Handing over the hard drive to Sora felt like a solemn, secret ritual. We met in the library the next day, and I passed a small, black, encrypted drive across the table. She took it without a word, her expression grave, and slipped it into a hidden pocket in her bag. The archives were sealed. The ghosts were laid to rest.
And with that burden lifted, a strange lightness entered our days.
The "bridge" was holding strong. My presence in Sina's life was now a given, a comfortable fact. Our "foundational myth" of the cat rescue was a beloved, oft-referenced story among her friends, a charming anecdote that explained everything. The new memories we were building were simple, genuine, and, for the first time, shared.
Without the constant, low-level hum of anxiety about creating a new grand gesture every day, I could finally just... be. And I could see Sina in a way I hadn't allowed myself to before. I wasn't just observing her for clues to win her over. I was getting to know the girl who woke up to our manufactured reality.
I learned the language of her small gestures. A slight frown when Kaito explained a math problem too quickly meant she was lost but too polite to say so. The way she'd tap her pen against her notebook in a specific rhythm meant she had an idea for a drawing.
She learned my language, too. She learned that my "sleepy" look often meant I was thinking, not tired. She learned that I always had a spare granola bar in my bag for the inevitable mid-afternoon slump.
We developed a quiet rhythm, a secret shorthand that existed outside of words.
It happened in little moments. In history class, she dropped her pencil. It rolled under her desk. Before she could even bend down to look for it, I had leaned out of my chair, snagged it, and was holding it out to her. Our fingers brushed as she took it. She gave me a small, surprised smile that was full of a comfortable, easy warmth. There was no confusion. No static. Just... connection.
During a study session, Maya was lamenting her inability to grasp a concept for an English lit paper.
"I just don't get the symbolism of the green light!" she wailed, burying her head in her arms.
"It represents an unattainable dream, the idealized future that's always just out of reach," I said quietly, without looking up from my own notes.
The table fell silent. Kaito pushed his glasses up his nose, nodding in approval. Sora gave me a tiny, almost imperceptible smirk. But Sina was just staring at me, a soft, curious expression on her face.
"How do you always know that stuff?" she asked, her voice quiet. "You never seem like you're paying attention in class."
"I listen," I said with a shrug. "Just... quietly."
Later, as we were packing up, she hung back.
"Hey," she said, once the others were out of earshot. "Thanks for the pencil earlier."
"It's no big deal," I said, slinging my bag over my shoulder.
"No, it is," she insisted, her gaze serious. "It's... nice. To not have to ask for help. It's like you already know." She hesitated, looking for the right words. "It makes me feel... seen."
The words landed with a quiet, devastating impact. It makes me feel seen.
For eighty days, I had seen her. I had watched her every move, memorized her every expression, all from the other side of a pane of glass. But now, in this new reality, she could feel it. She couldn't remember the hundreds of times I'd noticed the little things, but she could feel the accumulated weight of them now, expressing itself in these small, intuitive acts of care. The echo was still there, but it wasn't a source of confusion anymore. It was a source of comfort.
Our conversations started to stretch beyond the safe, neutral ground of schoolwork. We discovered a shared love for a niche brand of sour gummy candy. We found out we both hated movies where the dog dies. We learned that we both found the sound of rain on a roof to be the most calming sound in the world.
Each new shared detail felt like a victory. It was a real memory. A brick we were laying together in this new bridge.
One afternoon, we were walking home, with Sora a few steps ahead, pretending to be engrossed in her phone but undoubtedly listening to every word.
"You know," Sina said thoughtfully, "Maya was right."
"About what?" I asked. "Her existential crisis over fictional characters' romantic choices?"
She laughed. "No. About your eyes. They are kind of broody and soulful." She looked at me, a teasing glint in her amber eyes. "What are you so soulful about, Kelin Ishida? What are all your big, deep thoughts?"
I was thinking about the eighty days of memories sealed away on a hard drive in Sora's bedroom. I was thinking about the beautiful, heartbreaking lie we were living. I was thinking about how desperately, profoundly in love I was with the girl walking beside me.
But I just gave her a small, sideways smile.
"Right now?" I said, my voice low. "Just wondering if it's going to rain later."
It was a half-truth, a callback to the memory she thought she had of our 'second' meeting. It was safe. It was part of the story.
She bumped her shoulder against mine playfully. "Always the meteorologist."
It felt so easy. So normal. So incredibly, beautifully real.
But as we reached the bus stop, a cold, hard thought intruded on the comfortable warmth. This entire reality, this beautiful, blooming connection, was dependent on the success of Project Mnemosyne. And it hinged on one crucial factor.
What would happen on the day Sina somehow stumbled upon the truth? The foundation we had built was strong, but it was still made of lies. And I didn't know if any bridge, no matter how carefully constructed, could survive a shock like that.