The week crawled by in the same rhythm as always—morning cicadas, dull lectures, Daichi's bad jokes, and Ayaka's smile appearing in the corner of Ren's eyes whether he wanted it to or not.
Ren told himself he was used to it now. Used to the sting of rejection, used to the silence that followed every letter. And maybe he was—until Friday afternoon.
It was after club activities, the sun just beginning to dip into orange. Ren had left late, his backpack heavy with textbooks he didn't really need. He cut across the side street behind the convenience store—a quiet little path lined with vending machines and cracked pavement.
That's when he saw her.
Ayaka, walking with two of her friends. Their laughter carried down the street before he even realized who it was. His chest tightened, but he didn't turn back. He couldn't. The path was too narrow.
Ayaka's eyes flicked up and met his. For a heartbeat, there was nothing—just surprise. Then one of her friends whispered loudly, "Isn't that him? The letter guy?"
Ren froze.
The other girl laughed, sharp and cruel. "Oh my god, Ayaka, he really does follow you everywhere."
Ren felt heat rush to his face. "I-I'm not—! I was just heading home, that's all."
But his words came out clumsy, like a guilty man trying to excuse himself.
Ayaka's lips pressed into a line. She looked at him, then at her friends, then back again. And for some reason, maybe to save face, maybe to keep her friends from teasing her further, she said the words that cut deeper than any rejection ever had.
"Ren-kun… maybe you should stop. It's weird. You keep… showing up, and people are talking. It makes me uncomfortable."
The air left his lungs. Just like that.
"I'm not—" His voice cracked. He wanted to explain. That he hadn't meant to see her here, that he never followed her, that all he ever wanted was to be honest about how he felt. But the words tangled in his throat, and under the weight of their laughter, he couldn't untangle them.
His hands trembled against the straps of his backpack. He wanted to sink into the concrete, vanish under the vending machines, disappear.
Ayaka's friends giggled again, tugging her away. She didn't look back.
That night, Ren sat at his desk, the glow of his lamp spilling across another blank sheet of paper. His pen hovered, waiting for the old reflex to take over, waiting for him to write another letter.
But nothing came.
His chest still ached, the sound of her words replaying again and again—It makes me uncomfortable.
It wasn't just rejection anymore. It was shame. Humiliation. The realization that in her eyes, he wasn't a boy who cared too much—he was someone to be pitied. Or worse, avoided.
Ren's hand tightened around the pen until it snapped, ink spilling across the page.
He stared at the mess for a long time. Then he shoved the notebook shut.
No more.
The next morning, something was different. Not in the world—the cicadas still screamed, the classrooms still buzzed with chatter—but in Ren himself.
When Ayaka entered the room, he didn't look up. Not once. When Daichi teased him about writing another letter, Ren just shook his head with a small, calm smile. And when the day ended, he walked home without lingering at the shoe lockers.
It was a small thing, barely noticeable to anyone else. But for Ren, it was everything.
The flame he had been feeding for so long, the desperate hope that had driven him to chase and chase, finally burned out.
What replaced it wasn't bitterness, but something colder. Something steadier.
Like ice forming in the middle of summer.
That was the day Ren Sato stopped chasing Ayaka Mori. And the day she unknowingly began to lose him.