It was after school, and the air felt crisp as I walked home. Cherry blossoms lined the street, their delicate pink petals fluttering down gently with the breeze, coating the sidewalk like a soft, fragrant carpet. I had my blue headphones on, lost in the soothing music flowing through the speakers. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking, allowing my mind to drift, to escape the weight of everything.

  The day had been just like any other, a mixture of uneventful classes and quiet moments. Yet, something felt different. Maybe it was the way the cherry blossoms seemed to shimmer in the sunlight, or maybe it was the fact that I’d been thinking a lot about Sakurako and that smile of hers.

  How do I live like that?

  Before I could lose myself in the thought again, my foot collided with something hard. The object slid forward with the force of my step, and before I knew it, I was tumbling forward, crashing to the ground with a thud. I blinked in confusion, my face flushed from the sudden fall.

  KA-THUMP!

  Ow...

  I slowly lifted my head, rubbing my palms against the pavement. That’s when I saw it.

  A small, thick red notebook had slid just out of reach. Its cover was adorned with a white floral pattern, elegant and delicate. It seemed so out of place, like it didn’t belong here at all, in the middle of the street, amid this peaceful spring afternoon. I reached up, pulled down my headphones, and stood up, dusting myself off before grabbing the notebook.

  “What’s this?” I muttered to myself as I turned it over in my hands, feeling its weight.

  It was strange, a little too small and personal to be just some random notebook... My curiosity piqued, I cautiously opened it.

  The first page was written in delicate, flowing cursive:

  Living fate.

  It felt almost like a title, as if this book was telling me something, pulling me into a world I wasn’t sure I wanted to enter.

  I flipped the pages slowly, my eyes scanning the strange words scrawled across the pages. As I turned each one, my heart began to race.

  Blood…? Death… Sick? Illness? Terminal…? A few years?!

  My breath caught in my throat.

  What was this? A medical journal? Some kind of diary?

  A shiver ran down my spine as I read the words, each one more startling than the last.

  I had just turned to another page when I heard it—footsteps...

  Footsteps?!

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  The distinct sound of school loafers against the concrete, sharp and purposeful. I froze, my heart thudding louder in my chest. I quickly slammed the book shut, the sudden sound of it echoing in my ears.

  “Hey, excuse me? That’s mine,” a voice spoke.

  I looked up, my eyes widening as I saw her.

  Of all the people, it had to be her. My classmate, the most cheerful, the most vibrant, the girl who seemed like she was always alive. I couldn’t even begin to process the sight of her standing there, frowning, her expression unusually serious.

  “Wait, seriously?” I blurted out, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

  What? It had to be a joke, right?!

  There was no way—no way—that the girl who could brighten up any room, the girl who seemed to have endless energy and smiles, could be the same person who owned this book. A book filled with words like illness, terminal, and dying. It didn’t make sense. Maybe it was some kind of twisted prank.

  “It’s really mine, can I have it back now?” she said again, her frown deepening.

  I nodded, still processing the absurdity of the situation.

  “Sure,” I muttered, handing the notebook back to her.

  As she took it, our eyes locked for a brief moment. It was awkward—uncomfortably so. My fingers still tingled from the contact with the book, and I couldn’t help but notice how she seemed so... fragile in that moment, as if this notebook held something she didn’t want anyone else to see. Something she didn’t want me to see.

  I quickly looked away, my mind racing. The same question kept pounding in my head, over and over again: How can the most alive girl be sick? How? How could she, of all people, be the one to carry this heavy burden?

  It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t.

  A nervous laugh bubbled up from my chest, escaping before I could stop it.

  “Heh, I guess you’re really sick, huh? A little... dramatic?” My voice faltered as I said the words, but I couldn’t stop myself from speaking.

  The thought that she could be hiding something so huge, something so terrifying, felt too surreal...

  Her frown deepened, but she didn’t say anything at first. Instead, she just stared at me, almost as if waiting for me to take it all back, to apologize. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t shake the strange, cold feeling that had settled in my stomach. The unease.

  “Maybe…” Sakurako finally said, her voice quieter than I had ever heard it. “Maybe I’m the one who’s sick of pretending. Not everything is as it seems, you know.”

  I looked up at her, my eyes meeting hers once more. There was something in her expression now—something that was both guarded and tired, as though she had been carrying something for far longer than she was willing to admit.

  I opened my mouth to say something, but the words just wouldn’t come. How could I say anything when I didn’t even understand what was happening? When I didn’t even know the truth?

  Sakurako hesitated for a moment, and I saw her eyes flicker to the notebook she was now clutching tightly in her hands. Then, without another word, she turned and began walking away, the gentle rustling of the cherry blossoms filling the silence between us.

  “Wait!” I called out before I could stop myself.

  She paused and turned around, her expression unreadable.

  “What?”

  “I... I didn’t mean it like that,” I stammered, trying to make sense of the sudden rush of guilt flooding through me. “I didn’t mean to make light of it.”

  Sakurako’s lips curled into a small, knowing smile.

  “It’s okay,” she said softly, “You couldn’t have known.”

  And then she was gone, walking away, leaving me standing there with more questions than answers.

  What had just happened? And why did it feel like something had just shifted between us, like there was a divide now, something that separated the me I thought I knew from the me that was suddenly seeing everything through a new, unfamiliar lens?

  I stared at the cherry blossoms once more, their petals drifting lazily to the ground. The world felt somehow different now, darker even. The weight of what I had just discovered hung in the air, pressing down on me.

  As I walked home, my mind spun with the words in the notebook, and with Sakurako’s face, her quiet smile, her unspoken truth. Maybe I had been wrong to assume I knew her.

  Maybe, just maybe, there was far more to Sakurako Yamamoto than I would ever be ready to understand.