When the Desks Were Closer

The seat next to Gale wasn't anything special - just a desk like all the others, scuffed wood covered in pen scratches, its corners chewed by boredom. But to Mirei, it felt like a world of its own. Not because it was the best seat in the room, but because of the boy who sat beside her.

She didn't know exactly when it started - maybe the first time he knocked her pencil off the desk with his elbow, or the day he asked for a pen because his had run out of ink. The little things. Tiny, ordinary moments that felt just a bit bigger when they involved him.

"Mirei," he said once, leaning over with that childish, lopsided grin, "your hair looks like Dora's."

She was ten, and it should've made her mad, because her hair didn't look like Dora the Explorer's in the slightest - but instead, she shot back, "Then you're Boots. The monkey."

And just like that, it stuck. Dora and Boots. Desk neighbors, partners in crime, even if they weren't exactly friends. They passed notes when the teacher wasn't looking, traded doodles and half-baked jokes only they would find funny. Sometimes, Gale would poke her arm with his pencil just to see how long it would take her to swat him away. Sometimes, Mirei would untie his shoelaces under the desk, just to hear him groan when he finally noticed.

There was one time - during a quiet math lesson - when Gale's eraser rolled off the desk. It wasn't even a whole eraser anymore, just crumbling bits barely holding together. Without thinking, Mirei slipped from her chair and onto the tiled floors, gathering the fragile pieces in both hands like they were something precious. She held them out to him, her palms cupped together like an offering.

Gale's laugh broke the silence, bright and easy. "No one's ever done that for me. Especially not like that."

Mirei didn't know what to say, so she just laughed with him, even though her face was burning. That moment - his smile, the way his eyes crinkled like she was the funniest thing in the world - settled somewhere deep inside her. Somewhere it never really left.

He gave her something once, too - a ball of red yarn he found at home. "For your collection," he said, knowing she was going through a finger knitting phase, looping yarn around her fingers until her hands cramped.

She made him something in return - a finger-knitted necklace from the yarn he gave her, uneven and tangled, way too big for his neck, with a messy pom-pom dangling from the center. Gale called it his "rapper chain," all serious and dramatic, like those giant gold necklaces with the dollar signs.

He wore it for a whole afternoon, even when the other boys laughed at him for it. He just shrugged, like it didn't matter. Like it was the easiest thing in the world to wear something ridiculous if it came from her.

Back then, everything was simple. They weren't anything - not crushes, not strangers, just two kids sharing a desk, making the days a little less boring for each other. Mirei never thought about the future, or what would happen when they weren't side by side anymore.

All she knew was that school was fun.

Until it wasn't.

The world tumbled out of her hands, slipping between her fingers - fingers that were still unscarred, unstitched, untouched by anything sharper than a safety scissor. The dark came later, isolation swallowing her whole, leaving her with nothing but silence.

If they had the chance, would they have reached for each other?

If they couldn't, would they have even tried?