"I need a Hinomaru ," he told the shopkeeper, an elderly woman whose family had likely run the store for generations.
One by one, they took a calligraphy brush and wrote messages of encouragement in the white space around the red sun. "May your journey be filled with light," wrote her mother.
"Don't forget the taste of home-cooked rice," her brother joked. "Stay brave," Haruki added in his steady, practiced hand.
