Natsuki's POV
I wasn't snooping.
Not really.
The photo was already half out of the envelope when I opened the locker. I thought it was just leftover tournament stuff—maybe an old schedule or a team list from regionals.
But it wasn't.
It was her.
Mirai.
Sitting on the edge of the Kaimei bench, smile crooked, sweatband askew, laughing at something off-camera.
And next to her—partially in frame—someone I've never seen before.
Not Aoi.
Not Haru.
Not anyone from the Kaimei team I know.
Just a blurred hand on her shoulder, and the edge of a sleeve. Black. No team logo.
The photo's timestamped: Two months before her health collapsed.
Aoi's POV
Natsuki calls me after practice.
Doesn't say anything weird, just: "Can you come by the storage room?"
I assume we're organizing uniforms or picking up leftover tennis balls.
What I don't expect is a photo being handed to me like a crime scene clue.
My breath catches.
Because it's her.
Mirai.
But this isn't the version I keep in my head. Not the competitor. Not the court-dancing, serve-slinging storm that lit up every match we played.
This Mirai looks… lighter.
Like she'd finally let herself exhale.
And that person beside her?
Not anyone I recognize.
I flip the photo over.
There's writing on the back.
Two words:
"Sora remembers."
Rio's POV
When Aoi shows me the photo, something clenches in my chest.
I recognize the court.
It's not Kaimei.
It's Seta Club.
My training ground. The one where I met Mirai the summer before she started skipping practices. The one where she told me she was trying to "train smarter."
I thought I was the only one she trained with there.
But this photo says otherwise.
Mirai wasn't alone.
And that means she didn't tell me everything either.
Tanaka's POV
New girl theory incoming:
Mysterious hand + Seta Club setting = secret sibling?
Secret sibling = Sora?
Sora = ???
??? = emotional damage?
I write it all on the whiteboard in the clubroom.
Aoi erases it without a word.
But she keeps the photo.
And she stares at it like it's a puzzle piece that never belonged to the box she thought she finished.
Aoi's POV
That night, I sit at my desk under the dim lamp, the photo lying flat on the table.
It feels wrong to put it in my sketchbook.
Like it belongs somewhere else. Or nowhere.
"Sora remembers."
But I don't remember Sora.
Mirai never mentioned a sister.
Never mentioned anyone else she trained with outside Kaimei.
So why leave this?
Why now?
And what else didn't she say?
I run my fingers over the corner of the photo.
There's more to this story.
And whether I want to or not…
I need to find out.