The next few days passed not with the thunder of dramatic revelation, but with the slow, quiet unfolding of familiarity—like sunlight creeping over a windowsill, unnoticed until it has already warmed the floor. And in that gentle unfolding, Shinichi found himself walking a delicate line between normalcy and emotional chaos.
Morning in the apartment began to take on a routine. The rustling of plastic bags from one side of the wall usually meant Hinoka was preparing her aggressively seasoned instant ramen before class—something she could devour in exactly five minutes flat.
The soft clinking of porcelain from the other side was Koizumi, steeping tea with the precision of a clockmaker. And in the middle, Shinichi sat with half-burnt toast, wondering which version of breakfast would leave less of a mess.
University life had started in earnest. Seiran University's campus was large and sprawling, a beautiful chaos of old brick buildings and modern glass structures tangled together in ivy and idealism.
Students moved like schools of fish, purposeful yet chaotic, everyone too busy pretending to be adults to notice that no one had really figured anything out.
Shinichi, majoring in literature, spent his first week quietly soaking in the sights. He would sit in the back of every lecture, scrawling notes in the margin of his notebook more poetic than practical, quoting lines from authors that nobody else mentioned anymore.
Yet his thoughts often wandered. Not to the texts. But to the girls on either side of his life.
Hinoka was impossible to ignore. She had always been that way—a burst of energy that refused to be contained.
On campus, she blended in with ease, chatting with professors as if they were old friends, organizing study groups even though it was only the second week, laughing too loudly in the library and somehow never getting shushed.
Her major in business was already suiting her well; she had ambition in her eyes and fire in her voice.
And yet, when she was alone with Shinichi, that energy changed. It softened. Bent. She would still tease him about his inability to boil water properly, but her gaze would linger a little longer than necessary.
She would appear at his door under the excuse of "borrowing soy sauce," only to sit for an hour flipping through his course books as if curious about his world.
There was something almost desperate in the way she inserted herself into his space. Not desperate for attention—but for connection.
Then there was Koizumi.
If Hinoka was a flame, Koizumi was a snowfall.
She moved quietly through corridors, her music textbooks always held close, her eyes scanning every room as if searching for something lost.
She seldom spoke in class unless called upon, but when she did, the room paused—because her voice had a gravity to it, a stillness that made people listen.
She practiced piano in the small music room provided by her college, sometimes late into the evening. Shinichi had once passed by on his way home and paused at the doorway, not daring to enter.
The melody she played was haunting—familiar in a way that didn't come from memory, but from something deeper, something rooted in the bones.
And in his apartment, Koizumi's presence was subtler. She knocked only when needed, rarely lingered, and always offered help rather than asked for it.
But sometimes, when she handed him a bento box she'd made "extra by accident" or left sticky notes with reminders on his fridge, he would catch a glimpse of emotion behind her eyes. Longing. Restraint. Hope.
One evening, the three of them ended up in Shinichi's apartment again—not by design, but by a tangle of coincidence and thin walls. The power in Hinoka's unit had tripped due to a faulty rice cooker she insisted wasn't broken "until it exploded."
Koizumi had come over to check on the noise. And somehow, they all ended up sitting around Shinichi's kotatsu, drinking lukewarm tea and watching a re-run of a 90s drama none of them truly understood.
Silence hovered like a fourth guest.
Hinoka stretched, clearly bored of the plot. "Remember when we used to play that board game at your house?" she asked, reaching across Shinichi to grab a rice cracker.
"What was it called again? Something with dragons."
"Dragon Siege," Koizumi said softly, a faint smile on her lips.
Shinichi chuckled. "You always flipped the board when you were losing."
Hinoka pouted. "Because you cheated! You two always teamed up."
"That's not true," Koizumi replied, lowering her gaze. "We just… played well together."
The words hung there, too heavy for the room, too fragile to touch.
Hinoka looked away first. "We should play again. You still have it, right?"
Shinichi nodded. "Probably buried under the books."
"Then it's a rematch," she declared, pointing at him. "Winner gets to decide dinner. And no alliances this time."
Koizumi didn't answer. But her fingers tightened slightly on the rim of her teacup.
The game never happened that night.
But something else did.
...
...
It was around midnight when Shinichi heard a knock—not loud, but deliberate. He opened the door to find Koizumi standing there in her nightclothes, her cardigan wrapped tightly around her small frame.
"Sorry," she said, voice almost a whisper. "Did I wake you up?"
He shook his head. "No, I was just… thinking."
She stepped inside, slowly, as if uncertain whether she belonged there. Her eyes drifted to the half-written notebook on his desk, then to the steaming cup of untouched coffee beside it.
"I heard you sigh through the wall," she said, cheeks reddening slightly.
Shinichi laughed. "Was I that loud?"
She didn't smile. "You always sighed like that. Back when you were nervous. Before a test. Or when you were trying not to cry."
He blinked.
Koizumi sat down at the edge of the futon. "You don't have to pretend to be fine all the time, you know."
The silence returned, but this time it didn't feel like emptiness. It felt like presence. A shared breath between two people who had once been children together, who had promised things they hadn't understood, and now sat in the wreckage of time trying to find the pieces.
"I'm not used to this," he admitted. "Living alone. Being surrounded… and still feeling like no one sees me."
Koizumi's fingers reached out—hesitated—then brushed his. Just once.
"I see you," she said.
And just like that, she stood up and left, the door closing behind her like a sigh of its own.
The days that followed blurred. But something had shifted.
Hinoka began showing up earlier in the mornings, sometimes dragging Shinichi out of bed for "jogging" sessions that turned into long walks filled with jokes and memories. She challenged him constantly, but always with a laugh—always with warmth.
Koizumi, meanwhile, became a quiet fixture in his evenings. Sometimes she brought books. Sometimes she said nothing at all. But her presence calmed the room. Like a candle in a dark temple—unobtrusive, but sacred.
And Shinichi… didn't know what to feel.
He had come to Tokyo chasing a future that seemed clear.
Now, every time he opened a door, a memory walked in. Every wall carried echoes of the past. And every smile from either girl made him question what his heart had quietly buried in the name of growing up.
One night, as he sat on the balcony between their apartments, staring at the stars buried in city haze, he whispered into the dark, unsure whether anyone could hear:
"Who… am I supposed to choose?"
And from the left, the sound of Hinoka's laughter.
From the right, the distant melody of Koizumi's piano.
From the center: silence.
Shinichi closed his eyes.
And for the first time since he arrived in this city, he realized something terrifying.
He had never been more surrounded.
And yet, never more alone in a decision.