Chapter 15 — “Smile for Me”

When love demands blood.

Evening air drips with the smell of wet paint and summer rain. The windows of the art room fog with the last warmth of daylight, gold bleeding into blue.

Himari stands near the doorway, her voice careful, her hands folded behind her back.

> “I think… maybe we should take a break.”

The words fall softly, but they cut like glass.

Mizuki blinks once. Twice. Then laughs — sharp, brittle, too high-pitched.

> “You’re joking.”

Himari’s lips tremble. “Just for a little while. We both need—”

> “Space?” Mizuki interrupts, smiling too wide. “You want space from me?”

The silence that follows is unbearable.

Himari steps closer, her hand reaching out to touch Mizuki’s shoulder. Her fingers tremble slightly.

> “You’ve changed,” she says quietly. “We both have.”

Mizuki flinches at her touch, as if burned.

> “I changed because of you.”

> “That’s not what I meant.”

> “Then what did you mean, Himari?”

But Himari doesn’t answer. She only looks down, eyes shimmering with something between pity and exhaustion. Then she walks out, leaving the smell of turpentine and roses behind.

Mizuki stands there, alone in the echo.

Her knees feel hollow. Her lungs feel wrong.

The world tilts slightly — like a painting hung crooked on the wall.

---

That night, she returns to the art room after curfew.

The halls are empty, except for the distant hum of the cleaning machines. Her shoes make soft sounds against the tile floor — tap, tap, tap — like a metronome counting down to something inevitable.

She locks the door behind her.

The room glows dimly under a single yellow bulb, dust floating like slow snowfall.

On the easel sits a blank canvas.

Mizuki takes a brush, dips it into red paint, and draws the curve of Himari’s smile. Soft. Gentle. Cruel.

Her hands are steady, almost calm.

The portrait grows in layers — eyes bright, mouth sweet, hair like a dark river flowing over her shoulders. When Mizuki steps back, she whispers, “Perfect.”

But the longer she stares, the less perfect it becomes.

Something’s missing.

Something that hurts.

She finds a box cutter on the table. The metal gleams cold under the light.

She looks at the blade for a long time — as if waiting for it to speak. Then she turns toward the mirror propped against the wall.

Her reflection looks pale, ghostlike, eyes hollow from sleepless nights.

> “You said I changed,” she whispers to it. “So I’ll show you how much.”

She raises the blade, presses it gently against the skin beneath her right eye.

For a second, nothing happens. Then —

a thin red line blooms.

It stings, but the pain is clean. Sharp. Real.

> “Now you’ll remember me,” she tells her reflection softly.

“Every time you look in the mirror.”

The blood runs down her cheek, tracing the same curve as Himari’s smile in the portrait behind her.

She watches it fall, fascinated. It looks like a teardrop — a single drop of color sliding down the edge of the world.

---

Morning.

The sunlight through the window is too bright, too cheerful. The birds are singing as if nothing has changed.

Mizuki walks into the classroom with a small white bandage under her eye. Her uniform is perfect, her smile serene.

The room goes quiet.

Himari turns. Her eyes widen — not with disgust, but something worse. Fear.

> “Mizuki… what happened?”

Mizuki tilts her head, smiling.

> “Just a little accident.”

> “That’s not funny.”

> “You wanted me to stop crying, right?” she says softly, brushing a strand of hair from her face.

“So I smiled.”

The room feels colder.

Himari can’t speak. Her lips part, but no sound comes.

Mizuki leans closer, voice low enough for only her to hear.

> “You said we needed space. But I can still reach you from here.”

For the rest of the day, Himari avoids her. She doesn’t meet her eyes in class, doesn’t speak during lunch. Mizuki doesn’t mind. She watches her from across the room, tracing the line of her cheek with her fingertip, the invisible scar beneath her bandage throbbing like a secret heartbeat.

---

That night, Mizuki sits by her window, diary open, pen trembling.

> “Today, I smiled for her,” she writes.

“It hurt. But she looked at me again. That’s enough.”

Outside, rain begins to fall — gentle at first, then harder, drumming against the glass.

She imagines Himari sleeping, dreams dripping from her lips like honey.

Mizuki presses her palm against the bandage, feeling the heat beneath it.

> “When you said you wanted space,” she murmurs to the dark,

“I made sure it stayed under my skin.”

The wind howls through the corridor outside, carrying the faint smell of salt and lavender.

She closes her diary and whispers to no one:

> “I’ll make you smile again — even if I have to carve it on both of us.”