Chapter 24: The Quiet End of Youth

Kosuke’s POV

Graduation day felt like stepping out of a dream I never remembered having. People laughed around me, tossed their caps into the air, called each other’s names with bright hope. I smiled when they looked at me, shook the hands I needed to shake, thanked the professors who helped me grow. Everyone said I had become dependable, someone people could count on.

It should have felt good. In some ways, it did. But deep down, something stayed hollow, untouched.

When spring arrived a few weeks later, cherry blossoms scattered across the streets. Pink petals covered the sidewalks like quiet memories. And every time I saw them, I felt the same ache I’d been carrying for years.

I used to love spring. I used to think it meant beginnings. But now, all I could think about was Hanami.

Seven years and still no reply.

Seven years, and yet—whenever I saw blossoms drifting in the wind—I remembered the girl who used to sketch them with a soft smile. The girl who used to listen to me talk about constellations as if they mattered. The girl I never stopped waiting for, even when I pretended I had.

I tried to fill my life with purpose. Got a part-time job at a small observatory. Helped freshmen with assignments when they struggled. Everyone said I had changed for the better. More mature. More focused. Someone who knew what he wanted.

But the truth was simple.

I didn’t know what I wanted.

I only knew what I lost.

Sometimes, late at night, I sat on my balcony with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders and looked up at the sky. I’d trace the stars with my eyes, whisper their names out of habit. Those small constellations felt like the only things that remained the same in my life.

I wondered if she ever looked up at the sky.

If she ever thought of winter.

If she ever thought of me.

People around me planned their futures—careers, relationships, marriages. They were excited. Moving forward. Growing.

I was moving forward too, at least on paper. My résumé looked good. My professors trusted me. My friends respected me.

But none of that filled the quiet place in my chest where her absence lived.

Spring used to be warm.

Now it just felt like a reminder.

A reminder of someone I loved quietly, privately, without expecting anything back anymore. A reminder of youth slipping through my fingers. A reminder that some stories fade, not with a tragic end, but with silence.

I never told anyone this part.

They wouldn’t understand why a single unread message could haunt someone for years.

But youth ends softly.

Sometimes without a goodbye.

Sometimes without a voice.

And mine ended the moment I realized Hanami’s silence wasn’t a pause—it was the shape of the distance between us.

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Hanami’s POV

My friends said youth was the time to dream. But mine felt like something I outgrew too fast, like a dress I was never allowed to pick for myself.

College ended with applause and pictures and carefully chosen words. I stood with my classmates, smiling gracefully, thanking every guest who came. My parents beamed beside me, proud in a way that felt heavier than comforting.

“Look how much you’ve grown,” they said.

“You’re everything we hoped for.”

And maybe that was the problem.

People said I became elegant, composed, responsible. But those traits weren’t born out of who I wanted to be. They were carved into me, shaped to fit expectations I never chose.

My friends started getting engaged. Some married people they adored. Some ran away to chase love their parents didn’t approve of. Each time I attended a wedding, I clapped with a smile that felt thin and practiced. I hugged them, wished them happiness, took photos I didn’t know how to look natural in.

But inside, it hurt.

Not from jealousy.

Not from longing.

From the quiet realization that I didn’t have that kind of freedom.

Whenever my friends spoke about love—real love, the messy, honest kind—I felt something inside me crumble. I couldn’t even say his name out loud anymore. The distance between me and Kosuke had stretched too far. Seven years of silence. Seven years of wishing I could reach back but knowing my life didn’t belong to me enough to do it.

Sometimes, at night, I opened my sketchbook. Between the finished paintings and the neat charcoal portraits, there was always one photo tucked inside—slightly faded, edges worn. A memory of a winter day. A reminder of someone who once held my heart without ever touching it.

I didn’t let myself look at it for long.

Just long enough to remember that I once felt seen.

Just long enough to remember what it felt like to be seventeen and hopeful.

My parents started discussing marriage more openly now that college was finished. The idea pressed against my chest like a weight I couldn’t lift. They introduced me to people—men with bright careers and pedigrees that matched my family’s vision of a proper future.

I smiled when I had to.

I nodded when expectations were laid out for me like a map I wasn’t allowed to redraw.

And every time someone asked me what I wanted, I felt my throat close.

What did I want?

What choice did I ever really have?

Sometimes, when I was alone, I wondered if Kosuke truly forgot me. Maybe he hated me for disappearing. Maybe he thought I didn’t care.

Maybe I deserved that.

My youth didn’t end in a dramatic moment. It didn’t shatter. It simply faded, day by day, replaced by a version of myself that everyone admired except me.

And somewhere in that quiet fading, I realized something painful:

The story we started together never got a final chapter.

It just drifted apart, scattered like cherry blossoms in spring.

But even now, even after all these years, a small part of me still held onto the hope that someday, the wind might bring those petals back.

Even if it was only for a moment.