The days after the festival blurred into gray.
Kenji still ran every morning, using the same route, same hill but the rhythm felt hollow now. His legs moved on autopilot while his mind replayed fragments of that day. Aiko's laugh echoing over the crowd, Rei's steady voice in the hallway, the way the fireworks lit up her face when she looked up at them with someone else.
He kept showing up to school. Kept smiling at Haruto's jokes. Kept nodding when Mio asked if he was "okay, seriously, you've been weird." He told them all the same thing: qualifier stress. Training hard. Nothing more.
They bought it. Mostly.
Rika didn't.
She didn't push, either. Just sat two desks away in class, throwing the occasional crumpled note when he stared too long at nothing.
One said: You still breathing over there?
He wrote back: Barely.
She didn't reply to that one.
Another afternoon, after everyone else had left for club activities, Kenji stayed behind to "study." Really he just sat at his desk with an open textbook he hadn't read a word of. The room was quiet except for the hum of the old air conditioner and the occasional creak of the building settling.
Rika was still there too, packing slowly, deliberately, like she had nowhere else to be.
She walked past his desk on her way out, paused.
Looked down at him.
"You're not fooling anyone," she said.
Kenji didn't look up. "I'm not trying to."
"Then stop pretending you're fine."
He finally lifted his head. Her expression was the same flat, unreadable one she always wore. But her eyes, dark and steady held something else. Not pity. Not judgment. Just recognition.
"I don't know how," he admitted. Voice low. Barely there.
Rika didn't say anything for a long second.
Then she pulled out the chair in front of his desk, spun it around, and sat backward on it. Arms folded over the backrest. Facing him.
"Start by admitting it out loud," she said. "To someone who won't run and tell the group chat."
Kenji's throat closed. He stared at the desk between them: scratches, old ink stains, a faint pencil outline someone had drawn of a cat years ago.
"I…" He stopped. Tried again. "I've loved her since we were kids. Not just liked. Loved. The kind where you change everything about yourself because you think maybe then she'll see you. I got faster. Got louder. Got funnier. All of it. For her."
Rika didn't interrupt.
"I thought… if I was good enough, she'd choose me. Eventually. And now she's choosing someone else, and he's..." Kenji's voice cracked. "He's better. He's calm. He's smart. He doesn't need to try so hard to make her smile. And I'm just… the guy who's always been there. The safe one. The funny one. The one she'll never look at twice."
The words hung in the empty classroom.
He felt them settle into his bones like lead.
Rika watched him. Still silent.
Kenji's hands clenched on the desk. Knuckles white.
"I talked to him," he continued, quieter now. "Rei. Told him I'd make his life hell if he hurt her. Like that makes me noble or something. Like I have any right. But the truth is… I want him to hurt her. Just a little. Just enough so she comes back. So she realizes I was the one all along."
His breath hitched.
"That makes me a shitty person."
Rika exhaled through her nose. "It makes you human."
Kenji shook his head. "No. It makes me pathetic."
He felt the first internal crack then. A small tremor behind his eyes.
He tried to swallow it down.
He couldn't.
The tears came fast and hot, burning tracks down his face before he could stop them. He swiped at them angrily with his sleeve, but more followed. Shoulders shaking. Breath ragged.
He hadn't cried like this since he was ten when his dad left for a month on a work trip and Kenji thought he wasn't coming back.
He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to force it back.
It wouldn't go.
Rika didn't move. Didn't speak. Just sat there.
Letting it happen.
When the worst of the sobs eased leaving him hollowed out, face wet, chest aching Kenji lowered his hands.
He looked at her through blurred vision.
"Sorry," he rasped. "I didn't mean to..."
"Shut up," Rika said. Not unkindly.
She reached into her bag, pulled out a half-used pack of tissues, and tossed them onto his desk.
Kenji took one. Blew his nose. Wiped his face.
Rika waited until he could breathe again.
Then, quietly: "You done pretending now?"
He nodded once. Small. Exhausted.
"Good." She stood up, pushed the chair back in. "Because the kicked puppy look was getting old."
Kenji huffed a wet, broken laugh.
She slung her bag over her shoulder. Paused at the door.
"Tomorrow," she said. "After school. Meet me at the back gate. We're going somewhere that isn't here."
Kenji looked up. "Where?"
"You'll see." She shrugged. "Bring your stupid running shoes if you want. Might need to move."
Then she left.
The door clicked shut behind her.
Kenji sat alone in the classroom for another twenty minutes.
Sunset slanted through the windows, turning the desks gold.
He felt lighter, not fixed, not okay, but lighter. Like something had finally broken open instead of just pressing harder.
He pulled out his phone.
No new messages from the group.
He didn't open the chat.
Instead he texted one word to Rika.
Okay.
Then he stood.
Picked up his bag.
Walked out.
The hallway was empty.
For the first time in weeks, the silence didn't feel like drowning.