Morning came slowly, not with the brilliance of a cinematic sunrise or the sharp cold of a winter dawn, but with the gray, almost apologetic weight of a spring day that couldn't quite decide whether it wanted to begin.
The sky remained overcast, casting the apartment complex in a diffused, gentle light that painted everything in soft blues and silvers.
In apartment 503, Hinoka sat curled up on the edge of her bed, her blanket draped around her like armor, as if the cotton fabric could shield her from the thoughts that pressed against her temples like persistent fingers.
She hadn't slept well. Not that she expected to. Ever since that night—since she confessed to Shinichi, since the truth about the kiss behind the gym had finally left her lips like a long-buried ghost—her nights had felt like half-formed dreams and shallow breaths.
Words she hadn't said repeated in her head, ricocheting off the edges of her mind until they dissolved into noise.
There was a time when she could easily compartmentalize things—when hiding her pain behind a bright smile had become second nature. But lately, that trick had lost its magic.
She brought a hand to her chest and pressed her palm against it, feeling the steady beat beneath her ribs. Her heart wasn't racing anymore. It was just… there. Heavy. Constant. Dull.
The thought of Shinichi choosing Koizumi wasn't what broke her.
What broke her was knowing that, somehow, she'd always been waiting for him to choose at all. And now that he had, even if he didn't say it outright, even if he didn't use those exact words—Hinoka could read the air.
She always could. And there was a new distance in the way he looked at her. Not cruel, not indifferent, but cautious. Like he was afraid of stepping on something fragile.
Hinoka hated being seen that way.
She rose from the bed and crossed the room with slow, deliberate steps. Her apartment was neat—as always. Everything had its place.
The books on the shelf were arranged by author, the cutlery in the drawers aligned in neat rows, even the laundry she hadn't yet folded sat in a symmetrical pile on the coffee table. But today, the order brought her no comfort.
She opened the sliding door to the balcony and stepped out. The wind had a gentle bite to it, the kind that reminded her of early April field trips in elementary school, when they would sit on tarps in the park and eat onigiri under half-bloomed sakura trees.
She could almost hear Koizumi's laughter from those memories—bright, warm, unapologetically loud.
She could see Shinichi, always with a juice box in hand, always a little too serious for a boy his age, telling them the difference between cirrocumulus and cumulus clouds.
A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, uninvited.
That was the hardest part. The three of them had once been inseparable—threads of a single rope. But time had frayed them. Now, she wasn't sure whether that rope could ever be tied again without someone getting hurt.
Her phone vibrated on the table behind her, drawing her back into the present. She turned, half-expecting it to be Shinichi. Maybe a message asking if they could talk again.
Maybe some apology he hadn't thought to say last night. But no—it was a message from her part-time manager, asking if she could cover an afternoon shift. She stared at the screen for a moment before typing a quick, affirmative response.
Work. At least that was something she could control.
But as the hours ticked forward, and she prepared for her shift, a new thought began to crawl through her consciousness: Koizumi.
Not the Koizumi of childhood, not the fierce and brilliant girl who once pulled her out of a river when she fell during a summer trip, but the Koizumi of now.
The one who stood on that rooftop last night, silent and conflicted. Hinoka hadn't seen her afterward, hadn't heard the rest of the story from Shinichi. She didn't know what was said—but part of her didn't need to.
There was a heaviness in Koizumi's footsteps that morning when she passed by her door. A silence in her presence.
And Hinoka, with her instincts sharpened by years of masking pain with jokes, knew that guilt hung over her friend like smoke.
The truth was, Hinoka didn't want Koizumi to suffer.
That surprised her more than anything. She had spent so long building up anger, wrapping it tightly around her like insulation.
And now, when the truth had finally found light, she felt… nothing close to satisfaction. Instead, she felt exhausted. Hollowed out by the weight of things left unsaid.
Koizumi had made a mistake. But they all had, hadn't they?
Hinoka shook her head, as if she could shake the thought away. She didn't want to be the kind of person who measured her pain against someone else's mistakes.
That was a recipe for bitterness. And Hinoka had never wanted to be bitter. She had always chosen to be brave instead.
After her shift, instead of heading straight back to her apartment, she found herself walking up to the rooftop. The evening had already begun its descent, painting the sky in hues of copper and lilac.
She opened the door slowly, half-expecting to find Koizumi there again. But the rooftop was empty this time—save for the quiet rattle of the wind and the distant echo of traffic below.
She stood at the same spot Koizumi had stood the night before and looked out over the city.
"Are we all just pretending not to fall apart?" she whispered, more to the skyline than to anyone in particular.
There was no answer, of course. But somehow, just asking the question helped.
As she stood there, a quiet resolve began to form. She wasn't going to run away from this. She wasn't going to sulk or wallow. That wasn't who she was.
And if things had changed between the three of them, then maybe it was time to redefine what they meant to each other.
Maybe this wasn't the end of their triangle—but the beginning of something more real, more grounded.
She would talk to Koizumi. Not to blame her. Not to reopen wounds. But to offer a chance. A thread of peace. And maybe, just maybe, forgiveness.
When she finally left the rooftop and returned to her apartment, she felt something in her chest shift. It wasn't healing—not yet—but it was the first step toward it.
...
...
Meanwhile, just a floor above, Shinichi stood in his living room, turning a mug of untouched tea in his hands.
He'd made it an hour ago, telling himself it would help him think, but all it did was cool untouched while he stared at the same page of his textbook over and over.
He couldn't stop thinking about the rooftop. About Koizumi's tears. About the look in her eyes when he told her the truth.
He had expected anger. Accusation. But what he saw was regret—pure, undiluted regret that clung to her like smoke. And he didn't know what to do with that.
His phone buzzed.
It was a message from Hinoka.
"I went to the rooftop today. I think I'm ready to talk. To both of you."
He stared at it for a long time before replying.
"When?"
"Tomorrow night. My place. I'll cook."
He smiled faintly.
Somehow, despite everything, Hinoka was still the glue.
He didn't know what tomorrow would bring. Maybe more truth. Maybe more pain. But it was a beginning.
And in this fragile, complicated triangle they'd built over the years, a beginning was all they could ask for.