The end of high school didn't arrive with a bang. It was a slow, creeping dawn, a series of "lasts" that were sweet, and poignant, and absolutely terrifying. The last school festival. The last final exam. The last walk through the familiar, crowded hallways.
Our life, the beautiful, complicated, stable world we had built, was structured around the rhythm of school. It was our scaffolding. The study group, the lunch table, the history class we shared—all of it was a predictable framework inside which our unique love story could thrive.
Now, the scaffolding was being dismantled, and we were facing the terrifying, unstructured emptiness of the future.
The topic of "what's next" became a low-humming anxiety beneath the surface of our days. Sora had been accepted into a prestigious university in Tokyo, studying neuroscience. A choice, she'd admitted to me, that was directly inspired by Sina's condition. Kaito was going to the same university for computer science. Maya was going to an art college a few hours away. Zeke, miraculously, had secured a spot in a trade school for culinary arts.
"Your boy's gonna be a chef!" he'd declared, brandishing a spatula like a sword. "I'll make you guys the most epic, non-prophetic taiyaki you've ever tasted!"
Everyone had a plan. Everyone was moving forward.
Except for me and Sina.
My grades were perfect. I could go anywhere, do anything. But every application form felt like a betrayal. How could I choose a future, a city, a life, without her? And her... her future was a blank, terrifying question mark. Her condition made the idea of a university, of living on her own, a seemingly impossible challenge.
We didn't talk about it directly, but the silence on the topic was deafening. Our daily "bottling" rituals became more precious, more desperate. We sketched and recorded the final days of our high school life with the feverish intensity of historians documenting a civilization on the verge of collapse.
The day before graduation, we stood on the bridge. The morning ceremony of re-awakening was more poignant than ever.
"Day 182," she recorded into her device, her voice a little shaky. "The last day of school. The note my yesterday-self left was… really long." A fragile smile. "She said to hold your hand extra tight today." She did, her fingers lacing through mine. "I think she's scared."
"I'm scared, too," I admitted, the truth a heavy stone in my gut.
"I know," she said. She didn't need to remember my shaking hands anymore; she could read the tension in my grip.
Later that afternoon, after a surreal final day of signing yearbooks and awkward goodbyes, the full weight of the future finally crashed down on us. We were at our spot by the river, watching the water flow, a relentless metaphor for time that felt particularly cruel.
"So," she said, her voice small. "You."
I knew what she was asking. "I haven't accepted any of the offers," I told her. "I can't. How can I choose where to go, when I don't know where you'll be?"
"And that's the problem, isn't it?" she replied, her gaze fixed on the river. "There is no 'where I'll be'. There's just… here. With my aunt. And Sora, until she leaves. My future is just a longer version of my present." The resignation in her voice was a chilling echo of the lost, hopeless girl I had met so long ago.
"That's not true," I insisted.
"Isn't it?" she countered, a spark of frustrated fire in her eyes. "How do I go to college, Kelin? How do I have a job? My life requires… a guardian. A handler. A co-pilot who has the map." She looked at me, her expression a mix of love and a deep, cutting fear. "And that's been you. It's been Sora. But Sora's leaving. And I can't… I will not… let you throw away your entire future just to be my zookeeper."
The word 'zookeeper' was a brutal, self-deprecating stab. She was voicing her oldest, deepest fear: the fear of being a burden. The fear of trapping me.
"You're not a burden," I said, my voice raw. "You're the reason I have a future. The reason I want one."
"But what kind of future is it?" she pleaded, her voice breaking. "One where you stay here, in this town, taking a dead-end job, just to be near the girl who will never remember what you had for breakfast? One where you have to reintroduce yourself to your girlfriend every morning for the rest of your life? Is that what you want? Forever?"
The word hung in the air. Forever. We had never dared to speak of a timeframe that long. Our lives were lived one sunrise at a time. The concept of forever was a crushing, impossible weight.
And the terrible, unspoken truth was, I didn't know. I didn't know if I was strong enough for a lifetime of this. The thought sent a jolt of shame through me so profound it felt like a physical illness.
She saw it in my eyes. My momentary hesitation. My flash of fear. And her face crumpled.
"You see?" she whispered, tears welling in her eyes. "Even you can't imagine it. It's not fair. This isn't a life, Kelin. It's a loop. And I'm dragging you into it with me."
"That's not true!" I tried again, but the words felt hollow. My own fear had betrayed us.
"I can't do it," she sobbed, standing up, taking a step back from me. "I can't be the reason your life stops. I love you too much for that."
It was the first time she had said it. I love you. The three words I had lived eighty-four days to hear, and they were being deployed not as a confession of love, but as a justification for an ending.
"If you love me," she said, her voice gaining a desperate, tragic strength, "you'll go. Go to Tokyo with Sora and Kaito. Go to a university. Have a real life. Please."
She was trying to break up with me, not for a lack of love, but because of it. A selfless, heartbreaking act of sacrifice.
"No," I said, standing up, my own tears starting to fall. "I'm not leaving you."
"You have to!" she cried. "It's the only way! Maybe in a few years, when I've figured things out, when Dr. Thorne has a new plan… but not like this. I can't let you drown with me."
She turned, just as she had on the day of the confession, and she started to walk away. Every instinct in me screamed to run after her, to hold her, to promise her the impossible forever she was so terrified of.
But that single, shameful flash of my own fear held me rooted to the spot. She was right to be scared. And I was terrified she could see it.
So I just stood there, watching the girl I loved walk out of my life, her shoulders shaking with sobs, convinced she was saving me. And the entire world we had so carefully, so painstakingly built together, collapsed into a pile of dust at my feet. The sun was setting on our high school life. I was terrified it was setting on us, too.