It didn't end with a fight.
Mika and Mao sat beneath the cherry blossom tree behind the gym—far from classrooms, clubs, and curious eyes. The petals were starting to fall again. A quiet repeat of seasons past.
"I think," Mika said softly, "we were good. Just not meant to keep going."
Mao didn't speak at first. Not because he disagreed, but because she was right.
They had shared something real, something gentle—but it had begun to fade. Conversations had grown shorter. Smiles slower to form. Their rhythm was off.
"I still care about you," he said.
"I know," she replied. "And that's why we should stop before we don't."
They didn't cry.
They didn't raise voices.
They just sat for a while, shoulder to shoulder, watching the petals drift down like a quiet farewell.
By the time they walked back into the building, they weren't lovers. Just two people who'd once held hands, now letting go.
---
The next week, Mao found himself talking more with Natsumi, Kenji's girlfriend.
She was sharp, energetic, and unfiltered—someone who didn't mind pointing out when Mao was being too quiet or too tense. Her friend, Emi, was the opposite: light-hearted, warm, and easy to laugh with.
They began to share lunches now and then. Nothing deep at first—just jokes about teachers, shared exam stress, questions about books and movies.
But slowly, they began to feel like his friends too.
For once, Mao didn't feel like he was orbiting around others—he was part of something.
But even as things seemed to smooth out around him, Arisa began to change.
Not outwardly.
But in glances that lingered. In sketches she didn't let him see. In the way her voice softened only when speaking to him.
One day, as they sat in the art room while the sun bled through the high windows, Arisa closed her sketchbook suddenly.
"You never notice," she said.
Mao looked up. "Notice what?"
She stared at him for a moment, then laughed quietly. "Exactly."
He tilted his head, confused, but she waved it off.
"Nothing," she said. "Keep reading."
And he did.
He didn't notice how her gaze lingered a few seconds longer. How she bit her lip and looked away. How the air around her was full of things unsaid.
Arisa had always been quiet.
But now, it was her silence that held the loudest truth.
Mao just hadn't learned to listen to it yet.