The next two days were a masterclass in psychological torture. I followed Sora's directives to the letter, becoming a ghost in plain sight. I was present but not engaged, friendly but not warm. Each platonic nod, each deliberately missed opportunity to offer help, was another brick I was forced to lay in the wall between us.
The effect on Sina was devastating.
The vibrant, curious girl from a few days ago had vanished, replaced by a quiet, withdrawn version of herself. The "loudness" in her head, as she called it, had become her entire world. She'd zone out in the middle of conversations, her brow furrowed, as if trying to listen to a song that was just out of hearing range. She barely wrote in her notebook anymore. It was as if she didn't trust her own reality enough to even record it.
Sora and I were in a state of constant, silent panic. Our "containment" strategy was working on a technical level—Sina wasn't connecting her emotional turmoil directly to the kiss. But we were bleeding her out emotionally. We were solving one problem by creating a hundred smaller, sharper wounds.
On Saturday afternoon, I was at home, staring at my wall, feeling the full weight of my uselessness, when my phone rang. It was Sora. Her voice was thin, strained.
"Get to the bridge," she said, no preamble. "Now."
My blood ran cold. The bridge. Our place. "What's wrong?"
"It's Sina," Sora said, her voice cracking for the first time since I'd known her. "She's... not good. She canceled on Daisuke. She's been quiet all day. Then she said she needed some air. I followed her. She's just been standing on the bridge for an hour, just... staring at the water. She won't talk to me. I don't know what to do, Kelin. I think... I think we broke her."
Her words were a physical blow. I was out the door before she'd finished the sentence, running, my lungs burning, my heart a frantic drum against my ribs.
When I reached the park, I saw them. Sora was standing a few feet back, looking helpless. And Sina was by the railing, just as Sora had described. She was wrapped in a cardigan, her shoulders hunched against a breeze she probably didn't even feel. She looked impossibly small and fragile.
I slowed to a walk, my mind racing. What could I say? What "normal" platitude could possibly fix this? All the carefully constructed narratives, all the lies and half-truths, felt like useless, flimsy cardboard in the face of her genuine, profound despair.
Sora saw me, and the relief in her eyes was palpable. "Talk to her," she mouthed, taking a few steps back to give us space. "I'll be right here."
I took a deep breath and walked to the railing, stopping a few feet away from Sina. For a long moment, I just stood there, listening to the quiet murmur of the river below.
"Hey," I finally said, my voice quiet.
She flinched, startled out of her reverie. She turned, and her eyes—clouded with a pain and confusion so deep it made me ache to look at—met mine.
"Kelin," she whispered. Her voice was hollow.
"It's a nice view, isn't it?" I said, the words feeling stupid and empty.
She didn't answer. She just turned back to the water.
"Am I going crazy?" she asked, her voice a fragile thread in the wind. "Please just... tell me the truth."
The question hung between us, an echo of the one she had asked me in the school hallway what felt like a lifetime ago.
My brain screamed at me. Lie. Deflect. Say something normal. Protect the narrative.
But looking at her, at the raw, unfiltered agony on her face, I knew. The narrative was killing her. The lies were a poison. Our bridge, so carefully constructed, had become a bridge of sighs. And my role as the distant, platonic friend was a betrayal of everything I felt, everything that was real.
The mission was a failure. The game was over. All I had left was the truth.
"No," I said, my voice thick with an emotion I couldn't hide anymore. "You're not going crazy."
She turned to face me again, her expression wary, hopeful. "Then what is this?" she pleaded, her voice breaking. "This... feeling. This dream I had. It's so real. And... and you. One day, you feel like the kindest person I've ever met. And the next, you look at me like I'm a stranger. I don't understand. It hurts. It hurts so much, and I don't even know why."
Tears began to spill from her eyes, tracing silent paths down her pale cheeks. Seeing her cry, knowing I was the cause of it, shattered the last of my resolve.
"I know it hurts," I said, my own voice breaking. "And I am so, so sorry. It's my fault."
I closed the distance between us, standing directly in front of her. Her wide, tear-filled eyes searched mine for an answer, for anything that would make sense of the chaos in her head.
Here goes everything.
"Sina," I said, my voice trembling but clear. "The dream you had... about the kiss... It wasn't a dream."
The world seemed to stop. The wind died. The river went silent. The only sound was the frantic beating of my own heart.
Her breath hitched. She stared at me, her mind clearly struggling to parse the impossible sentence I had just uttered.
"What... what did you say?" she whispered.
I reached out, my hand shaking, and gently cupped her cheek, my thumb brushing away a tear. Her skin was soft, real.
"I'm the boy from your dream," I confessed, the truth a torrent, washing away all the lies, all the plans, all the fear. "It was me. And it was real."
I looked her directly in the eyes, pouring every ounce of the love I'd harbored for eighty-four agonizing days into that one, final, desperate gaze.
"And I think," I said, my voice dropping to a raw, honest whisper, "I'm falling in love with you."