The Hanamura house was too quiet. After school, Yui was supposed to be studying, but the sound of the pencil scratching against the paper was too loud, too lonely.
Her room was a sanctuary of neatness, but there was one hidden flaw: a small, cedar-wood box tucked beneath a loose floorboard near her desk. Only Jun, who used to hide manga under that same board, knew it existed.
Tonight, she needed the box.
She pulled it out, the scent of dried wood and old paper filling the space. Inside was the simple, cheap gift she had bought him two years ago: a brand-new, graphic T-shirt featuring a goofy cartoon mascot they both liked. Nestled beside it was the birthday card she'd meticulously written.
She picked up the card. It was a standard, store-bought fold-out, but her words, written in her neat, excited script from two years prior, were devastating:
"To Jun! Happy 15th! This is the year we start saving for real, okay? I'm serious about that future apartment! Love you more than grilled fish! – Yui."
Her own handwriting felt like a cruel stranger's. The words were full of the bubbly, simple confidence of a girl who believed the future was a straight line running right into his arms.
Her fingers trembled, crumpling the edge of the card. A sound escaped her—a quiet, fractured thing that sounded like shattered glass. She hadn't cried like this in a year. No, she hadn't allowed herself to cry like this.
She sank onto the floor, pulling the T-shirt to her face, breathing in the sterile, new-cotton smell that had never been warmed by his body. The silence in the room became a physical weight, pressing the air out of her lungs.
Fifteen. Jun is seventeen now. He's two years older than the boy whose future I promised to share.
The thought was a spike of ice. The careful maintenance of Jun-at-fifteen, the eternal boy of her memories, dissolved. He was supposed to be here. He was supposed to be complaining about homework, trying to steal her fish, and laughing at the absurdity of their apartment savings plan.
The raw, undiluted fact of the last seven hundred days slammed into her. The hope, the rituals, the Silent Princess act—it all felt like a fragile dam that had finally broken.
"You said you'd marry me," she whispered, her voice cracking, her eyes blurring the words on the card. "You promised! Why did you go, you idiot? I'm waiting! I'm still waiting here!"
It was the confession of a broken heart, a scream of abandonment and undying love all at once. For a few frantic minutes, Yui was just the shattered girl from two years ago, not the Silent Princess.
Then, the storm passed.
She took a slow, shuddering breath, the kind that tasted like defeat. Yui gently smoothed the creases from the card, placing it carefully back into the cedar box. She folded the new T-shirt with the same meticulous precision she used on her school uniform.
She wasn't defeated. She was just... reset.
I know you're fighting. She stood, her face damp but resolute. I will not be the one who gives up our future.
Her love was not a sweet memory; it was a defiant, desperate engine of existence. If her hope was what was sustaining his way back—if her unwavering belief was the only thing standing against the reality of the cold, vast sea—then she would hold it, even if it meant breaking herself every single night.
The floorboard was pushed back into place. The room was silent once more. The Silent Princess was back on duty.