The next morning, Saanvi found a note tucked inside her locker.
No name.
No emoji.
No dramatic flair.
Just neat, slanted handwriting on a torn piece of ruled paper — handwriting she recognized now, like the curve of a forgotten melody that still somehow stirred her chest.
"Rooftop. 4:30. Bring the sketch."
Her heart stuttered.
Not because of the message — short, almost careless.
But because of the handwriting.
It was him.
Jisoo.
Again.
---
The day passed in a strange kind of slow-motion.
The school bell rang. Teachers spoke. Chalk dust drifted lazily across blackboards like time itself was in no rush to get anywhere.
Students passed notes, shared memes, stole glances, argued over instant noodles, and made up five minutes later.
Someone spilled juice in the hallway, right outside Class 1-B, and a first-year slipped in dramatic fashion. Laughter followed. A teacher yelled.
The world spun like it always had.
But Saanvi?
She wasn't in it.
She drifted.
In her own head. In yesterday's rain. In the silence that clung beneath that too-small umbrella like a second skin.
She kept replaying it — the look in his eyes, how he hadn't said goodbye, how he'd just walked away with words heavier than a farewell:
"We would've been something else."
The phrase looped.
Over and over.
And every time it did, it chipped something loose inside her.
What would they have been?
What did they almost become?
How much of her current self was shaped by the space his absence had carved?
---
At exactly 4:29, she climbed the last stair.
Her hand hovered on the rooftop door for a moment, as if bracing herself against whatever she might find — or feel.
Then she pushed.
The door creaked open.
And the world softened.
Golden-hour sunlight spilled across the rooftop in a gentle flood.
Wind danced past her, lifting strands of her hair like curious fingers.
The sky, tinged with pastel pinks and watercolor blues, looked like it, too, had stopped for this moment.
And cherry blossoms — late bloomers, stubborn and beautiful — swirled like confetti born from memory.
She stepped out.
And there he was.
Jisoo.
Sitting on the metal railing with casual defiance, one foot balanced on his skateboard, the other dangling freely into open space like the fall couldn't touch him.
He didn't turn around.
Didn't greet her.
Didn't say her name.
Just—
"Do you still like sweet rice cakes?"
She blinked. "What?"
"You cried once," he said, as if narrating someone else's memory. "Back in Busan. You scraped your arm on the slide at that dumb seaside park. I bought you one. You stopped crying immediately."
She blinked again — not because she didn't remember, but because she did.
A memory that old should've faded by now.
But suddenly she was ten years old again, cheeks puffy from sobbing, her arm throbbing, and Jisoo — loud, annoying, Jisoo — had awkwardly handed her a warm sweet rice cake with a sticker on the wrapping that read: "Smile, dummy."
"Guess I was always food-motivated," she said softly.
Only then did he glance at her.
His eyes, framed by the sun, looked exactly the same — like he hadn't aged at all, but also like he had lived through a thousand quiet moments without her.
"Do you have it?" he asked.
She reached into her bag and carefully unfolded the paper.
Edges curled.
Lines smudged.
A little water-stained.
But the sketch — of her, smiling beneath a cherry tree — was still there.
Still whole.
Still them.
He reached out as if to take it.
Then stopped.
Instead, he just looked at it.
Then at her.
Then back again.
"I promised you another one," he murmured.
---
Saanvi tilted her head, confused. "When?"
Jisoo's gaze dropped to the concrete.
His voice was barely audible. Barely even real.
"You don't remember…"
He paused. Then, quietly:
"I said, 'I'll draw you again. Next time. With clouds that don't look like buns.'"
And just like that —
The past clicked.
The forgotten promise came crashing down like spring rain on dry soil.
They'd been younger.
Under that same cherry tree.
She had laughed at the lumpy clouds he'd drawn.
He'd pouted, pretended to be offended.
She'd teased him.
He'd said, "Next time, I'll draw it better. I'll draw you better. Promise."
But she never returned.
Not to that tree.
Not to him.
"I forgot," she whispered.
Her voice trembled more than she wanted.
Not because the memory hurt —
But because she had left a version of herself behind that day.
And now that version was staring back through this boy — no, this young man — who remembered everything she had forgotten.
---
She stepped closer.
He didn't move.
She sat beside him, legs hanging off the edge just like his.
The wind kissed her skin gently.
The blossoms fell around them like time made visible.
"I broke that promise too," she said.
He turned slightly.
"I said I'd race you to the tree the next day."
A faint smile tugged at his lips.
"I waited twenty minutes."
"I was on a train," she said. "Crying into a vending machine ramen cup."
That made him laugh — quiet, genuine, unfiltered.
Not at her.
With her.
And that made her chest ache in a whole new way.
---
He unzipped his backpack.
Pulled out a sketchbook — small, square, soft around the edges like it had been loved too much.
The spine was cracked.
The pages were curled.
There were faint graphite smears on the cover.
He opened it slowly.
Flipped through half-finished drawings — glimpses of faces, moments paused, things that never quite found completion.
Until he reached a blank page.
He held his pencil gently, like it was a brush painting emotion.
Then he looked at her, not smiling, not asking with words — just eyes.
But he still said:
"Can I draw you now?"
She blinked, caught off guard.
"You need to ask?"
He nodded. His voice low, but certain.
"It's not a sketch of your face. It's a memory. And I don't want to get it wrong this time."
---
Saanvi turned toward the horizon.
The sun had begun to melt into the city skyline, casting gold across their faces.
Cherry blossoms drifted through the air like pieces of dreams they'd once shared.
She didn't pose.
Didn't smile.
Didn't fix her hair.
She just sat.
Real.
Present.
Like the girl he'd waited ten years to find again —
And this time, she'd stayed.
---
He began to draw.
Lines formed.
Soft, slow, intentional.
Like tracing a moment already etched in his heart.
She didn't speak.
Not even when her eyes filled.
Tears slipped down her cheeks — not from sadness, not even from guilt — but from a strange, aching fullness.
The kind that only comes when something lost is found again.
She didn't wipe them away.
And neither did he.
Because some emotions don't need fixing.
They just need space to breathe.
---
One Plus Notification
____________•••____________
You are one plus away from a moment the past has waited a decade to witness.
____________•••____________
And this time, neither of them looked away.