Chapter 18 : Names for the Future

Spring returned quietly to the town.

The trees outside the school bloomed in soft pinks and whites, the kind of scenery that would’ve once been nothing but data to him—color values, leaf patterns, temperature fluctuations.

Now it just felt… warm.

___ sat at his desk, flipping through a stack of student reports. The chalkboard behind him was half-erased, and the hum of a distant club meeting filtered through the windows. On the surface, he was Mr. Kamizaki, a calm and slightly awkward teacher with a habit of overexplaining astronomy.

But inside, he was still the boy who once believed that love could rewrite the code of his life.

He never told anyone about her.

Not the colleagues who occasionally invited him for drinks.

Not the students who asked why he always looked wistful during stargazing lessons.

Not even himself—not out loud.

⸻

One afternoon, as he finished grading, a student lingered at the door.

“Sensei?” the girl asked, fidgeting. “Have you ever been in love?”

He looked up, startled by the question.

For a moment, the classroom blurred—her voice replaced by another’s, softer, braver.

He thought about that night in the observatory. The way her voice shook when she said “I’ll wait.”

And how, in the end, she didn’t.

He closed his eyes briefly.

Then opened them, smiling gently.

“Once,” he said. “A long time ago.”

The girl tilted her head. “What happened?”

“I wasn’t ready,” he said. “And maybe… she wasn’t free.”

She nodded, not really understanding, then ran off to join her friends.

⸻

That evening, he walked home through town, taking a different route than usual. He passed a flower shop. A small café. A bookstore with the latest space science magazine in the window.

Then he stopped.

Across the street, a woman stepped out of a convenience store.

She wore a wide-brimmed hat and carried a bag of groceries. Her posture was familiar. Her movement cautious. Her face—just barely visible in the fading sunlight.

His heart stopped.

It was her.

He didn’t call out.

Didn’t move.

Just watched as she turned down a side street, disappearing into the crowd like a passing comet.

She hadn’t waited.

But she had survived.

And in that moment, it was enough