Chapter 7: The Return of Ren
The following Monday was colder.
It wasn't the weather—though the wind had turned sharp—but the atmosphere on campus. Kyoshi felt it in the way conversations stopped as he passed. In the way Hikari avoided eye contact during class. And most of all, in the way people whispered one name.
Ren.
He hadn't expected to see him so soon. Maybe he hoped it would be some passing mention, an echo of Hikari's past that would fade again.
But instead, Ren walked into the quad that morning like he still owned it.
Tall. Sharp-featured. Confident in that effortless, irritating way some people were born with. He wore his uniform loose and unbuttoned, his posture relaxed like nothing touched him—not the cold, not the stares, not the silence that followed him like a tide.
And at his side—just a few paces behind—was Hikari.
Kyoshi stopped walking.
She was laughing.
Not the full laugh. Not the real one.
But enough to twist something in his chest.
She didn't see him watching.
Or maybe she did.
They crossed paths later that day—Hikari and Kyoshi—outside the campus library. The cherry trees were starting to bloom again, pale pink petals falling around them like soft ash.
"You didn't answer my messages," she said, her voice cautious.
Kyoshi's eyes didn't meet hers. "Didn't know what to say."
She hesitated, holding her books a little tighter. "I didn't plan for Ren to show up like this."
He looked at her now, voice even. "But you went to see him."
"I had to."
"Did you have to smile like that?"
Silence.
Hikari took a breath. "Kyoshi, I—"
"No," he said, cutting her off gently. "Don't explain it. Just tell me what he means to you now."
"I don't know," she admitted. "I thought I buried it. But seeing him again… it shook things loose. Things I thought were gone."
Kyoshi nodded slowly. "So what are we, then? Something temporary? A moment between mistakes?"
Her eyes filled, just a little. "No. You were—are—something safe. Something warm."
The words should've comforted him.
But they didn't.
He stepped back. "I don't want to be your shelter from someone else's storm."
Then he turned and walked away again.
But this time, something was different.
Not the silence. He was used to that.
It was the heat beneath his skin. The slow-burning pulse in his temple. A feeling unfamiliar and bitter.
Not heartbreak.
Jealousy.
And somewhere, beneath that—quiet, coiled, waiting—
Anger.
That night, he opened his sketchbook again.
But this time, he didn't draw Hikari.
He drew Ren.
Cold eyes. Smirking mouth. A shadow behind him.
Then he flipped the page.
And began sketching fire.