The next morning, Class 2-B buzzed with more energy than usual. Desks clustered together, heads bent close, whispers darting from one corner of the room to the other.
"Did you hear? Someone got rejected at the west stairwell yesterday.""Yeah, apparently they confessed after practice, and it didn't go well…""They say you can still hear their voice if you stand there long enough."
Hayato sat at his desk, trying to focus on the notes in front of him. But the rumors pierced through every word of his textbook. His mind replayed the previous evening—Aiko's hand brushing against his sleeve, her voice in the quiet stairwell, the faint sound that may or may not have been footsteps.
It hadn't been a confession. Not his, at least. But the rumors made it feel like their presence there had somehow sparked the story.
"Hayato."
He blinked. Aiko was standing beside his desk, her notebook hugged casually to her chest. She wasn't smiling as brightly as she usually did. Instead, her expression was unreadable, her gaze shifting briefly toward the chatter around them.
"…They really like making up stories, don't they?" she said softly.
Hayato swallowed. "Yeah."
For a moment, silence stretched between them. He wanted to say something—anything—to push past the heaviness of the rumor. To tell her the truth about the poem. To admit that every line he'd written, every quiet thought, had been hers all along.
But his voice stayed locked in his chest.
Aiko tapped her notebook lightly against his desk and gave him a small, practiced smile. "Don't let it bother you. They'll be onto a new story tomorrow."
Then she returned to her seat, her hair swaying gently behind her.
Hayato stared after her, his hands clenched beneath the desk.
The words he wanted to say remained trapped in silence.The stairwell had left something unspoken between them—something heavier than rumors, yet fragile enough that neither dared touch it.
As the teacher's voice filled the room again, Hayato wondered if the whispers everyone talked about weren't ghosts at all. Maybe they were the voices of things people couldn't say out loud… lingering until someone was brave enough to face them.