Chapter 4: The Distance Begins

I knew something was off the moment Hanami walked into the library late.

Normally she slipped in quietly with that small smile she saved only for me, her sketchbook tucked under her arm, already ready to show me something she’d drawn on the way. Today she moved differently. Her shoulders were tight, and she didn’t even look at the window before sitting down across from me.

I waited for her to settle.

Waited for her to say something.

But she just held her sketchbook in her lap without opening it.

“Hanami?” I said softly. “Everything okay?”

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she looked at her hands. Her fingers kept curling and uncurling like she was trying to find the right shape for her words.

“I… need to tell you something,” she finally said.

My heartbeat slowed in a strange way, like it already knew what was coming. I leaned forward without realizing it. “What is it?”

She drew in a slow breath. The next words landed like cold snow on warm skin.

“My parents might be moving again. Maybe in a month. Maybe less.”

I stared at her, not understanding the sentence for a full, heavy second.

“Move?” I repeated.

She nodded. Her eyes stayed down, fixed on a tiny tear in the cover of her sketchbook. “My dad’s job changed. They’re deciding between staying here or transferring him. But it sounds like… moving is more likely.”

The room felt smaller all at once.

The warmth in the library, the faint smell of old books, the soft winter light—everything dimmed around the shape of her words.

I should have said something.

I should have asked where. Or when. Or if she was okay.

But the truth is, all I managed was a quiet, useless:

“Oh.”

She flinched a little. Not because I hurt her, but because she had hoped for something gentler. Something I couldn’t give in that moment.

“I didn’t want to tell you,” she said. “Not yet. I didn’t want to… change things.”

I forced my voice to work. “You didn’t change anything.”

But we both knew that wasn’t true.

Silence stretched between us, but it wasn’t the peaceful kind we were used to. It felt like something new had slipped into the space—something neither of us had invited.

I watched her grip the edges of her sketchbook. For a second, I wondered if she was drawing even now, inside her mind, trying to capture something she didn’t want to lose.

I knew she did that when she felt too much.

“Do you want to go?” I asked quietly.

Her head snapped up. “No,” she whispered. “I don’t. I really don’t.”

The way she said it undid something in me.

Because it wasn’t just about the town.

Or the school.

Or anything else.

It was about me.

And her.

And this small, fragile thing we’d been building without ever calling it anything.

But I still didn’t know what to say.

Did I have the right to ask her to stay?

Did I have the right to feel this heavy ache in my chest?

She closed her eyes, breathing in deeply. “I wanted more time.”

I swallowed. “With…?”

“ With you,” she said, barely above a whisper.

My throat tightened. I didn’t know how to breathe for a moment. Hearing her say it so openly made everything so real so fast. Too real.

I reached out before thinking, just placing my hand near hers on the table—not touching, just close enough that she could if she wanted to.

Her fingers inched toward mine, almost brushing.

Almost.

“I don’t want to lose this,” she said.

“Me neither,” I answered.

But the truth hovered above us like the snow outside. Soft. Cold. Inevitable.

We sat like that until the library closed, neither able to move first. When we finally walked out into the early evening, our footsteps were slow. I walked her to the school gates, but the distance between us felt different now—not measured in centimeters but in fear, in questions we didn’t know how to ask yet.

When she turned to say goodbye, she tried to smile. It broke halfway.

“See you tomorrow,” she whispered.

I nodded. “Yeah. Tomorrow.”

She walked away, her figure dissolving into the faint snowfall. I stood there until I couldn’t see her anymore.

That night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling long after it went dark.

I couldn’t stop thinking about her voice saying she might move.

I couldn’t stop hearing the tremble in her words when she said she wanted more time with me.

I didn’t know when it happened.

Or how.

But somewhere between shared walks home and stolen quiet corners, she had become a part of my days I couldn’t imagine losing.

And now, for the first time, I understood what snow sounded like when it fell:

Beautiful.

Silent.

And always drifting away.