Chapter 13: When Seasons Move Ahead

Life doesn’t speed up all at once. It changes a little at a time, in ways you don’t notice until you’re already out of breath.

For me, it started with a teacher asking if I could help out in the astronomy club. They didn’t have enough members, and someone needed to manage the small rooftop telescope. I said yes without thinking. Maybe I wanted something to fill the silence between classes. Maybe I was tired of checking my phone and seeing nothing new.

Either way, suddenly I had meetings after school. Reports to write. Younger students asking questions about planets and eclipses. My days filled themselves without waiting for my permission.

Hanami’s messages weren’t stopping. They just felt… smaller. Shorter. A little hurried, like she was typing them on her way somewhere rather than sitting down just to talk to me.

I tried to match her tone. If she wrote four lines, I wrote three. If she said she was busy with club practice, I said I had a lot of things going on too. I didn’t mean to hold back, but it felt strange to type something long and warm when her replies were light, polite, almost drifting.

Maybe that was my mistake. Or maybe it was both of ours.

A few days passed where I didn’t hear from her, and I told myself not to overthink it. She had an art exhibition coming up. She was probably painting late into the night, wiping charcoal off her hands, rushing to school half-awake. That was her world now.

And I had mine.

Still… when I walked home, my steps felt slower. The season was starting to shift. The deep winter snow had thinned, leaving patches of ice that cracked when I stepped on them. Spring wasn’t here yet, but it was coming. You could smell it in the wind.

I wondered if she noticed the same thing where she lived.

That night, I sat at my desk with her last message on the screen. It was short:

The exhibition is close. I think I’m nervous.

But I’m excited too. I hope you’re doing well.

Nothing wrong with it. Nothing cold. Nothing distant.

And yet I stared at it for ten minutes, trying to decide what to say back.

I typed something. Deleted it. Typed again. Deleted again.

I’m proud of you.

Too forward.

I miss hearing about your sketches.

Too honest.

I hope it goes well.

Too generic.

By the time I finally sent a reply, it was barely half a paragraph. Something safe. Something that wouldn’t feel heavy if she read it quickly between activities.

After sending it, I felt this strange ache in my chest. Like I’d swallowed a stone.

I didn’t want our conversations to shrink like this. But I didn’t know how to stop it.

The next day at school, the club needed help organizing equipment. I got dragged into carrying boxes, cleaning lenses, sorting papers. It kept me busy enough that I barely checked my messages at all.

A part of me wondered if she noticed that my reply had taken longer than usual. Another part wondered if it even mattered anymore.

Between tasks, one of the astronomy club members, a second-year named Mio, peeked over at me.

“You look tired,” she said. “Did you sleep late?”

“I guess so,” I told her.

“It’s the season,” she said with a grin. “Everything gets busier in spring. Clubs, classes, people… everyone runs around.”

People move ahead. Seasons change.

I knew she was right. But hearing it felt like someone tugged quietly at the thread around my heart.

That evening, I walked home with shelves of clouds stretching across the sky. The air was colder than I expected. My breath drifted in faint white shapes, fading fast.

I remembered the first day I met Hanami in the library, how snow dusted the window beside her, how her hand moved so gently across her sketchbook. I remembered how she looked up at me, surprised but warm. A quiet light in her eyes.

Those memories used to bring comfort. Now they left a hollow space behind, as if I was pressing my hand to a door that used to open but didn’t anymore.

When I reached my room, I glanced at my phone again.

No new messages.

I didn’t know if it was my turn to write. Or hers. Or if we were both waiting for the other to move first.

I sat on the floor by the window, watching the last of the winter sky. A deep blue, almost purple, thick with clouds. I traced a shape on the glass with my finger.

A star. The simplest one.

I wondered what she was drawing tonight. If she was too busy to think of me. Or if she thought of me too much and didn’t know what to say anymore.

Maybe this was how people grew apart. Not through fights or broken promises. Just little pauses that stretched too long. Little hesitations that turned into habits.

I didn’t want to lose her. Even thinking it felt like the world was leaning sideways.

But I also didn’t know how to reach out without feeling like I was pulling her back from something important. She had a new city, new goals, new people cheering her on. I wasn’t part of that world. Not really.

I picked up my phone again, just to check.

Still nothing.

I breathed out slowly, letting the air fog the glass a little.

“Maybe this is normal,” I whispered to no one. “Maybe this is how people grow up.”

But the truth settled quietly in my chest.

Every short message felt like another step backward. Every silence felt a bit longer than the last.

And yet, even with all of that…

I still hoped the next message would be hers.