Yesterday was uneventful. Or maybe I just didn’t bother to write it down. Nothing worth remembering, nothing worth forgetting. Just the same cycle:

  Wake up. Go to school. Walk to work. Stress out about everything.Repeat.

  Some days are so monochromatic they bleed together. Yesterday was like that—a smear of gray on a gray canvas. Today feels no different.

  I almost didn’t come to school. But what else would I do? Sit in my attic and count the cracks in the ceiling? At least here, the noise drowns out the thoughts.

  Kazuki’s seat is empty.

  I stare at it for too long. It’s not like him to be te. He’s the kind of guy who crashes through doors, all grins and loud greetings, as if the world owes him enthusiasm.

  But today, nothing.

  The cssroom hums around me, voices blending into static. Without Kazuki here, the room tilts off-bance. I should be relieved—no one poking me, no jokes at my expense—but the quiet feels heavier somehow. Like the air’s been sucked out.

  I slump into my seat and turn toward the window. The sky’s the same dull gray as yesterday, as tomorrow. The kind of gray that makes you forget whether it’s morning or afternoon.

  Maybe he’s sick.Maybe he’s dead.Maybe he finally got tired of me.

  The thoughts come unbidden. I don’t care.

  The teacher continues on. I tap my pen against the desk, a repeating clicking to fill in my trance. The sound grates, but it’s something to focus on besides the hollow space where Kazuki should be.

  At home, the silence is thick. Here, it’s a different kind of quiet—loud in all the wrong ways. Chairs scrape. Papers rustle. Someone ughs. They’re all just mere noises.

  I wonder which is worse: the silence of being alone, or the silence of being surrounded by people who don’t notice you’re already gone.

  “Hhhhaaaaah”

  A sigh tears out of my eyes like a punctured tire.

  I have a medical check up today which I have forgotten to tell boss about.

  I thought about telling him, but the idea of forming words into the phone makes me grind my teeth.

  ”Hey boss. It’s me, Taro Moriyama. Yeah, the guy who’s slower then a three legged pigeon. Can’t come today, got a date with a stethoscope.”

  I let a gush of air blow my lips, seeing Kazuki’s seats empty feels so weird, I’m used to him passing me some doodles and stupid notes saying. “The calcutor is more interesting then this lesson ;p”. But now its just the squack of the teachers shoes and the too-loud tick of the clock.

  I flip open my notebook. Something delicate drifts onto my knee, at first gnce, a dead leaf. Then the light catches its edges:

  Six petals, brittle as ancient parchment. Fading sunset streaks pink bleeding into gold at the frayed edges. A rain lily. Pressed so ft it's nearly transparent.

  Hanako's doing. Probably slipped it in months ago when I wasn't looking.

  My thumb hovers above it. and the cssroom fades.

  That afternoon dozens of spring ago when the downpour trapped us in css. How the drumming on the roof made everything feel hushed, like we were underwater. By dismissal, the rain had gentled to a mist.

  Walking out i saw Miyu picking them up. her small hands parting wet grass, she looked happy when she found one unbruised. “Look” she lifted her hands to show me the flower. "They're brave," she'd say. "They only bloom after getting trampled."

  The petal disintegrates at my touch, leaving saffron dust on my fingertips.

  I stare at the golden smears, hypnotized, until the world comes rushing back in the shrill scream of the lunch bell. My neck cracks as I lift my head 12:45 glows red on the cssroom clock. Two more hours until my "date with the stethoscope," as my imaginary phone call had put it.

  The notebook snaps shut, entombing what remains of the rain lily. Its ghost lingers on my skin. I rub my thumb against my index finger, but the pollen stains persist faint golden streaks that catch the light when I turn my hand just so.

  Like the bruises Miyu used to get from just bumping into desks.

  The thought comes unbidden, unwelcome. I wipe my hands on my pants, but the imagined stains remain. Across the room, Kazuki's abandoned seat seems to judge me. Even empty, it's louder than the chatter of cssmates shuffling out for lunch.

  I should eat. I should call work. I should do anything except sit here counting minutes until I can legally escape this pce.

  My fingertips leave faint golden smears on the window gss as I pull away, watching the clouds drift with purpose I can't seem to muster. The cafeteria greets me with its usual symphony of cttering trays and overpping voices - a chorus I'm not meant to join.

  Kazuki's absence yawns wider here, at our usual corner table. No half-eaten bread roll tossed my way with a "Here, starving artist." No stupid jokes about the mystery meat. Just an empty chair and the echo of my own tray hitting the minate.

  I pick at my food, each bite tasting like cardboard. The chatter around me might as well be radio static. It's funny - all those days I wished for silence, and now that I have it, the quiet presses against my eardrums like the sound of ringing.

  A rain droplet hits the window beside me. Then another. The weather report said clear skies today. Figures even the clouds can't keep their promises.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket. Probably the clinic reminder. Or maybe Kazuki finally remembered he has a ‘best friend’. I don't bother to check. Somewhere between the petal dust and the broken weather, I've lost the energy for pretend connections.

  The bell's shrill cry comes too soon. My tray remains a still life of uneaten food - yesterday's congealed meal, tomorrow's inevitable waste. A perfect triptych of my uselessness.

  The phone buzzes against my thigh. For one pathetic second, my pulse quickens. Maybe Kazuki finally remembered I exist. Maybe the clinic canceled. Maybe-

  Some bullshit blog notification. "Top 10 horror films that aren't actually horror." Like hell I have a Tv for that.

  My fingers tighten around the device. It would be so easy to hurl it against the wall, to watch the screen spiderweb like my fractured thoughts. Instead, I swipe it away with all the other disappointments.

  Both hands drag up my face, fingers cwing through greasy hair. The pressure behind my eyes builds until colors bloom in the darkness - neon streaks that don't fade when I open them. Around me, students flow toward the exits like a river parting around a boulder.

  A janitor eyes my full tray with tired disapproval. I should apologize. I should clean up. I should do anything except sit here counting the seconds until-

  Until what?Until who?

  The second bell rings. My chair screeches protest as I rise, leaving the evidence of another failed meal behind. The hallway swallows me whole.

  The final csses passed in a haze of half-scribbled notes and the slow creep of clock hands. Routine so mindless I could forget myself in it—if only my thoughts would let me.

  When the st bell shrieks its dismissal, I’m already moving. My body operates on autopilot: stand, sling bag over shoulder, merge into the river of students flooding the halls.

  The air outside tastes different—thick with the promise of rain. I pause at the bike racks, fingers hovering over the lock.

  Clinic. Right.

  Some part of me wants to skip it. To ride anywhere else—the arcade, the riverbank, that convenience store with the cat-shaped bread Miyu loved. Anywhere but another sterile room where they’ll cluck over my low weight and hollow eyes.

  The chain falls away with a metallic sigh.

  I go anyway.

  The bus stop bench is still damp from rain. I stand in front of the rain in the cover of the bus stop roof, feeling the cold air rush against my face as I fish out my phone.

  Mr. Hiroto.

  Just seeing the name makes my throat tighten. My thumb hovers over the call button. What’s worse—the yelling, or the disappointed sigh?

  A raindrop hits the screen. Then another.

  Perfect.

  I could bme the weather. Say the bus was te. Say I got hit by a car.

  The phone slips in my sweaty palm.

  Across the street, the hospital looms—a concrete giant with too many windows. Somewhere in there, a stethoscope waits to judge me. Somewhere in there—

  No.

  I press call.The phone rings exactly once before his gravelly voice scrapes through.

  "Moriyama."

  I swallow. "Hello. Mr. Hiroto, this is Taro Moriyama." My name sounds foreign in my mouth, like I'm introducing someone who no longer exists. "I just... wanted to inform you I have a medical check-up today. I forgot to mention it earlier."

  Silence. The kind that makes my armpits prickle.

  Across the street, the hospital windows gre back at me, reflecting the storm clouds gathering behind my back. A bus wheezes to a stop, its doors sighing open like it already knows I won't board.

  Finally, he exhales—that trademark half-snort, half-sigh that means I'm too old for this shit. "You know the rules. Last-minute notice means—"

  "—no shift Thursday," I finish, watching my breath fog the phone screen. The exact punishment I expected. The exact punishment I deserve.

  Another pause. I brace for the but.

  Instead, just static and the faint ctter of espresso cups. Then: "You sick or something?"

  Rain taps against my neck like cold fingers. Or something.

  "No. It's just... one of those annual check-ups. Can't miss it."

  The lie tastes like stale bread. Annual implies routine, implies I pn to be alive next year.

  More silence. Through the phone, I hear the café's grinder scream—the sound of normal people having normal days.

  "Thursday's shift," boss finally says. "Gone."

  A raindrop slithers down my neck. "Understood."

  The call dies before I can fake an apology. Across the street, the hospital's automatic doors gasp open and shut, open and shut, like it's breathing just to taunt me.

  Annual. As if my body deserves that kind of commitment.

  I pocket the phone. The bus arrives. I don't get on.

  The bus pulls away in a cough of diesel fumes, but I'm already walking toward the bike racks. My rusted Nishiki leans like a drunk against its chain, back wheel warped from that time I crashed it into the riverbank. The day after Miyu stopped coming to school.

  Rain drums on the steel racks as I spin the combination. 22-7-14. Miyu's birthday. The numbers stick slightly, worn smooth from seven years of my fingers tracing them.

  The lock springs open. Rust fkes stick to my palm like dried blood. I should wipe them off, but the rain's coming sideways now, needling through my shirt. My gaze drops to the rack's shadowed underbelly—that graveyard of lost mittens and broken pens.

  There.

  A bck umbrel curled like a dead spider. I know before I touch it.

  Polka dots.

  Of course.

  The fabric smells faintly of vanil.

  The umbrel fights me like a living thing, its ribs shuddering against the wind’s wrath. I ride one-handed, my other arm burning as I wrestle with stolen shelter. Rain needles my knuckles where they whiten around the handlebars.

  Stupid.

  This was never going to work. Some stranger’s polka-dotted umbrel—probably some girl who’ll now get drenched because of me. Again.

  A gust wrenches it sideways. For one suspended second, I see the owner in my mind: a faceless student cursing at the empty bike rack, hugging her textbooks to her chest as the rain soaks through her bzer.

  Then the wind peels it from my fingers.

  The umbrel cartwheels into traffic, vanishing under a delivery truck’s wheels with a sound like cheap ribs snapping.

  I don’t stop pedaling.

  The hospital looms ahead, its windows lit like interrogation mps. Somewhere behind them, machines breathe for people who deserve it. Somewhere behind them—

  My front wheel hits the curb. The bike bucks, sending me over the handlebars onto rain-slick concrete.

  The crushed rain lily clings to my palm like a guilty verdict. I lift my head—just in time to watch my bike settle upside-down in a hydrangea bush, wheels spinning zily like it's amused by my clumsiness.

  Stealing a stranger's umbrel was no better than not stealing it at all.

  The thought arrives ft, without judgment. Truths this obvious don't need emphasis.

  Rain drips off my nose onto the broken lily. Somewhere, a girl is cursing the empty bike rack.

  A siren wails in the distance. Not for me. Never for me.

  I peel the flower from my skin. Its saffron stain lingers, brighter than the blood welling on my knee.

  I grab the bike's frame, but the hydrangea branches cling like skeletal fingers. The more I pull, the deeper the thorns bite into the spokes. Rain drips from my hair onto the upturned gears, each droplet magnifying the rust.

  "Quite the mess you've made, young man."

  The voice cuts through the downpour before its owner does—a policeman in a rain suit that glistens like a beetle's shell. His fshlight beam catches the twisted front wheel, then my bleeding palm, then the ruined lily petals stuck to the pavement.

  I open my mouth. No lie comes. Just the taste of rainwater and my own cowardice.

  He sighs—that particur adult sigh that means I'm too old for this. "You hurt?"

  The question surprises me. Not What happened? or Is this your bike? Just You hurt?

  I look at my hands. The left one's shaking. The right one's stained yellow.

  "Not really," I say.

  The truth, for once.

  "I was—well." The lie sticks to my teeth. "Hit a curb. Flew over the handlebars."

  Rain drips from the policeman's brim as he studies me. Not the bike. Not the broken hydrangea. Just me—drenched, shaking, with pollen-stained hands that won't stop fidgeting.

  Then he smiles. It's the kind of smile my father used to wear when I'd skinned my knees as a kid—exasperated but fond.

  "Here." He thrusts his umbrel at me, bck nylon already beaded with rain. "Let's get you sorted."

  Before I can refuse, he's wading into the bushes. His gloves make quick work of the thorns that had bested me, lifting my bike like it weighs nothing. The front wheel spins crookedly, spokes glittering with rainwater.

  "Chain's busted," he says, setting it upright. "You live far?"

  The question catches me off guard. I stare at the umbrel's handle—worn smooth from years of use, unlike the stolen one already ground into asphalt somewhere behind us.

  "Not... too far," I lie.

  He nods like he knows anyway. "Walk it, then. And take the umbrel." A beat. "Unless you were hoping for another flight today?"

  The joke shouldn't nd, but a ugh punches out of me—ragged and surprised. The sound feels foreign in my throat.

  I walked my bike to another bike rake near the hospital entrance and park it there with the chain just hanging.

  Whos going to steal a busted up bike anyways.

  I go inside and between the 2 automatic doors and I try to dry myself before entering

  The bike clunks against the rack, chain dangling like a broken noose. I stare at it for a beat—who'd steal something this ruined?—before turning toward the hospital's glowing entrance.

  Between the automatic doors, I pause in the dry-ish middle ground. My jacket drips onto the "CAUTION: WET FLOOR" sign. The scent of cheap detergent and someone's soggy fast food hangs in the air.

  The inner doors gasp open, bsting me with that particur hospital smell - like rubbing alcohol and cafeteria meatloaf. A tired-looking receptionist gnces up just long enough to confirm I'm not bleeding out before returning to her computer.

  I swipe at my damp bangs. The check-up notice crumples in my pocket as I approach the front desk. My knee throbs where I nded on it earlier, but it's nothing compared to the headache building behind my eyes.

  "Name?" the receptionist asks without looking up.

  "Moriyama. Taro."

  The receptionist slides a numbered ticket across the counter without looking up. "Take a seat. They'll call you."

  The paper sticks to my damp fingers—#47—already softening at the edges from rain. The waiting area smells like hand sanitizer and the chemical lemon of floor cleaner. I choose the chair farthest from the coughing old man and the woman rocking a crying baby.

  A TV pys a muted infomercial about arthritis cream. The clock above it ticks louder than my watch. 3:17 PM. My shift at the café started twelve minutes ago.

  #32.

  A nurse calls a number, alongside their names and destination but I never bothered to listen. My knee pulses where I skinned it, the blood mingling with rainwater to make rust-colored streaks down my shin. I should grab a tissue, but the box on the reception desk has one lone, crumpled square left. Someone else's emergency.

  #38.

  I peel the ticket between my fingers. The ink bleeds. 47 might as well be 470. The baby wails. The old man coughs. The TV switches to a PSA about diabetes symptoms.

  Somewhere down the hall, a machine beeps in triple-time.

  I close my eyes. The ticket dissolves a little more.

  The drone of the diabetes PSA lulls my eyes shut. For three blissful seconds, I’m nowhere.

  Then it hits me—the diary.

  My bag leans against my leg, darkening the chair with rainwater. The fabric bleeds blue dye onto my calf. Inside, Miyu’s words are dissolving.

  I should check. I should care.

  The old man coughs again, a wet sound like pages sticking together.

  #41.

  My fingers twitch toward the zipper. Stop.

  Let the ink run. Let her words blur into something unrecognizable. Let the rain finish what I started seven years ago.

  The baby wails. The ticket bleeds. Somewhere, a nurse calls:

  #47. Taro Moriyama - Cardiology

  I stand. The bag stays, a dark stain spreading beneath it like an inkblot test.

  The walk to Cardiology feels longer than it should. Each squeak of my wet sneakers echoes off the walls. A nurse gnces at my soaked clothes but says nothing.

  The examination room smells of cold metal and rubbing alcohol. The paper sheet crinkles under me as I sit, the sound absurdly loud in the sterile silence.

  "Blood pressure's elevated," the doctor murmurs, tapping his tablet. The cuff had squeezed my arm like a judgment. "Stress?"

  I stare at the anatomical heart model on the counter. Its chambers gape, hollow and perfect.

  "Just the rain," I say.

  He hums, unconvinced. The stethoscope presses against my chest—

  Ba-bump.

  Too fast.

  Ba-bump.

  Too loud.

  The doctor's eyebrows lift. On the wall behind him, a poster shows a cross-section of coronary arteries. One is clogged with yellow gunk.

  I wonder if guilt shows up on echocardiograms.

  Once I was done, I walked out and into the hospital corridor, the familiar hustle and bustle of nurses and patients surrounding me. As I make my way into the waiting area.

  My eyes eyes widen and my heart took a break as I heard a name I never had expected to hear.

  The corridor swallows me in its rhythm—beeping monitors, rolling gurneys, the squeak of shoes. I’m almost to the waiting area when the PA system crackles:

  “#50. Miyu Tanaka. Hematology.”

  My pulse ftlines.

  For three impossible seconds, the hospital holds its breath. A nurse bumps my shoulder, muttering “Watch it—” but her voice is underwater.

  Miyu.

  Here.

  Right now?

  The ticket crumples in my fist. My #47, still smudged with rain. Hers, called moments after mine. Some cosmic joke.

  I Looked around trying to catch a glimpse of her even for a second and there between the parting automatic doors

  A fsh of dark hair cropped at the nape.

  The familiar slope of shoulders under a cardigan.

  i tried to move in her direction but a nurse blocked my path, her clipboard a temporary barricade. and soon the doors begin their mechanical sigh.

  I find myself once again in disappointment. I retraced my steps back to my seat, where my bag patiently awaited me, just as her diary awaited her. and i wonder if i should wait for her too.

  Rain taps the windows. Somewhere, Miyu sits in another sterile room. The PA mumbles static.

  I stare at the bag.

  At the diary.

  At the space where she almost was.

  Waiting would mean returning something stolen. But leaving would feel like another kind of theft.

  So I stay.And I waited.And the hospital breathes around me.

  The waiting room clock dances with my heart, each second stretching like a rubber band about to snap. The heat builds from within, a fire pce of hope and dread.

  I shift in the chair.My leg jiggles.Check my phone—no messages, just the time gring back: 4:17 PM.

  The rain has stopped. The silence is worse.

  Every time the PA crackles, my spine straightens. Every footstep in the hall could be hers. But it’s always someone else—a nurse with a clipboard, a janitor pushing a mop, another patient dragging an IV pole.

  The diary’s weight in my bag feels heavier now, like it’s absorbing every minute of this futile vigil. I press my stained hand to my heart, as if I could steady my heart through sheer will.

  Defeat seeps in, cold and quite familiar:She's not coming.She was here, and I missed her. Again.

  The hospital exhales around me, indifferent. Somewhere beyond these walls, Miyu breathes too—unaware that the boy who broke her sits here, still breaking himself over—

  No.

  I shove to my feet so fast the chair screeches. The bag strap bites into my shoulder as I flee—past the staring receptionist, through the automatic doors that gasp open too slow.

  Outside, the air sticks in my lungs, thick with wet pavement and diesel fumes. My bike leans where I left it, front wheel still cocked at that stupid angle. I can’t even look at it.

  I walk.

  aimlessly trying to shake it off.

  The nausea rolls in waves part guilt, part of that chemical lemon smell clinging to my tattered clothes. A bus hisses to a stop ahead. And for a wild second, I consider boarding, going anywhere else but here. But my legs won’t obey.

  So I slump onto a rain-slick bench instead. The diary’s weight presses against my ribs with every breath.

  Somewhere, Miyu’s probably still going through her medical examination. Somewhere, she’s not thinking of me at all.

  The sun breaks through the clouds for exactly three seconds before vanishing again.

  The hydrangea branches clutch at my sleeves as I drag my bike through their damp leaves. I look down to untangle myself—

  —and from the corner of my eye, a figure.

  A hitch of breath. A turn of my head.

  And there she is.

  Miyu stands framed by the hospital's sliding doors, her shadow broken against the fluorescent light. The years have carved her thinner, her cardigan swallowing wrists too delicate for the medical bracelet she's removing. She clenches her fist tightly—that same nervous gesture from when we'd wait together for pop quizzes.

  Our eyes meet.

  And I realize three terrible realizations.

  She recognizes me immediately

  There's no anger in her gaze

  And she looks... somehow relieved?

  Her lips shape my name just as a passing ambunce siren drowns it out. The doors start to close behind her. She doesn't turn. Doesn't walk away. Just takes one step forward—

  My bike chooses that moment to colpse, the front wheel finally detaching with a metallic shriek. The sound seems to startle us both. When I look up, she's frozen mid-step, one hand stretched out like she might catch me from twenty feet away.

  The rain begins again. Not a storm. Just enough to make the pavement glisten between us.

  "Moriyama, right?"

  Her voice is a relic I have buried. And a lifeline reflecting off the mirroring puddle.