Time rewinds to the afternoon when Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko showed up at Tsushima Kagami's place, suitcases in hand.
A taxi pulled up at the corner of the street where the Tsushima house stood.
The door opened, and a small figure climbed out, holding up an umbrella.
She wore a light-colored floral dress with a thin cardigan over it, a bulging canvas bag slung over one shoulder.
Her fingers gripped the bag's strap tightly, as if afraid the treasure inside might fly away.
It was Sayuri.
She stood at the corner, tilting her head up to look at the sky that had suddenly darkened, and wrinkled her nose in mild annoyance.
It had been blazing sunshine when she left the house—how had the weather turned the moment she got here?
But that small irritation was quickly pushed to the back of her mind, because she had something far more important to do today.
Sayuri glanced down at the canvas bag in her arms and patted the thick stack of drawing paper inside.
Her fingers tightened around the strap without her meaning to, and the corners of her mouth kept curling upward no matter how she tried to stop them.
She'd finally finished it.
She'd pulled an all-nighter, hadn't closed her eyes even during the day, forcing herself through the last few pages.
She'd checked it over from start to finish several more times, and only once she was sure there were no mistakes or missing pages did she finally let herself set down her pen.
Holding the finished pages in her hands, she'd stared at them for a long while, because this manga was the one she'd poured the most of herself into so far.
And all of it was so she wouldn't hold Kagami back, so she wouldn't betray his trust.
Thinking about that, the smile on Sayuri's face deepened even further.
She couldn't wait to put the pages in Tsushima Kagami's hands, couldn't wait to see the expression on his face as he flipped through them.
She wanted to hear what he'd say.
She'd be nervous, she'd be anxious, but more than anything, she felt a happy kind of anticipation.
Because her work was finally about to be seen by the person she loved most.
She quickened her pace, walking down the familiar street toward the Tsushima house.
Rounding the last corner, the Tsushima house came into view.
The gate stood wide open—Kagami must be home today, which meant she hadn't come all this way for nothing.
She could have called ahead to check, but she'd wanted to surprise Tsushima Kagami instead.
After all, Tsushima Kagami surely thought she was at home catching up on sleep right now.
She stepped along the stone path into the yard, walked up to Tsushima Kagami's door, took a deep breath, and reached out to press the doorbell.
Her finger hovered above the button, but she couldn't quite bring herself to press it.
Sayuri hesitated, then pulled her hand back and dug a small compact mirror out of her canvas bag.
She flipped it open and studied her own reflection carefully.
Her hair was a little messy—the wind, probably.
Her face looked fine enough, but there were faint shadows under her eyes, traces left by the sleepless night.
Her lips were a bit dry; she pressed them together quickly, then tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ear with her fingers.
Once she was satisfied she looked presentable, Sayuri nodded, tucked the compact back into her bag, and raised her hand again to press the doorbell.
Just as her finger was about to touch the button, she froze again.
Because she'd heard something.
At first it was just a faint, blurry sound.
As if it came from somewhere very deep, filtered through thick walls and shut windows.
Only the faintest trace of it remained.
Sayuri frowned, thinking it was just her imagination, and turned her ear to listen more closely.
Her frown deepened, and her heart began to pound uncontrollably.
Something like a bad premonition churned in her chest.
She lowered her hand, hesitated for a few seconds, then stepped back and walked around the side of the house along the outer wall.
The sound grew clearer the closer she got.
It was a sound that made her ears burn.
Suppressed breathing, faint moans, and the soft sound of water shifting.
Sayuri's steps stopped.
She stood frozen, her mind blank, as if something had struck the back of her skull—every thought in her head shattered to dust in that instant.
Those sounds... they were familiar.
Very familiar.
Slowly, almost mechanically, she moved a few more steps along the wall.
The source of the sound became unmistakable—it was coming from the half-open vent window.
Or rather... those sounds.
"Senpai Akane... Senpai Sonoko..."
Sayuri murmured the two names under her breath. She'd finally placed the voices.
It really was Kosaka Akane's voice, and Machida Sonoko's.
Their voices intertwined, carrying a tone she'd never heard from them before.
Languid, alluring—like cream slowly melting in warm water.
And between those two voices was a third.
The voice she knew best, cared about most, the one she'd heard countless times in her dreams.
Tsushima Kagami's voice.
Sayuri's hands began to shake. She bit her lower lip. Reason told her she should leave right now.
She should pretend she'd heard nothing, should turn and run as far away as possible.
But she couldn't. Her feet felt nailed to the ground, unable to move an inch.
She wanted to know.
She had to be sure.
Sayuri quietly dragged over a stone she could stand on, climbed up on her toes, and lined her eyes up with the gap in the vent window.
Sayuri's pupils shrank.
She saw Tsushima Kagami. She saw Kosaka Akane. She saw Machida Sonoko.
The three of them were tangled together in a way that left nothing to the imagination, the air thick with something suffocating.
Sayuri felt as though an invisible hand had seized her heart and crushed it, the pain almost pulling a cry out of her.
She clapped a hand over her mouth, forcing back the sob that had already risen to her throat.
How could this be...
How could this be happening...
Her mind rang with a dull buzz, one single thought spinning wildly through it.
Why...?
Sayuri had no memory of how she got away from the window.
She walked mechanically, stepped mechanically out of the yard.
Why?
The image replayed itself over and over in her head.
Senpai Akane and Senpai Sonoko, held in Tsushima Kagami's arms.
Their smiles, the look in their eyes, the kind of closeness with him that no outsider could ever break into.
She'd confessed her feelings to Kagami so many times, each one so clear, so direct—but he'd never once really answered her.
She'd thought he was just dense. She'd thought he was shy. She'd thought he just needed more time.
But now she finally understood.
He wasn't dense. He wasn't shy. He didn't need more time.
He simply didn't like her.
After all...
It seemed like everyone else's relationship with Kagami had already moved forward.
And only she...
The sky looked as if an invisible hand had yanked a gray curtain across it—the fierce sun that had hung there only moments ago was swallowed whole by heavy clouds.
Thunder rolled closer, carrying a force that seemed ready to tear everything apart, as if it had cracked open right above her head.
Then the first drop of rain fell.
Then the second, the third, and in a blink it became a downpour blanketing everything.
Sayuri's tears finally broke free in that moment, mixing with the rain and streaming freely down her face.
She opened her mouth, wanting to cry out loud, but her throat felt blocked, and only broken, choking gasps came out.
The rain poured down over her, soaking her through in an instant.
The cold rain hit her skin, but it couldn't put out the fire burning in her chest, the fire that made every part of her ache.
She walked on down the street as the rain grew heavier, the whole world swallowed in a gray curtain of water.
Pedestrians ran for the eaves to escape the rain, but she alone walked against the flow, dazed, right down the middle of the road.
They'd all promised it would be the three of them together.
It turned out she'd only been fooling herself.
It turned out that from the very beginning, she'd never been part of the plan at all.
Kagami... had he never liked me at all?
The thought pierced her chest like a needle.
The more she thought about it, the more wronged she felt, the more unfair it all seemed.
Why could Senpai Akane? Why could Senpai Sonoko? Why could Nayotake? Why could Hiratsuka Shizuka?
Why... was she the only one who couldn't?
What had she done wrong?
The rain kept falling harder, thunder rolling, swallowing every other sound on the street.
"Bam...!"
A sudden collision yanked Sayuri out of her spiraling thoughts.
Her body pitched to one side, her shoulder slamming into something hard, and she staggered a few steps before falling to her knees on the wet ground.
"Sorry, sorry! I didn't see you—"
A panicked voice rang out beside her—a passerby also running through the rain, whose shopping bag had struck her canvas bag.
Sayuri knelt on the ground, her knees scraped raw against the rough pavement, but she barely noticed.
Because she saw her bag had been knocked flying, its mouth gaping open, its contents scattering like snowflakes, soaked by the rain and blown across the street.
"Ah—"
Sayuri let out a short, sharp cry and scrambled forward, half crawling.
She picked up the rain-soaked pages one by one.
The ink had bled and smeared, the lines blurred into shapeless smudges, some faces no longer even recognizable.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."
The passerby kept apologizing, helping her gather a few sheets and handing them over.
Sayuri didn't answer. She just mechanically gathered all the pages together and stuffed them back into her bag.
Then she hugged the whole bag tightly to her chest, as if cradling some precious thing she'd nearly lost.
Those pages... the ones she'd spent a sleepless all-nighter finishing, the labor of her heart... the ones she'd meant to show Kagami...
Now completely ruined.
The passerby's apologies faded into the distance as Sayuri knelt in the rain, the bag in her arms soaked through, heavy as if filled with lead.
She lowered her head. Rainwater trailed down her hair and dripped onto the bag—she couldn't tell anymore which drops were rain and which were tears.
She didn't know how long she knelt there. She only knew that by the time she finally stood, her legs had gone numb, almost past feeling.
She clutched the bag and stumbled toward the subway station, a long trail of water streaking out behind her in the rain.
She finally reached the station, got off the train, and walked out.
The rain had eased a little by then, but she didn't care.
She held the bag close and walked, step by step, back to where she lived.
Sayuri stood in the entryway, soaked to the bone, water dripping from the hem of her dress and pooling on the floor.
She didn't change her clothes, didn't shower. She just carried the bag, step by step, into the living room, and stopped in front of the sofa.
She looked down at the bag in her arms—those pages, the ones she'd worked so hard on, the ones meant for Kagami to see.
Now they lay soaked inside the bag, and she had no idea if they could still be saved.
But she didn't open the bag to check.
Because she was afraid.
Afraid to see the pages ruined by the rain. Afraid to admit that her whole day's effort had been for nothing. Afraid to admit that everything she'd done today had, in the end, been nothing but a joke.
Just like her feelings.
Sayuri slowly sank down, then let her whole body slump against the floor beside the sofa, curling into a ball.
Her soaked clothes clung to her skin, ice-cold, but she couldn't feel it anymore—the pain in her chest was too much, too consuming, and it swallowed every other sensation.
Why?
The question came back to her again.
Why had everyone else been accepted by Kagami, and only she hadn't?
Was she really that inadequate? Was she really not worth loving?
Sayuri buried her face in her knees, her shoulders shaking violently.
She couldn't hold it back any longer. She broke into sobs, her crying echoing through the empty room.
No one heard her. No one came to comfort her...
____
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