The sky had slipped into its softest blue, the kind Mira liked best—a quiet kind of blue, like a color that kept its thoughts to itself.
The campus quad was quieter than usual, the late winter air curling around leafless trees and quiet footsteps. Mira walked slower than necessary, the edges of her scarf fluttering in the breeze. In her bag sat the third letter—still sealed. She hadn't opened it yet.
Kanna had begged her to open it over breakfast. "It could be something huge," she'd said, brushing strawberry jam across toast with forensic intensity. "What if it says 'Don't go outside today or you'll be hit by a scooter'? Or 'Tell the cute barista to avoid the tuna wrap'?"
But Mira had hesitated. The last letter had kept her from a scene she was never meant to see, a crack in reality that still made her uneasy when she remembered it.
She wanted one more day of normal before she let the future talk to her again.
---
The literature building hadn't changed. Same tall windows, same air that smelled like dust and caffeine and printer ink. But Mira hadn't walked this hall on a Friday afternoon in almost a year. She didn't need to be here—her tutorial wasn't until Tuesday. But some part of her wanted to sit on the rooftop garden and write.
She rounded the familiar corner—and stopped.
The rooftop access stairwell door was cracked open.
And standing beside it, squinting into the cloud-filtered light, was Sota Minami.
He was holding a bottle of strawberry milk and a half-eaten sandwich. A brown messenger bag hung at his side like it had grown roots into his shoulder. His jacket was too thin for the weather. His eyes, hidden behind rectangular glasses, looked older than they used to. Like they'd started carrying something Mira hadn't noticed before.
"Sota?"
His head jerked toward her at the sound of his name. For a second, the expression on his face was unguarded surprise—then his mouth tugged upward into a quiet smile.
"Mira," he said. Just her name. Soft, like it was a word he didn't get to say out loud very often.
"I thought you had class on Fridays."
"I switched sections," he said. "Needed more time in the lab."
"You're still in psych?"
"For now. Trying to survive it before it devours me entirely."
She smiled. "And here I thought you loved being devoured by academia."
"I do. I just wish it came with less group work and more actual psychology."
They stood there for a moment. Mira shifted her weight to one foot. "Can I join you?"
Sota blinked, then stepped aside. "Always."
---
The rooftop garden wasn't much of a garden in February—planter boxes filled with brittle stalks and waiting buds. But the bench overlooking the quad was dry, and the sky above hummed with stillness.
Mira sat, pulling her scarf tighter.
Sota remained standing. He took a sip of strawberry milk.
"Still your favorite?" she asked.
He nodded. "Some things don't change."
She looked at him more carefully. He had grown taller—not by much, but enough that she had to tip her chin up slightly to meet his gaze. His hair was longer, swept back with the kind of careless order that takes time to perfect. But it was his eyes that startled her. Not darker. Not sadder. Just more focused. Like they were reading something invisible in the space between them.
"You still carry that notebook?" he asked.
She looked down at the journal in her lap. "Yeah. Been logging... thoughts."
"Anything worth sharing?"
She hesitated. "Some things. Others… I'm still figuring them out."
He nodded, not pressing.
Mira tilted her head. "You ever get the feeling you're being watched? Not in a scary way. Just... like something's paying attention to your life."
Sota raised an eyebrow. "Like a guardian angel?"
"Maybe. Or fate. Or time itself. I don't know."
He studied her. "What brought that up?"
She looked away. "I got a letter."
His eyes narrowed slightly. "From who?"
"I don't know yet."
There was a long pause.
"You know," he said finally, "when we were ten, you used to leave notes in that tree stump near your house."
Mira blinked. "I did?"
He nodded. "You signed them all 'M.T., Traveler of Imaginary Worlds.' Said they were from someone trapped in a future war."
"I'd completely forgotten that."
"You said the war was against silence. That it was stealing people's ability to remember dreams."
She stared at him. "That sounds like something I'd make up."
"It was kind of beautiful, actually." He smiled. "You made me write back. I signed as 'S.M., Guardian of the Realms of Sleep.' You said I needed to 'fight for the preservation of heart-born stories.'"
Mira laughed. "That is painfully dramatic."
"I still have one of your notes. Somewhere."
Silence stretched between them, but it wasn't heavy. Just full.
"You didn't forget," she said quietly.
"No." His voice was gentle. "I remember you better than you remember yourself sometimes."
---
They sat for a while. Mira flipped open her notebook but didn't write.
Finally, she glanced at him. "Sota… If someone told you something unlikely, but possible—something strange—would you believe it?"
He didn't answer right away.
"I'd believe *you*," he said.
And that made something shift in her. Not loudly. Not like fireworks. But like the sound of a page turning at exactly the right moment.
---
They didn't speak much after that. But when Mira walked home that evening, the letter in her bag felt warmer in her hands. Like maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't have to read the future alone.
She unfolded it under lamplight in her room.
Same handwriting.
**February 16, 2049**
**"Ask him why he stopped writing letters."**
She stared at the page.
Then she smiled—half in awe, half in disbelief.
The future had a strange sense of humor.
She pulled out her journal. Beneath "Letter 3," she wrote:
**It knew.**
**It always knows.**
---