The scream had already faded by the time Hayato and Aiko rushed down the steps. Their breaths came sharp and uneven, echoing too loudly against the old walls.
On the third landing, they found one of the boys—the one who had mocked them earlier—sitting slumped against the wall, shaking. His face was pale, his eyes wide as though he'd seen something no one else could.
"The… the voice…" he stammered, clutching his ears. "It… it knew my name…"
The other boy was nowhere to be found.
Hayato crouched beside him. "Where did he go?"
The boy only shook his head, trembling too hard to answer.
Then the air shifted.
The stairwell exhaled.
"…Don't leave me…"
The whisper slid between them, heavy and close, and this time, Aiko didn't flinch. She stepped forward, her voice trembling but clear.
"Who are you?" she demanded. "Why do you keep calling to us?"
For a moment, silence.
Then—words, heavy and broken, like fragments of a memory.
"…I was here… waiting… forgotten… no one came back…"
The stairwell darkened. For an instant, the shadows shaped themselves into the outline of a figure on the steps—a girl in an old school uniform, her face blurred by the dark.
Hayato's heart lurched.
He understood.
A story half-whispered in class, dismissed as rumor: a student who vanished years ago, said to have fallen in the west wing and never been found. A story that had never been given an ending.
The voice wasn't just haunting the stairwell. It was trapped in it.
Hayato's voice cracked as he stepped forward. "You're not forgotten."
The shadow flickered.
"We hear you," he continued, his chest tight. "You're not alone anymore."
Beside him, Aiko added softly, "We'll remember."
The stairwell groaned, as though the building itself was exhaling relief. The air grew lighter, the oppressive weight lifting. The figure dissolved, breaking apart into strands of shadow and fading into the dark.
For the first time, the silence felt natural.
The boy on the landing finally slumped forward, unconscious but breathing steadily.
Aiko let out a shaky breath, turning to Hayato. "You… you really think that was her?"
He nodded. "Yeah. She just wanted someone to listen."
Their eyes met, the glow of Aiko's phone painting her features in fragile light.
And in that moment, without the weight of whispers, without the fear of shadows, Hayato's words finally found him.
"Aiko," he said quietly. "I like you."
Her lips parted in surprise—but then she smiled, small and trembling.
"I know," she whispered. "I like you too."
The stairwell no longer held them captive. But the words they had finally spoken to each other… those lingered, sweeter than any whisper could ever be.
The next day, the rumors of the stairwell spread faster than ever—how the voices had been heard again, how one student swore he'd seen a ghost.
But Hayato and Aiko shared only a glance, a silent promise between them.
Some whispers were meant only for two.