The warm May breeze slipped through the classroom windows, carrying the faint hum of cicadas just starting to stir. A month into my second shot at first year, the school hallways were already cluttered with faded club posters, and the air smelled of late spring—fresh, alive, but heavy with the weight of my own regrets.
I don't know when it started. Maybe it was the first time I saw her. Or maybe it was the moment I realized I was too much of a coward to talk to her. Either way, I made a mistake—a mistake that still haunts me to this day.
It happened last May, when the cherry blossoms had already faded, and I was just a normal first-year student. I was walking home after buying bread from the corner store, the plastic bag swinging in my hand under a sky streaked with soft, spring clouds. That's when I saw her—Rina Tachibana.
She was laughing with her friends. Her voice was light, like wind chimes in spring. Effortless. Untouchable. And completely unaware that I existed.
My heart pounded. I told myself it was enough just to see her smile. But it wasn't. I wanted more—I wanted her to know me. To say my name, just once, the way she did with her friends.
I'd thought about talking to her so many times. A simple "Hey" would've done it. But every time, the words locked up. I froze. She always looked like she lived on a different planet—one I had no right to reach.
But that day… I cracked. I made a choice. A stupid, weak, desperate choice.
I ran home, dropped the bread on the counter, and turned right back around, the warm May air clinging to my skin. I told myself I just wanted to see her again. Maybe she'd be alone. Maybe this time… maybe I'd say something.
She wasn't alone.
But I stayed anyway, trailing a few steps behind. I told myself I was just walking the same direction. Just a coincidence. But I wasn't fooling anyone—not even myself.
What are you doing? I asked myself over and over. Go home. Stop this. But I kept walking, the spring sun dipping low, casting long shadows on the pavement.
Then she turned.
Her gaze locked on mine.
Her friends noticed. The mood shifted in an instant—like a cloud blotting out the sun.
"Are you stalking me?"
My heart stopped.
No. This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
Her voice wasn't angry. It was scared. Her eyes—those warm, shining eyes I'd always admired—looked at me like I was something twisted.
"I—I wasn't—" My throat clenched. I tried to speak, to explain. But no words came out.
"I've seen you staring in class too," she said, louder now. Sharper. "What's your deal?"
"I… It's nothing," I managed, my voice cracking like dry glass.
"Nothing?" Her brows furrowed. "You think creeping around behind me is nothing?"
She stepped forward. Her friends flanked her like guards.
"If you have something to say, say it to my face."
I wanted to. I really did.
Tell her you like her. Tell her this was a mistake. That you're sorry. Just say something. Anything.
But all I could do was clench my fists.
And then—I ran.
Like a coward.
I didn't look back.
After that, I avoided her. I stopped glancing her way in class. I stopped taking the hallway that passed by her clubroom. I stopped… everything. That mistake ate at me, and my grades crumbled. By the end of the year, I'd flunked, stuck repeating first year while she moved on.
Now, a year later, the late spring heat presses against the classroom, and I'm still here, doodling in my notebook, avoiding the second-year building where Rina studies. I told myself it was over. That I had to move on.
But I didn't.
I deleted every note I had ever written for her—some were just fragments of thoughts, others whole letters I never had the guts to send. I erased every draft of unsent messages that began with "Would you maybe want to go somewhere this weekend?" and ended with "…you probably don't know who I am."
I even found an old voice memo on my phone, recorded months ago when the spring air was just as warm, where I was too embarrassed to say her name, so I just called her "the most beautiful girl in school." My thumb hovered over the delete button for a long time, the phone's sleek interface glowing softly in the May dusk. And then I pressed it.
All of it—gone.
But it didn't help. Because the moment stayed with me. It still does. It replays in my head like a loop I can't shut off.
As if fate wanted to mock me, I'm a first-year again, surrounded by the hum of late spring and the chatter of new classmates. Rina's a second-year now. Different floors. Different buildings. Different lives.
Maybe that's for the best. Maybe it's a second chance to forget.
But I don't want to forget.
Yesterday, I saw her in the hallway, her laugh cutting through the warm May air like it did back then. My heart raced, and I fumbled my pencil case, earning a snicker from a passing classmate.
I still want to talk to her. I still want to apologize.
And more than anything… I still like her.
Maybe I'm an idiot. Maybe I don't deserve forgiveness. But something inside me won't shut up. It tells me if I don't at least try, I'll regret it for the rest of my life.
By the next day, with the spring breeze still rustling the classroom curtains, I knew I had to face her before summer came.
This time… I won't run away.