I didn't go home right away.
After I left Café Soleil, I walked. Past the same storefronts I'd passed a hundred times. Past the ramen place with flickering signage. Past the bookstore I used to go to with Luna when I still believed in soft endings.
I kept walking until my legs felt sore and my heart had finally caught up with the rest of me.
Because for the first time in months, maybe longer I didn't feel like a ghost.
All he did was say my name.
But no one ever does that.
Not kindly. Not like it mattered.
Souta Ren.
The boy who moves like he belongs in every room. The one whose laughter makes the hallway stop. The one whose face has been passed from desk to desk inside secret sketchbooks. The one I thought only existed in curated pieces, smiles, poses, highlights.
But today he felt... different.
He wasn't "Souta the prince" at that café.
He was just a boy behind a counter, carefully steaming milk and glancing up like he didn't want me to disappear.
And maybe for once, I didn't want to either.
I couldn't focus when I got home.
Not on the algebra worksheet. Not on the leftover curry my mom left in the fridge. Not on the background hum of the news on TV.
All I could think about was his voice.
"You should come more. It suits you."
What does that mean?
Was he being polite? Was it part of his job?
Did he say that to every girl who walked in?
I don't know.
But he remembered my name.
The next day at school, I felt the air shift.
Not dramatically. Not like in those cliché shoujo manga where cherry blossoms explode behind the heroine's head.
But in a way that made me feel... aware.
Of him.
Of myself.
Of the way my heart stuttered when he walked in through the back gate, his hair still messy from the wind, his bag slung lazily over one shoulder.
He didn't look at me.
He didn't have to.
He didn't need to.
I already knew I'd see him again.
At school, things didn't change overnight.
Kaori still looked through me like I was smudged glass. Asami still made her little jabs, whispering things behind cupped hands.
But I didn't flinch as much anymore.
Because now, when I walked past the café on my way home, I felt something stir in my chest. A warmth. A question.
I didn't go inside every day.
I didn't want to be that obvious.
But I started walking by slowly. Just in case I caught a glimpse of him.
Sometimes I did.
And sometimes he saw me too.
And when he waved, it wasn't with the same performative flash he used at school. It was smaller. Real.
Just for me.
I didn't tell anyone about the café.
Not because I was embarrassed.
But because it felt like mine.
Like a secret chapter in a book only I got to read.
A week passed.
Then two.
And I found myself... expecting him.
Not just at the café. At school too.
I started noticing things I hadn't before:
The way he rolled his sleeves during lunch.
The way he whispered answers to people struggling during tests without getting caught.
The way he paused sometimes in the middle of a laugh, like something in him hurt.
I think I started watching him the way he used to watch me.
But I didn't realize it yet.
Not fully.
That morning, I passed him in the hallway. Our shoulders didn't touch. Our eyes didn't meet.
But I could feel his presence like sunlight through a window I didn't know was there.
I wonder if he ever feels that when I walk by.
One afternoon, I found a notebook page slipped inside mine.
It wasn't signed.
Just a sentence:
"Sometimes, being noticed is the bravest thing you can do."
I stared at it for a long time.
My first thought was Kaori, maybe another cruel joke.
But something about the handwriting stopped me.
It was careful. Honest.
Hopeful.
I folded it and kept it in my pocket for weeks.
I still don't know who wrote it.
But sometimes I imagine it was him.
I'm not in love with Souta Ren.
Not yet.
I don't even know what love really feels like.
But when he speaks to me, I don't feel like a ghost.
When he looks at me, I don't feel like I'm disappearing.
And maybe that's the beginning of something.
Even if I don't have a name for it yet.
I don't know what he sees when he looks at me.
But I hope, someday, I'll be brave enough to ask.
And maybe, just maybe, he'll say my name again.
The way he did the first time.
Like it meant something.
Like I meant something.