> "It's not the questions that haunt us. It's the silence after."
---
Yuki's Room
6:12 AM, Exam Day
The first light of dawn pressed gently against the pale curtains, painting her ceiling in a color somewhere between surrender and ash. Yuki lay awake, staring upward, the weight of the day coiled tight in her chest.
She had barely slept.
She hadn't returned to her own home in days—not until yesterday evening—telling her parents she had been staying at a friend's house for exam prep. That wasn't entirely false. She had been somewhere else. In the space between memory and heartbreak. Between Ayane's house, and the part of herself she didn't know how to carry anymore.
Her parents hadn't asked questions. They trusted her. That made it worse somehow.
At 6:18, she pushed herself up. No birdsong greeted her. Just the muffled silence of a house still asleep and the pressure of a morning that would not wait.
The kettle hissed softly in the kitchen as she poured herself tea. She didn't touch her phone. Didn't want to see if Riku had said anything. Didn't want to hope. Not today.
7:45 AM
The streets outside were already filling with nervous students, backpacks slung low, eyes drowsy with anxiety and caffeine. Yuki stood at the bus stop, headphones in, music off. She wasn't trying to focus. She just wanted the world to be quieter.
The exam center loomed ahead like every school building in every student's nightmare—too tall, too gray, and filled with too many unspoken expectations.
8:12 AM
Inside, rows of desks had already been arranged. The scent of freshly printed question papers mixed with disinfectant. Yuki found her seat—Row C, Seat 14. Lucky numbers didn't exist. Not for her.
8:39 AM
The invigilator gave instructions like a prayer everyone pretended to follow. Yuki placed her pens carefully in a straight line. She breathed in once, twice. Her pulse steadied. Or at least, she told herself it did.
She hadn't thought of Riku for almost an hour.
9:00 AM
The exam began.
Papers turned over. The sound of pages ruffling. Pens uncapped. And for a moment, the world paused—not in peace, but in tension. Yuki read the first question. Her mind, to her own surprise, responded.
She wrote. Slowly, at first. Then faster. Her handwriting held its shape, even as her thoughts threatened to wander. She kept pulling herself back to the present. The ink. The structure. The answer.
This was something she could still control.
11:42 AM
Three hours later, she walked out into sunlight that felt too harsh for how drained she was. Students stood in clusters, whispering about Question 16B, arguing over formulas. Yuki didn't stop. She kept walking. Down the stone steps. Across the lawn. Into the city noise.
Her phone buzzed.
Riku: Did you eat anything this morning?
She stopped walking.
Her fingers hovered over the screen.
Yuki: A little. Tea, mostly.
She didn't know why she answered honestly. Maybe because it was the only thing that didn't feel like a test.
There was no reply.
That was okay. Or, at least, it had to be.
---
1:08 PM
Outside the Old Park Bench near West Gate
She didn't expect Ayane to be there.
But there she was—leaning against the railing near the rusted clock tower, dressed in something too dark for summer, cigarette unlit in hand.
Yuki hesitated. Then walked up anyway.
"You look like hell," Ayane said, barely turning.
"I could say the same."
They sat. Silence hovered between them, thick and familiar.
Ayane sighed. "So. You passed?"
"Does anyone ever really know?"
A ghost of a laugh. "Spoken like someone who wrote a killer essay."
Yuki didn't answer that. She stared at the dried-up fountain in front of them, the moss climbing like forgotten intentions.
"I didn't come to your place," Ayane said quietly. "Not after that night."
"I know."
"You hate me now?"
"I don't hate you." Yuki's voice didn't falter. "But I think… I stopped expecting you to choose me. Somewhere along the way."
Ayane looked down at the cigarette. She didn't light it. Just spun it between her fingers.
"He chose me first, Yuki. Back then. In middle school. I was just… afraid to say no."
"I know," Yuki whispered. "I just wish you told me before I found out through everyone else."
Silence again.
Ayane bit her lip. "You think I'm a bad person?"
Yuki shook her head. "No. Just someone who forgot what I meant to her."
Ayane exhaled. This time, with a little more weight.
"I miss us."
"I miss who we were," Yuki said. "Not sure we can be that again."
"I don't know who I am now either," Ayane admitted.
For a moment, Yuki reached across the space between them. Not to touch her hand. Just to make sure the space wasn't empty.
"I don't hate you," she said again. "But I can't protect you from your own choices. Not anymore."
A soft wind stirred the dry leaves at their feet. Neither of them looked at the clock.
"You and Riku…" Ayane started.
Yuki shook her head. "Don't."
"I just—"
"I don't know what we are. Maybe nothing. Maybe just a feeling that lingered too long."
Ayane leaned back. Closed her eyes against the sun.
"Maybe that's what we all are."
Yuki stood. Adjusted her bag.
"Take care of yourself, Ayane."
"You too."
And then Yuki walked away.
She didn't look back.
---
Later That Evening
She stood in front of her desk again. Tea cooling in her mug. The exam was over. The conversation had ended.
The ache hadn't.
Her phone buzzed again.
Riku: If you're not too tired… want to talk?
She stared at the screen.
Then typed back slowly:
Yuki: Not yet. But I think I'm closer to wanting to.
She pressed send.
And for the first time all day, she let herself cry.
Quietly.
Like rain that didn't ask to be seen.
---
Ayane
---
The gate behind her closed with a rusted groan, swallowed by the low murmur of students pouring out of the college campus, their voices a blur of relief, exhaustion, and laughter. Ayane didn't look back.
Not at Yuki.
Not at the last expression she wore.
She kept walking.
Her fingers fumbled into the pockets of her blazer, pulling out a pair of white wireless earbuds, not because she wanted to listen to anything, but because she didn't want anyone to talk to her. Not classmates. Not the boy who tried to walk beside her earlier. Not even her own conscience.
The city air was hot, thick with sun and the aftertaste of too many engine fumes. Sweat gathered beneath her collarbones. Her bag felt heavier than it should have. Her phone buzzed — a group chat celebrating the "freedom" of being done — but she silenced it with one swipe and shoved it deeper into her bag.
She didn't feel free.
The exam was over, sure. But something else had just started again.
Yuki.
Yuki's voice.
Yuki's eyes.
The way she stood a little too still, like a person bracing for bad weather even though the sky was clear.
Ayane turned the corner, passing the ramen shop they used to skip classes for, where they used to split a bowl and fight over toppings. She kept walking.
Don't think about it.
But her body betrayed her.
Her footsteps slowed. Her throat tightened. And that voice — Yuki's voice — echoed inside her skull.
> "I don't hate you."
Of all the things she expected Yuki to say… that wasn't one of them. She'd prepared herself for indifference. For averted eyes. For that awful politeness people wear when they've already buried you. But not that.
Not forgiveness.
Not softness.
Not now. Not after—
She stopped walking.
Her reflection stared back at her from a convenience store's glass window: same hair, same gold stud earrings, same practiced face. But her eyes looked like a storm that never got to rain. The kind that just circled and circled.
Ayane leaned against the cold glass. Her phone buzzed again. Another message.
> "He's asking if we're meeting tonight."
"Ayane, answer already."
"You coming to the rooftop?"
She didn't answer.
Because what would she say?
"Sorry, I just saw the girl whose heart I helped ruin in high school and I think she still wears the silence I left behind"?
"Sorry, I don't know why I did it either. Maybe I was just afraid she'd leave me first."
That boy—Naoya.
She hadn't even liked him that much. Not at first. He was funny in a nervous way, popular enough to feel like a trophy, but not sharp enough to see the war that bloomed in girls like them. But Yuki liked him. That was clear.
Yuki had liked him quietly, in the way she liked most things: shy, slow, sincere.
And Ayane…
Ayane had liked the way he looked at Yuki.
That was the truth she never said out loud. She didn't want him. Not really. She wanted to be the kind of girl someone looked at like that. Like Yuki. Like she mattered without effort.
She took him.
And Yuki never said a word.
Not until months later. Not even when they passed each other in hallways, all the softness drained from their smiles. Not even when Naoya broke up with Ayane two months in, saying "it doesn't feel right."
She hadn't spoken to Yuki since.
Until today.
Until the quiet near the campus gate, when Yuki's voice came like a cracked door, not wide enough for full forgiveness but enough to make Ayane feel the draft again.
> "I'm not here for drama."
What did that even mean?
Did Yuki still think Ayane was the same girl?
Had she become someone else?
Ayane ran her hand through her hair, suddenly aware of how tightly she was gripping her own arm.
Maybe it didn't matter.
Or maybe it mattered too much.
---
She ended up at the park.
The same small patch of green they used to visit after cram school. The one with the broken swing that Yuki had once fixed with a hair tie. It still tilted slightly to the left.
She sat down, pulling her knees up, arms draped across them. Her phone remained silent for once. The sun dipped just enough to throw long shadows across the grass. A family passed by. Laughter. A dog barked.
Ayane sat still.
Time stretched.
And finally, without planning to, she whispered aloud to no one:
> "I didn't mean to ruin us."
There was no reply. Only the sound of wind brushing against leaves that had yet to fall.
Maybe Yuki had never needed her to apologize.
Maybe she just needed her to mean it.
Ayane wiped her cheek quickly — once — before it could fall. Then twice. Then didn't bother stopping the rest.
---
The sky turned from blue to ink.
She scrolled through old photos. High school days. Those blurry moments they used to call forever. Candid shots in cafeterias. A video of Yuki falling asleep during a sleepover, marker lines drawn over her forehead by a giggling Ayane.
Back when nothing had sharp edges.
When betrayal wasn't something you recognized until long after the cut.
---
Ayane didn't go to the rooftop party.
She didn't reply to Naoya either.
Instead, she opened her notepad. Wrote a message. Deleted it. Wrote another. Deleted that too.
Her thumbs hovered. She was scared of silence but more afraid of saying too much.
Finally, she typed:
> If you ever want to talk, or yell, or just sit somewhere again… I'd come.
She stared at the blinking cursor. Then sent it.
Not because she expected forgiveness.
But because some ghosts only fade when you name them.
---
The next morning, Ayane woke early. The sun was barely a smear on the horizon. She hadn't slept much, but she didn't feel tired.
She got dressed, pulled her hair into a neat ponytail, and grabbed her sketchbook.
It was old — almost forgotten — tucked away beneath her desk. She flipped through it, page after page of unfinished drawings. Most of them had been done back then. During those silent days when Yuki had started drifting away.
One sketch caught her.
Yuki, sleeping beside her during a study session. Head resting on her arms. The lines were soft. Almost reverent. As if she hadn't drawn a girl, but the memory of warmth.
She touched the page lightly.
Then closed the sketchbook.
---