Chapter Twelve: The Lie is Loud Now Thirty minutes had passed. The sky had shifted from bright to overcast, like even the sun wasn’t sure it wanted to witness what came next. Yuki sat on the top row of the bleachers, elbows resting on his knees, head in his hands. His sketchpad lay beside him, pages flapping in the wind, half-finished drawings of faces he didn’t want to remember. Daichi was quiet for once. Kaito sat cross-legged below, stealing glances at Yuki like he might explode. “So…” Daichi finally said, voice low. “You knew her.” Yuki didn’t answer. “She said you died,” Kaito added, watching him carefully. “That true?” More silence. “Yuki,” Daichi said again. “What’s going on?” Yuki lifted his head slowly. His face was unreadable—but his eyes weren’t. They were glassy. Distant. Heavy with something deeper than exhaustion. “I knew her,” he said quietly. “She… she saved me once.” No one spoke. Yuki looked at his hands like they might tell him what to do. “She was the only person who stayed. When everyone thought I was going to die—she was there. Every week. Every poem. Every time I wanted to give up, she looked at me like I still mattered.” Kaito ran a hand through his hair. “And now you’re pretending she doesn’t exist?” Yuki didn’t flinch. “Dude, she was shaking,” Daichi added. “Those cuts—those were recent. And that wasn’t just some ‘emo phase’ kind of pain. That was real. That was... you-did-this-to-me pain.” Yuki’s jaw clenched. “I thought if I stayed away, she’d move on.” “Well, she didn’t,” Kaito snapped. “And neither did you.” They sat in silence after that. The kind that says everything words can’t. Yuki reached for his sketchpad and flipped to a blank page. Then paused. He didn’t know what to draw anymore. Every line he tried to make came out as her face. Chapter Thirteen: The Ones Who Stay and the Ones Who Run Arisol didn’t show up to her last two classes. She wasn’t in the bathroom. She wasn’t in the library. She wasn’t under the sakura tree. Her friends checked every quiet place she usually slipped away to, but she was gone. Not answering her phone. Not reading their messages. “She went home early,” Haru finally said, showing them a text from her aunt. “Said she didn’t feel well.” “She’s not sick,” Mina snapped. “She’s shattered.” Ren looked down, hands in his pockets, jaw tight. “That guy… I swear if he comes near her again—” “I’ll handle it,” Mina said, already walking. Meanwhile, Yuki sat alone in the art room, hands still stained with charcoal. He couldn’t focus. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Arisol’s face—the panic, the pain, the betrayal. The door swung open. Mina didn’t knock. He looked up, and something inside him went still. She stood there, fierce and shaking, like a storm bottled in a school uniform. “You don’t get to hurt her like that,” she said. Yuki opened his mouth. “I didn’t mean to—” “No,” she cut him off. “You don’t get that excuse. You meant to disappear. You meant to forget. And fine—maybe that helped you sleep at night. But don’t you dare act like she’s the one who’s wrong for remembering.” Yuki stood, trying to stay calm. “You don’t understand what I went through.” Mina stepped closer, eyes locked on his. “You think you’re the only one who suffered? You think just because you were dying, she didn’t bleed too? She waited for you. Mourned you. Wrote to you like you were still breathing.” “She was better off without me,” Yuki said through clenched teeth. “No,” Mina hissed. “She was trying to survive without you. Big difference.” He didn’t speak. Mina stared at him for a moment longer, then threw something onto the desk—a torn page from Arisol’s notebook. The same one she tried to throw away after she got home. It had one sentence on it, written in shaky handwriting: “He came back to life, but I didn’t.” And then Mina turned and left. everything.
Chapter Fourteen: The Day the Air Disappeared Four months had passed. Since the hallway. Since the poem. Since she last looked Yuki in the eyes. Arisol hadn’t spoken to him since that day. She kept her distance. Focused on healing. Therapy, her friends, late nights under the stars writing poems she didn’t always finish. Some wounds had started to close, but she still wore long sleeves. And yet… fate didn’t care about healing. They had P.E. together now. She hated it. Not because of Yuki — though that didn’t help — but because of the noise. The whistles. The running. It felt too alive some days. But today, something was off. She noticed it the moment they started warm-ups. Yuki was unusually quiet. Not Ice Prince quiet. Wrong quiet. He kept looking at the floor. Hands slightly shaking. Breathing faster than normal. The coach yelled for them to jog laps and he didn’t move. Just stood there, eyes locked on something that wasn’t even there. Then—he dropped to his knees. No sound. No warning. Just collapsed like the weight of the world yanked him down. A few students laughed, thinking he tripped. Then they saw his hands—gripping his chest, shoulders heaving, eyes wide and wild. He couldn’t breathe. Panic attack. Arisol froze. For a second, she thought about walking away. Thought about how easy it would be to let someone else deal with it. But then— She saw his face. The same face he made the night he said goodbye in the hospital. The same look when he was drowning, but too proud to ask for help. Without thinking, she moved. She pushed past classmates, dropped to the floor in front of him and said softly, “Yuki. Look at me.” He didn’t. He was shaking. Palms pressed to the mat. Hyperventilating. “Yuki,” she said again, firmer now, but still gentle. “Breathe. Right here. In and out. Match me.” She took his hand. Students were staring. The coach was yelling for space, but Arisol didn’t care. “In… two… three… Out… two… three…” His fingers clutched hers like he was holding onto the edge of the earth. After a long minute, his breathing started to slow. Just enough. The shaking didn’t stop, but his eyes opened—and landed on her. “I’m here,” she said softly, tears welling in her eyes. “Even now, I’m still here.” He didn’t say anything. But the look on his face—shame, pain, something close to relief—said everything.
