Page 164 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

“A mug?”

“Plain white. No design. Just… a mug.”

I stared at him, my hot dog paused halfway to my mouth.

“Sounds like an amazing gift.”

He smiled, almost shyly, and looked down at his hot dog.

“Yeah. I’m not great at gifts. It’s just…”

He paused, gathering his thoughts.

“He had this mug. He bought it on a trip to Japan when we were in university. It was just a simple ceramic thing, but he loved it. Used it every single day for years. It was his coffee mug, his tea mug, his ‘I’m stressed and need something warm’ mug.”

A faint smile touched his lips.

“Then it broke. Dropped it in the sink, shattered into a dozen pieces. He went back to find the place, tried for weeks, but the shop had shut down. He pretended it was fine, but it really wasn’t.”

I watched his face as he spoke, the way his expression softened with the memory of his friend’s quiet grief.

“He was going through a hard time when he took that trip,” Cassian continued. “The whole thing—the change of scenery, the distance—it really helped him. And that mug was the only thing he bought. The only physical reminder of that trip.”

His gaze dropped to his hands.

“So when it broke… it wasn’t just a mug.”

I stopped chewing.

“I tried to find the place. Tracked down the shop from old photos, internet searches, whatever I could. Eventually, I found out the family had moved. Closed the business.”

His voice softened further.

“The woman who ran it, the one who made the mugs… she’d passed away. Her daughter didn’t want to continue. Didn’t want to think about it.”

He shrugged.

“I asked anyway. A lot. Emails, calls. Eventually, the daughter agreed. She said she’d make one. Just one. But she couldn’t do the design—her mother’s technique, her mother’s eye. She didn’t know how.”

He glanced at me.

“So I just asked for the mug. Plain. No design.”

I stared at him.

My lips parted, but it took a moment for words to form.

“That…”

I swallowed.

“That’s actually an amazing gift, Cassian.”

He shrugged again and took another bite.

“It wasn’t the same mug, though. It didn’t have the design.”

“No,” I said softly.