Several more days passed, and I felt like everything around me was starting to feel a little lighter. Yuzuki kept sitting next to me, her sincerity giving me no peace. Her words didn't just reach me—they started to awaken feelings I had long forgotten. I found myself more and more often waiting for her to appear in class, for her smile, for her simple phrases. She was becoming something important to me, but I still couldn't admit it to myself.
"Kaoru, you've been quiet today," she said, more attentively than usual. "Are you tired?"
I shook my head.
"No, I'm just… not used to being around people," I said, trying to keep my voice as neutral as possible.
Yuzuki didn't answer right away. She just kept looking at me, as if trying to understand what was hidden behind those words.
"I like you, Kaoru," she said, and I felt my heart skip a beat. "You're different. You don't have to be alone."
It felt like something in my mind tore through an invisible wall. I didn't know what to say. It was too unexpected. Instead of answering, I just stayed silent, staring into her eyes.
Yuzuki smiled, and I noticed her face had become even softer.
"You probably think I'm weird," she said, but her voice was light and warm. "But that doesn't matter. What matters is that I can be here."
I felt something reaching out to me. Fear, doubt, the sensation of something unknown. I didn't know how to handle it.
"I don't want your pity," I said, still trying to keep my distance.
But her gaze was persistent, and her eyes didn't let me go. In that moment, I realized her words weren't just an attempt to break through—they were a sincere desire to understand. I started to realize how much it was changing me, even though I had tried desperately to keep myself detached.
Every day she was beside me, I felt myself being drawn into her world. And I knew I couldn't stop it. Her bright presence, her kindness, her confidence—it was something I hadn't felt in a long time, and now it had become a part of me.
"I don't pity you," I said quietly. "You're not like the others."
Yuzuki smiled again, and I felt a subtle anxiety leaving me. I didn't know what to call it, but it was something important.
"You can be different, Kaoru," she said, looking at me as if she had always known it. "You can be better. You can be whoever you want to be."
Her words were like light at the end of a tunnel, like hope that one day I might escape the darkness I'd been living in.
I didn't know what to say. But one thought kept echoing in my mind: "Maybe she's right?"
And I realized the moment was coming when I could no longer stay the person I had been.