I started waking up early. Earlier than anyone else in the house. Earlier than the sun.
I needed the quiet.
I needed the distance.
Not from the world, not from the house, but from her.
Since I found the letter, something inside me had changed. I hadn't opened it. I hadn't dared to. But just knowing it was there, hidden beneath the surface of everything, was enough to shatter everything I once believed in.
I couldn't look at Aoi the same way anymore.
So I stopped looking.
I skipped breakfast.
I retreated to my room whenever she entered.
When we spoke, it was stiff, distant, as if we were strangers, speaking with no emotion, no warmth. The words were mere formalities, like actors reading lines on a stage.
It was worse than fighting.
It was pretending.
But still… her eyes found me.
Every time we crossed paths in the hallway. Every time I caught a glimpse of her in the garden. Her gaze lingered.. not with anger, not with blame, but with a quiet ache, an unsaid sadness that gnawed at me, even when I turned away.
And I hated myself for noticing.
At school, I found myself spacing out, lost in thoughts of her. Her laughter, her voice, those things, those memories, clung to me. The things she never said, the things we never spoke of, echoed louder than anything she ever had.
Why was I feeling this way?
Was it guilt? Fear?
Or… something else?
One afternoon, I sat alone on the rooftop, the wind tugging at my sleeves. Aoi's smile flashed in my mind, age six, running barefoot through the summer grass, the sound of her laughter bright and carefree.
She had always been there.
And maybe that was what terrified me the most.
Because even now, despite the distance, the avoidance, the cold silence between us.
She still was.