The next morning arrived with the same cicada chorus, the same sticky heat clinging to the classroom walls. Ren shuffled into school with his backpack slung lazily over one shoulder, hair slightly messier than usual. He always came early, not because he was studious, but because he hated walking into a room full of people already staring at him.
As he slid into his seat by the window, his best friend, Daichi, thumped down beside him. Daichi was everything Ren wasn't—loud, clumsy, with a laugh that could wake the dead.
"You look like a zombie," Daichi said, leaning in. "Stayed up writing another love sonnet?"
Ren flushed. "It wasn't a sonnet. Just… a letter."
Daichi chuckled and tapped his own chest dramatically. "My poor friend. A modern-day Romeo. Except Juliet doesn't even know you're bleeding for her."
"Shut up," Ren muttered, though a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. That was Daichi's role in his life: to tease him just enough to remind him he was still human.
Classes dragged on, the kind of endless summer lectures where the air conditioner worked only half the time and students fought to keep their eyes open.
At one point, the teacher scribbled an equation across the board and asked, "Sato, can you solve this?"
Ren's heart dropped into his stomach. He stood, chalk trembling in his hand, and wrote the numbers as carefully as if they might explode if handled wrong. By some miracle, he got the answer right.
"Good," the teacher said, already moving on.
Ren sat back down, exhaling in relief, only to find Daichi giving him a thumbs-up under the desk like it was the greatest victory in history. Ren nearly laughed out loud, biting it back until his shoulders shook.
Lunch was always the hardest part of the day. The cafeteria buzzed with voices, chairs scraping, trays clattering. Ren usually sat by the window, where the sunlight made the rice in his bento box gleam faintly.
And then—like clockwork—Ayaka entered. Surrounded by her friends, she carried her tray with an ease that seemed choreographed. She wasn't doing anything special—just laughing at something one of the girls said—but the sound carried across the room, and Ren's chopsticks froze in mid-air.
He told himself not to stare. He always told himself that. And yet, when her eyes glanced vaguely in his direction, he panicked, nearly choking on his rice.
Daichi thumped his back. "Careful, man. Dying over fried chicken is not a noble death."
Ren coughed, cheeks burning. "I wasn't—! I just—"
"Yeah, yeah," Daichi said, smirking. "She looked your way, huh?"
Ren buried his face in his bento. "Shut. Up."
After school, Ren lingered by the shoe lockers. His latest letter was tucked inside Ayaka's. His heart raced as he imagined her opening it, her smile softening as she finally understood—
Except that's not how it went.
"Ren-kun?" Her voice cut through his daydream.
He turned, caught like a deer in headlights. Ayaka stood there, holding the envelope, her expression apologetic.
His pulse hammered so loudly he thought she might hear it.
"I read it," she said, for what felt like the hundredth time. "I'm really sorry. You're kind, and I appreciate how honest you are. But… I don't feel the same."
Her words were gentle. Always gentle. And yet they fell like stones, scattering in his chest.
Ren swallowed hard. He tried to smile. Tried to be casual. "I… I understand."
Ayaka bowed slightly, like she always did, before heading off with her friends.
Ren stood frozen in the hallway, his reflection caught faintly in the shoe locker's glass. A boy who gave too much of himself. A boy who kept giving, even when nothing came back.
That night, as he lay on his bed staring at the ceiling fan, Daichi's words echoed in his mind.
A modern-day Romeo.
Except this Romeo didn't even have a balcony to stand under.
He laughed softly, bitterly, at the thought. Then, slowly, the laughter faded, leaving only silence and the faint hum of summer outside.
And so, the days melted away—letters written, letters rejected, and a boy caught between the sweetness of hope and the sting of reality.