1장
A Journey Through Loss, Love, and Paper Stars
In a world where grief often leaves us searching for meaning, Dustin Thao's "When Haru Was Here" has captured readers' hearts with its poignant exploration of love that transcends reality. This New York Times bestseller follows Thao's successful debut novel "You've Reached Sam," establishing him as a master of emotional storytelling that resonates deeply with young adult audiences. The novel has gained particular traction on BookTok, where readers praise its ability to blend magical realism with raw emotional truth. What makes this book particularly compelling is how it speaks to anyone who has ever created an emotional sanctuary after loss-a phenomenon psychologists note is a common coping mechanism. As we follow the protagonist's journey through grief, we're invited to question: what happens when the boundaries between imagination and reality blur, and how do we find our way back to the present?
2장
When Loss Becomes a Constant Companion
Eric's life is defined by absences. His sister Jasmine has left for college at the University of Michigan, leaving behind the familiar sound of her piano that once filled their Skokie home. Though she's only five hours away, her departure creates an emptiness that foreshadows greater losses to come. As Jasmine packs, Eric sits on her bedroom floor, reminiscing through old photos while the scent of their mother's lemongrass cooking fills the air. Jasmine shares her plans to live with her boyfriend Kevin, extracting a promise from Eric not to tell their parents.
When his family leaves to drive Jasmine to college, Eric invites his best friend Daniel over. They end up on the rooftop with pizza boxes between them under the night sky. Daniel points out "glitches" in the stars, insisting they're living in a simulation like The Matrix, but as "main characters," they're the only real things. "You and I are the only thing that's real," Daniel tells him-words that will haunt Eric later.
Their fingers accidentally touch, sending warmth through Eric that he keeps to himself as they both apologize. When Daniel unexpectedly asks if he can kiss him, Eric's heart pounds as he experiences a moment he's imagined countless times. That night under the stars becomes a memory Eric will cling to through the darkest times ahead.
But we soon learn that Daniel is gone-not just away, but deceased. Nearly a year after Daniel's death, Eric still checks his phone expecting texts, sometimes pretending Daniel has just moved somewhere without signal to make his absence easier to bear. The rooftop tradition they once shared has become a solitary ritual, with Eric imagining Daniel's presence beside him.
Loss compounds upon loss when we discover that Jasmine, too, has died, though Eric initially keeps this reality at bay, imagining she's merely touring with her band in Amsterdam. The weight of these twin losses forms the emotional core of Eric's journey, as he navigates a world where the people he loved most exist only in memory.
3장
A Fateful Summer Encounter in Tokyo
Before tragedy struck, Eric experienced a magical day in Tokyo during a school trip to Japan. Lost in the labyrinthine Shibuya station after taking the wrong train while filming for his senior project, he encounters a tall stranger with jet-black hair and a distinctive blue-striped shirt. This is Haru, who instinctively pulls Eric back from being hit by a speeding delivery bike, their first interaction marked by the scent of summer rain and the buzz of cicadas in the humid air.
Instead of heading straight back, Eric follows Haru on an impromptu adventure through Tokyo's hidden corners. Haru leads him through narrow alleyways lined with potted plants and past vending machines glowing like beacons in the afternoon light. They discover a nameless cafe tucked away on the third floor above an antiquarian bookstore, where they sit cross-legged on handwoven tatami mats. The owner, an elderly woman with kind eyes, serves them koridashi tea - a refreshing summer tea traditionally brewed with ice instead of hot water, its subtle sweetness perfectly matching the day's languid pace.
In the cafe, Haru carefully unwraps his purchase from Itoya, an upscale stationery store: a single sheet of handmade washi paper with delicate gold flecks embedded in its fibers. He explains how his family has owned a paper store in Osaka for three generations, teaching Eric about the ancient art of papermaking while folding tiny origami stars that scatter across their table like fallen constellations.
Their connection deepens through shared cultural touchstones. Both light up discussing their favorite scenes from Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle," debating whether the fire demon Calcifer or the scarecrow Turnip Head is the true hero of the story. At Sensoji Temple, amid the sweet smoke of incense, Eric ties his wish to jasmine flowers - chosen specifically because they remind him of his sister's name and the garden she tends back home.
The day ends in a rush of motion at Ueno Station. As Eric hurries to catch his train, Haru confesses he had lied about going in the same direction - he'd simply wanted to spend more time together. In the chaos of their farewell, the carefully written paper with Haru's phone number escapes Eric's grasp, dancing away in the evening breeze. All that remains is a red braided bracelet on Eric's wrist and memories of temple bells and origami stars.
This seemingly chance encounter, rich with unspoken possibilities, becomes the foundation for something far more significant when Haru unexpectedly reappears in Eric's life fourteen months later. Their shared day in Tokyo - filled with paper cranes, hidden cafes, and conversations that flowed as naturally as the koridashi tea - creates an emotional blueprint for the relationship that will ultimately help Eric navigate the darkest corners of his grief.
4장
The Mysterious Return of Haru
After losing both Daniel and Jasmine, Eric's life has descended into a fog of grief and aimlessness. He's deferred his hard-won film school acceptance at NYU, picking up scattered catering jobs to save money while living in his childhood bedroom. His days blur together in a state of suspended animation, each one indistinguishable from the last. The vibrant aspiring filmmaker who once dreamed of capturing life's magic through a lens now barely touches his camera.
Walking through Chicago's Loop during a late autumn downpour, Eric seeks shelter in Intelligentsia Coffee - the same cafe where he and Daniel used to spend hours discussing films and sharing dreams. The familiar scent of roasted beans and worn leather seats brings memories flooding back. As he stands dripping near the counter, a familiar figure materializes through the rain-streaked windows: Haru, the enigmatic boy he met in Tokyo fifteen months ago, looking exactly as he did that summer.
Their reunion feels both surreal and natural. They discover they're both still wearing the red string bracelets from the temple in Asakusa - now weathered but intact, a physical link to their shared past. Haru speaks of Tokyo as if he'd just left it, describing the cherry blossoms that had bloomed during their last meeting, though it's now November in Chicago. They make enthusiastic plans to explore the city together, Haru expressing particular interest in visiting the lake.
When Eric briefly returns inside to retrieve a small package - Daniel's final gift he's been carrying but unable to open - Haru vanishes completely. The rain-soaked sidewalk shows no sign of his presence, and questioning nearby pedestrians yields nothing. Eric waits for hours in the steadily falling rain, but Haru never returns.
The next morning brings an impossible surprise: Eric wakes to find Haru peacefully sleeping in his bed, as if he'd always been there. When questioned about how he entered the locked house, Haru's responses are playfully evasive, insisting they'd made specific plans he can't quite detail. Throughout the day, Haru exhibits increasingly strange behavior - disappearing around corners only to reappear across the room, becoming inexplicably invisible to waiters and passersby, and leaving intricate origami figures in his wake: cranes, stars, and roses crafted from paper that seems to shimmer with an inner light.
This pattern of appearances and disappearances continues, defying logic and physics. At the Adler Planetarium, during what should have been a routine visit, Haru demonstrates abilities that transcend natural law. He activates the massive star projector without touching it, transforming the dome into a swirling cosmic display. Then, in a moment that challenges reality itself, Haru begins to float - not metaphorically, but literally rising toward the artificial stars. When Eric instinctively grabs his hand in alarm, he too is lifted, and together they drift through a purple-hued galaxy while ethereal orchestral music fills the space, though the planetarium's speakers remain silent.
These supernatural occurrences blur the boundary between reality and imagination, leaving Eric - and by extension, the reader - questioning whether Haru is truly present or perhaps a manifestation of unprocessed grief. Yet the physical evidence remains: exquisitely crafted paper figures appear in unexpected places, each bearing Haru's distinctive artistic signature. These tangible artifacts suggest something more complex than mere hallucination, hinting at a presence that exists somewhere between the material and spiritual worlds.
5장
The Dance Between Reality and Imagination
As Eric's relationship with Haru deepens, we begin to see how grief has fractured his perception of reality in increasingly complex ways. He imagines conversations with Daniel on the rooftop of their old apartment building, replaying moments they shared and creating new ones that never happened. He speaks to Jasmine as if she's still alive, setting places for her at dinner and leaving her bedroom exactly as it was. And now he experiences Haru's supernatural presence - a relationship that exists somewhere between memory and magic, past and present, real and imagined.
These three relationships exist on different planes of reality, creating a layered emotional landscape for Eric to navigate. Daniel appears in dreams and rooftop conversations, always wearing his favorite red hoodie, while Jasmine manifests in empty rooms and quiet moments, her presence felt in the smallest details of daily life. Haru, however, moves through the world with an otherworldly fluidity, appearing in crowded streets and empty parks, leaving no footprints in the snow yet somehow managing to leave origami creatures in impossible places.
Haru becomes both an escape from pain and a path toward healing, offering Eric a unique form of comfort that bridges the gap between loss and recovery. Unlike the people in Eric's "real" life - his worried parents, his well-meaning therapist, his distant friends - Haru accepts him completely, without judgment or expectation. "I found you anyway," Haru says, taking Eric's hand across a pizza table at Giordano's, acknowledging the miraculous nature of their reconnection despite the lost phone number in Tokyo. The moment captures the essence of their relationship: improbable yet somehow inevitable.
Their time together provides moments of pure joy amid Eric's grief, creating memories that feel both real and dreamlike. They "borrow" a small blue rowboat to paddle through Chicago's river at midnight, seeing the city's glittering skyline from a new perspective. They dance in the middle of Michigan Avenue as music plays from somewhere nearby, their movements perfectly synchronized despite the cold January air. "Does it matter where the music is coming from?" Haru asks when Eric questions its source, highlighting how their connection transcends ordinary reality and linear time.
Yet as Eric begins to heal and engage more with the tangible world - applying for film scholarships at NYU and USC, reconnecting with his cousin Maya, considering a future beyond his grief - Haru's appearances become less frequent and more ethereal. The origami creatures appear in more distant places, their paper growing increasingly translucent. When Haru finally returns after a three-week absence, it's to say goodbye: "I'll always be a paper flower in your life, and you deserve a real one. Some flowers need to fade so others can bloom."
This painful farewell forces Eric to confront whether he's been using Haru as a way to avoid facing his losses, creating a beautiful illusion to shelter himself from the full impact of his grief. Has Haru been real, or merely an exquisite creation of Eric's grieving mind? The novel leaves this question deliberately ambiguous, suggesting that the boundary between imagination and reality is more permeable than we might think, especially in times of profound grief. Perhaps, it implies, some truths can only be reached through the careful fusion of what is real and what is dreamed.
6장
The Painful Path of Healing
Eric's journey toward healing takes him through several painful experiences that force him to confront reality. After Haru's departure, he seeks connection elsewhere, dating Christian, an actor who treats him as an "exception" to his usual dating preferences. When this relationship ends in rejection, Eric spirals further, agreeing to meet Nick, Christian's friend, for drinks despite knowing Haru would disapprove.
After several drinks, Nick invites Eric back to his townhouse where they continue drinking wine. When Eric refuses Nick's advances, Nick coldly kicks him out into the snowy night without a jacket. Lost in the snow with a dead phone, Eric collapses on a park bench, ready to give up.
In this moment of crisis, Jasmine appears beside the bench-not as a supernatural presence like Haru, but as a manifestation of Eric's subconscious. In this dreamlike encounter, Eric finally acknowledges that Jasmine is gone too. She urges him to face reality, read her letters, and continue living despite the pain of loss.
This confrontation with truth leads Eric to finally open Jasmine's letters, which she wrote knowing she might not survive her illness. The letters reveal Jasmine's love and her desire for Eric to continue living fully despite her absence. She's left recordings on her keyboard-music and messages that bring Eric and his parents together in shared grief for the first time.
The act of acknowledging his losses-writing letters he'll never send to Jasmine, Kevin, and Daniel-becomes a crucial step in Eric's healing. To Jasmine, he confesses his struggle accepting her death. To Kevin, he apologizes for his distance. To Daniel, he expresses regret over their unresolved friendship before Daniel's death, admits he was in love with him, and promises never to forget him.
These unsent letters serve as conversations with the absent, allowing Eric to express what was left unsaid and begin moving forward with his life.
7장
The Power of Artistic Expression
Throughout the novel, art serves as both escape and healing for Eric, offering a lifeline when traditional coping mechanisms fail. His passion for filmmaking - nurtured since he first held a camera at age twelve - provides a thread of continuity from before his losses to his gradual reemergence into life. Initially, he abandons his prestigious film school acceptance after Daniel's death, unwilling to face New York without his best friend. The camera that once represented his dreams now collects dust in his closet, a physical manifestation of his grief.
The turning point comes through Jasmine's influence. Her own artistic expression through music - particularly her haunting piano compositions - awakens something in Eric. He discovers her collection of self-recorded videos and letters, which become both a source of comfort and creative inspiration. These intimate glimpses into her life, from casual moments to profound reflections, spark his dormant filmmaker's instinct.
Eric's return to filmmaking begins tentatively, with simple recordings of empty spaces in his house that held meaning for Daniel and Jasmine. Gradually, he builds toward a more ambitious project: a documentary weaving together Jasmine's life through carefully curated home movies. The film traces her journey from a bright-eyed six-year-old receiving her first keyboard, through numerous recitals where her talent blossomed, to poignant scenes of her playing Chopin in the hospital for her parents. The narrative culminates with Jasmine's final recorded message - raw and unedited - encouraging Eric to share his stories with the world.
At the Reels Fest screening, Eric finds himself surrounded by unexpected support. His parents, who once questioned his artistic pursuits, sit in the front row. Kevin, his childhood friend, drives three hours to attend. His theater coworkers Simon and Alex help with last-minute technical details. The film's impact is immediate and profound - when the lights come up, half the audience is wiping away tears, while others sit in stunned silence. This moment transcends mere artistic achievement; it represents Eric's ability to transform his personal grief into universal emotion that resonates with strangers - perhaps the most healing act of all.
The film serves multiple purposes: it's a tribute to those he's lost, a processing of his own grief, and a bridge to reconnect with the world. Through careful editing and storytelling, Eric ensures that both Daniel and Jasmine continue to exist in a tangible form. The project also forces him to confront his memories rather than suppress them. In the festival's darkened theater, when Eric briefly glimpses Jasmine sitting in the back row before she vanishes, he understands that art has given him a way to keep her spirit alive. His creative work becomes a vessel for memory, allowing him to carry forward not just the pain of loss, but the beauty of having known such extraordinary people.
8장
Finding Closure and New Beginnings
Two years after confronting his losses, Eric has moved to New York City for a summer internship at a media company - fulfilling the dream he once shared with Daniel. The bustling energy of Manhattan reminds him of Tokyo, though the similarities only heighten his awareness of what he left behind. While rushing through the crowded Union Square subway station during evening rush hour, he spots a familiar silhouette through the train window - Haru, looking exactly as he remembered him, reading a book against the fluorescent lights of the subway car. Desperate not to lose him again, Eric races through the underground passages, heart pounding, taking the stairs two at a time to reach the next station where, against all odds, he finds Haru waiting on the platform.
As they reconnect amid the chaos of commuters, Haru notices one of Jasmine's letters that Eric dropped while running, the pale blue envelope fluttering between them. Haru immediately recognizes the distinctive handmade washi paper from his family's centuries-old store in Osaka, a cherished establishment known for its traditional craftsmanship. They piece together that Jasmine must have visited the store during her solo trip to Japan, purchasing the paper for her future letters to Eric. This connection between Haru and Jasmine - two people Eric loved who existed in seemingly separate realms of his life - creates a sense of cosmic alignment, as if the universe had been quietly weaving their stories together all along.
Taking this coincidence as a sign, they agree to get coffee at a nearby cafe, both revealing they're staying in New York for the summer - Haru for an architecture fellowship, Eric for his internship. As the subway roars past them, sending warm air through the station, Eric feels he's finally received his wish - the one he tied to jasmine flowers at the Senso-ji temple in Tokyo, asking not for Haru's return but for peace with whatever form their connection might take.
This ending leaves us wondering: Is this truly Haru in the flesh, proving he was real all along? Or is this another manifestation of Eric's imagination, now healthier and integrated into his forward-moving life rather than keeping him trapped in grief? The novel doesn't provide a definitive answer, suggesting instead that the boundary between reality and imagination may be less important than the healing these connections provide. The ambiguity mirrors life itself - how memory and reality intertwine, how loss and love reshape our understanding of what's real, and how sometimes the most meaningful encounters exist in that liminal space between what happened and what we needed to happen.
9장
The Origami of Memory and Healing
Throughout the novel, origami serves as a powerful metaphor for how we fold and unfold our memories, creating something beautiful from flat, ordinary material. Haru's paper creations - stars, roses, cranes, and intricate geometric patterns - remain as tangible evidence of his presence, blurring the line between imagination and reality. Each creation carries its own symbolic weight: the stars representing hope and guidance, the roses speaking to love and beauty, and the cranes embodying the persistence of memory.
The Japanese art of paper folding becomes a central motif that weaves through multiple layers of the narrative. The precision required in origami mirrors Eric's careful examination of his past - each fold must be deliberate, each crease meaningful. When Eric discovers Haru's origami pieces tucked away in unexpected places - between books, inside drawers, along windowsills - they serve as breadcrumbs leading him through his healing journey.
Just as origami transforms paper into art through precise folds, Eric transforms his grief into healing by carefully examining his memories and relationships. The paper from Haru's family store that appears in Jasmine's letters creates a connection between two seemingly separate parts of Eric's life, suggesting that our experiences are more interconnected than we realize. The traditional washi paper, with its delicate patterns and subtle textures, becomes a bridge between past and present, reality and imagination.
The novel explores how memory itself is like paper - malleable yet permanent in its creases. Each time Eric recalls a moment with Haru, he adds another fold to his understanding, creating increasingly complex patterns of meaning. The origami figures scattered throughout his apartment become physical anchors for these memories, each one holding a specific moment, conversation, or revelation.
In the end, whether Haru was real or imagined becomes less important than the role he played in Eric's healing journey. Like the origami figures he left behind, the memory of Haru helped fold Eric's fragmented self back into wholeness, creating something beautiful from the flat paper of grief. The transformation of simple paper into complex, three-dimensional forms parallels Eric's own evolution from a place of loss to one of acceptance and growth.
As Dustin Thao writes in his acknowledgments, the novel began with a simple concept: "The perfect guy walks into the coffee shop and sits down next to you - but nobody else can see him." This premise explores the imaginary experiences we keep to ourselves, the private worlds we create to cope with loss, and ultimately, how we find our way back to shared reality without losing the beauty of what we've imagined. The origami becomes both literal and metaphorical proof that something real and lasting can emerge from what might seem merely imagined.
