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Chapter 20 - The Ink Between Fingers

"Some truths don't arrive in one piece. They appear slowly, like ink bleeding into paper."

Sayaka's room felt smaller at night.

The walls didn't actually move, of course, but the air changed.

Thickened.

Like the silence between songs.

Her schoolbooks were still piled neatly on her desk.

The test she'd aced in literature still lay beneath her planner.

Everything was exactly where it should be.

Except her heart.

That, it seemed, was somewhere else entirely.

She sat cross-legged on her bed, a soft cardigan wrapped around her like armor.

On the blanket in front of her lay a single blank sheet of writing paper.

Clean.

Unfolded.

Undecided.

A pen rested beside it, uncapped.

The ink had already dried a tiny pool in the tip — ready, waiting.

Sayaka stared at the page, then glanced at the pen.

Then back again.

She hadn't meant to write tonight.

She didn't even know what she wanted to say.

Just that her chest felt tight — not with sadness, exactly, but with something raw and unresolved.

She reached for the pen. Slowly.

Let her fingers wrap around it.

Then stopped.

What was this going to be?

A letter?

A confession?

A scream?

Her thoughts drifted, uninvited, to the day before — the music class, the way Ren and Hana had spoken, like they didn't realize anyone else existed.

Not flirtation.

Not romance.

But something else — something that made her stomach feel cold.

She couldn't even describe it.

Only that… he didn't look at her like that.

Not anymore.

She lowered the tip of the pen.

The ink bled into the paper almost instantly.

"It's hard to be quiet when something inside you wants to scream."

The line appeared quickly.

She blinked at it.

Not dramatic.

Not poetic.

But true.

"I don't know when I started feeling this way.

But I know when I noticed."

That moment with Ren in the hallway — when he didn't stop to talk.

When he passed by, humming a song no one else could hear.

She remembered standing still after he was gone.

Like her body had been waiting for something that never came.

More words spilled out.

"There's this look he gives her. It's not loud. Not obvious. But it's different."

"I want to pretend it's nothing, but it's not."

She swallowed.

Her fingers trembled slightly.

But the pen didn't stop.

"Maybe I didn't think I had to try.

I thought just being close would be enough.

Like I was always meant to be the one beside him."

She paused, then added quietly:

"But I never asked if he saw me that way."

A breeze fluttered the curtain at her window.

Outside, the moon was pale, almost colorless.

It lit the cherry tree near the streetlamp — just barely.

Sayaka closed her eyes.

She could still hear Hana's voice — soft, thoughtful, that strange mix of awkward and brave.

And Ren's quiet laugh.

Not loud or showy.

Just real.

Like it came from somewhere deep.

A part of him Sayaka wasn't sure she'd ever reached.

She wrote more.

"I'm not angry at her.

I'm scared of what I feel when I see him looking at her."

"I don't want to hate her.

But I hate the part of myself that envies her."

"Is that the same thing?"

Sayaka leaned back on her elbows and stared at the ceiling.

A wave of guilt washed over her — warm, choking, familiar.

She didn't want to be that girl.

The one who resented someone just for being seen.

But the truth was harder to swallow than she'd expected.

She folded her arms across her chest.

Everything felt confusing.

Twisted.

She thought about all the things she'd almost said to Ren lately.

All the jokes she hadn't told.

The questions she'd swallowed.

Like:

"Have I changed?"

"Do you miss the way we used to talk?"

"Do I even matter to you now?"

And the one she'd never say aloud:

"Do you still look for me?"

"Sometimes, I think I'm not writing to you at all.

I think I'm writing to the version of me that used to believe I was enough."

That one hurt to write.

But she didn't cross it out.

Her hand had gone slightly numb by now, but she finished the page.

It wasn't a letter.

Not really.

There was no name.

No beginning, no end.

Just fragments.

Pieces of her heart she wasn't ready to show.

She folded the page slowly, carefully.

Then slid it into the back of her notebook — between pages filled with song lyrics, tiny sketches, and old schedule scribbles from her first year.

It didn't belong there.

But it didn't belong anywhere else either.

When she finally turned off the light and lay in bed, sleep didn't come quickly.

Her mind spun.

With what-ifs.

With almosts.

With the thought that maybe — just maybe — something between her and Ren had shifted long ago, and she was only now seeing it.

And what frightened her most wasn't losing him.

It was never having had him the way she thought.

The next morning, the world looked the same.

Students filled the street in front of the school, chatting, yawning, laughing too loud.

Sayaka walked slowly, earbuds in.

No music played.

She just needed the noise of the world to stay outside her head for a few more minutes.

Then she saw him.

Ren.

Standing near the garden wall, alone.

Hana wasn't there.

For once, it was just him — backpack slung lazily, eyes half-awake.

He looked up.

And for the first time in what felt like weeks… he saw her first.

Their eyes met.

Sayaka's breath caught.

It was only a second.

But in that second, something softened.

He gave a small smile.

Not the one he gave everyone.

A quieter one.

Like he remembered something.

Like she still mattered.

Sayaka smiled back — carefully.

And kept walking.

But inside, she whispered:

"Don't disappear again."

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