's told, and asking for nothing. Until the day he says no. When he wakes up battered by the river, a girl he's never seen before is holding him. She doesn't explain. She doesn't ask questions. She just brings him home. Her name is Isuzu. Her restaurant is called Kotoba — words. And for the first time in seventeen years, someone is offering Takeru something that isn't a trap. He just doesn't know how to accept it yet.