"The space between us isn't so empty anymore."
The wind was softer than yesterday.
A hush lingered over the school courtyard, stirred only by the distant echoes of voices fading into classrooms and the slow whisper of cherry petals falling onto the stone path. The blossoms came down like confetti at a festival no one had announced.
Ren sat on the usual bench beneath the old tree, a pencil in his hand and his sketchbook balanced on one knee. But he wasn't drawing. Not really.
His pencil rested motionless against the page, hovering over the faint outline of a girl's face. Just the curve of a cheek, the suggestion of eyes not yet fully formed.
He couldn't draw her completely. Not yet.
It felt like he didn't have permission.
His eyes drifted toward the mailbox.
Then to her.
Hana.
She sat by the roots of the tree, knees drawn up, her book open across them. From this distance, he couldn't read the title. He doubted she could either. Her gaze didn't move. The pages didn't turn.
But every few moments, her eyes flickered — sideways, toward him, then away again as if it hadn't happened.
They were both pretending.
He thought about her question again. The one she had left folded into a tiny blue origami crane.
"Why don't you speak?"
He had answered with a note of his own, wrapped gently around a cherry blossom.
"Because silence feels like magic."
That had been yesterday.
Today, she hadn't left anything in the box.
But she was here.
And somehow, that meant more.
Ren shifted slightly on the bench. He didn't want to disturb the quiet between them, the strange stillness that wasn't awkward anymore. It had become something else. Something shared. Like a secret language spoken in glances and gestures.
He pulled out a folded slip of paper from his pocket. Just one line:
"You sat closer today. I noticed."
He didn't leave it in the mailbox yet. He wasn't sure if he would.
He only wanted to have it ready.
Around them, the school carried on. Distant shouts from gym class. The squeak of a chalkboard. Birds nesting in the eaves. A group of second-years walked past laughing, but their noise fell away like background music to a slower, quieter scene.
Hana reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
Ren blinked.
He didn't know why that small motion felt so intimate. Maybe because it meant she was aware of him. Maybe because it was so ordinary. Or maybe because ordinary things had started to feel rare when shared in silence.
Then she moved.
She stood slowly, smoothing the pleats of her skirt, and walked to the mailbox. Ren's breath caught in his throat.
He didn't look directly. Just enough to see her fingertips pause on the latch. She opened the box.
Nothing inside.
Except the blossom from yesterday, now dried slightly, but still pink and soft-looking. She lifted it gently, like it might break.
Then, with a faint smile, she placed it between the pages of her book — somewhere near the middle — and returned to her place beneath the tree.
Only now she was sitting slightly closer.
Not much.
Just enough for Ren to feel the shift.
Just enough for his heart to race.
The bell rang for the next class. Students shuffled across the courtyard. Hana stood again, this time slowly, as if something in the moment didn't want to end yet. She didn't look at him.
But as she passed the bench, something dropped — lightly, deliberately — to the ground beside him.
A folded paper star. Lavender in color. No message.
He didn't move until she was gone.
Then he bent down, picked up the star, and turned it over in his hand.
It wasn't much.
But it was hers.
And that made it enough.
He sat back on the bench, the star resting on his open palm. The wind tugged at the corners of his sketchbook, trying to close it. He held it open. Turned to the last page.
And, carefully, without thinking too hard, he drew the star.
Then her hands. Then her face — or what he remembered of it. He filled in more than usual. Her expression. The way she always looked like she was about to ask something, but never quite did.
And below the sketch, he wrote just one word:
"Almost."
That evening, just before sunset, he returned to the tree.
No one else was there. The sky was soft with gold and lavender light, and petals clung to the mailbox as if they didn't want to fall.
Ren slipped the note inside.
No name.
No return address.
Just his quiet voice on paper:
"I'm not used to being seen. But I think I want to be."
And next to it, he placed her folded star — tied carefully around the note with a thin strip of washi tape he'd carried for months but never used.
He stood there for a long time, watching the petals drift around the base of the tree.
Not waiting.
Just… staying.
Just in case.