The note stayed with me longer than I wanted to admit.
I didn't mean to keep it. At first, I left it on my desk, untouched. But before heading to bed, I found myself reading it again — just once.
Then again.
By the third time, I folded it gently and slipped it between the pages of my notebook. Not because I wanted to. Not because I cared.
It just didn't feel right to throw it away.
---
The next morning, I followed the same routine. Wake up. Ignore breakfast. Blur the world with my lenses. Walk to school.
Nothing changed.
Except… something had.
When I walked into class, she was already there this time — Hikari, humming under her breath and doodling on the corner of her notebook.
She looked up and smiled the moment she saw me. "Good morning, Kazuki."
I didn't answer.
But I gave the smallest nod — so small I wasn't even sure if she noticed.
She did.
Her smile widened just a little, then she went back to doodling.
A minute later, she placed something wrapped in parchment paper on the edge of my desk. Another sandwich.
This time, she didn't say a word. She just left it there.
I didn't touch it. Not right away.
But I didn't move it away either.
---
Third period brought something I'd been dreading: another group assignment. The teacher, growing used to the new seating arrangement, didn't bother rearranging us.
"Kazuki and Hikari — you two again," she said.
I didn't react, but I felt Hikari scoot her chair closer without hesitation.
She began working, her pencil gliding smoothly across the worksheet. I copied the questions silently, eyes low, avoiding faces, avoiding the world.
But I caught glimpses — the way her fingers tapped the side of her pencil when she was thinking, the way she tilted her head slightly when rereading an answer.
She didn't talk much this time. Maybe she'd grown tired of trying. Or maybe she just understood something I hadn't said.
After a few minutes of quiet, she asked out of nowhere, "Do you like music?"
I froze for half a second. My pencil stopped mid-word.
But I didn't look up. I didn't answer.
She didn't push.
"Just wondering," she added with a shrug, then went back to writing.
---
I needed quiet after class. The kind of quiet only the library could offer.
It was my usual escape — somewhere no one noticed me, and where the books didn't have countdowns floating above them.
I slid open the door and stepped in.
That's when I saw her.
Hikari, sitting at one of the corner tables, flipping through a manga volume with her chin resting on her hand. Her bag sat on the floor beside her. She hadn't seen me.
I considered walking away — pretending I never came.
But I stayed.
I found a table a few rows back and sat, slowly. Opened a book I didn't plan to read. I just sat there, glancing up once.
She was still smiling to herself, flipping pages.
She didn't look at me once.
It was… peaceful.
Two strangers. Two classmates. Sitting near each other like the silence belonged to both of us.
And maybe — just maybe — it did.
But the thought of her having 97 days remaining was still not gone