The first day of spring always smelled like chalk dust at Haruna High.
Maybe it was the way the teachers started airing out classrooms after winter, or the fact that the walls never quite lost the faint, powdery scent of lessons past.
Either way, it greeted me the moment I slid open the shoe locker.
And then I saw it.
A letter.
Not the folded scrap of notebook paper friends sometimes use to pass jokes during homeroom.
A real letter — pale cream paper, the envelope sealed with a small, pressed flower under clear tape.
My name was written in neat, almost delicate handwriting:
To: Riku Takahashi
The problem was… I had never seen this handwriting before.
---
"Yo, Riku. You gonna stand there all morning?"
Kaito, my best friend since middle school, leaned against the lockers with his usual lazy grin. His tie was crooked, like always, as if his neck couldn't be bothered with formalities.
"Someone's love letter, huh?" he said, peering over my shoulder.
"It's not—" I stopped. My fingers hesitated over the flap.
The handwriting was careful, like the writer wanted every letter to matter.
Against my better judgment, I opened it.
---
Dear Riku,
When you read this, we haven't met yet.
We'll meet in the spring, fall in love in the summer, and say goodbye in the winter.
My name is Kana Ayase.
This will be the year we get to exist together.
---
I blinked at the page.
The words were written in the same graceful strokes as the name on the envelope.
Kaito laughed. "Okay, that's either super romantic or super creepy. Do you even know a Kana Ayase?"
"No," I said. And it was true. The name meant nothing to me.
He slapped my shoulder. "Dude, maybe you've got a secret admirer who's into dramatic prophecy or whatever. You gonna play along?"
I didn't answer. I just folded the letter back into the envelope, slid it into my blazer pocket, and closed my locker.
But for the rest of the morning, the words refused to leave my head.
---
Classes passed in a blur. The teachers' voices drifted over me like background noise. I kept catching myself glancing toward the classroom door, as if someone might walk in at any moment and say, I'm Kana Ayase.
By the time the final bell rang, I couldn't stand the restless hum in my chest.
Instead of going straight home, I walked toward the coast.
---
Haruna's shoreline was quiet in spring — the tourist crowds wouldn't come until summer. The sea breathed in slow, glassy waves, the late afternoon sun turning it all into molten gold.
I sat on the weathered railing near the breakwater and pulled the letter out again.
The pressed flower on the envelope was a camellia, pale pink, its petals slightly crumpled. I remembered hearing once that camellias could mean longing… or goodbye.
The paper still smelled faintly of something — not perfume exactly, but a clean, airy scent that made me think of laundry drying in sunlight.
I read it again, slower this time, tasting each word in my mind.
---
We'll meet in the spring, fall in love in the summer, and say goodbye in the winter.
This will be the year we get to exist together.
---
A gull's cry cut across the water. I slipped the letter back into my pocket and leaned on the rail.
It had to be a joke. There was no other explanation.
And yet…
Somewhere deep inside, I felt it — a faint pull, like the tide tugging at the shore.
As if the year ahead had already begun to tilt toward something I couldn't see.
---
I didn't know then that the next time I opened my shoe locker, the girl from the letter would be standing in the doorway of my classroom.
And she would smile like we'd known each other for years.
The sun had already slipped low when I left the breakwater. The streets near the station were quieter than usual, the ramen shop's paper lantern swaying gently in the breeze.
On the walk home, I kept thinking about the timing of it all.
Why today?
Why this letter, on the very first morning of the new school year?
I told myself it didn't matter. But my mind had other ideas — replaying the curve of the handwriting, the soft press of the camellia against the envelope, the strangely confident way the words declared our supposed future.
---
When I got home, my mom was at the kitchen counter, slicing green onions for miso soup.
"You're late," she said without looking up. "Kaito keep you out?"
I hesitated. "Sort of."
"Eat before it gets cold."
She set the bowls on the table, and the warm, savory smell of miso filled the room. I ate mechanically, barely tasting it, my thoughts still anchored to the letter in my blazer pocket upstairs.
---
That night, I took it out again.
The pale pink camellia looked even softer under my desk lamp, its petals pressed flat yet somehow still alive in color. The handwriting was neat, but not rigid — each letter carried a strange warmth, like the writer had smiled while they wrote.
I traced the lines with my eyes, slower than before.
We'll meet in the spring, fall in love in the summer, and say goodbye in the winter.
The words were so certain, it was almost unsettling. Not "I hope" or "maybe" — just… a fact.
---
When I finally lay down, the letter resting on my nightstand, the sound of the sea outside my window lulled me toward sleep.
And in that thin space between waking and dreaming, I thought I heard a girl's voice.
Not clear enough to make out the words — just a tone. Soft. Familiar, somehow.
I woke before dawn, the image of a silver-haired silhouette lingering in my mind.
---
The next morning
Spring sunlight spilled through the classroom windows, the warmth pooling on the wooden desks.
I slid into my seat, Kaito yawning in the one beside me.
"Still thinking about the letter?" he asked, grinning.
"I'm not—"
But my words died in my throat when the classroom door slid open.
The homeroom teacher stepped inside, followed by a girl I had never seen before.
Her uniform was crisp, her pale silver hair catching the light like threads of glass. She stood in front of the class with calm, steady eyes that seemed to take in everything at once.
"I'm Kana Ayase," she said, bowing slightly.
And then she looked straight at me.
And smiled.