Chapter 33: Hanami’s Decision

Hanami POV

The reunion talk had been hovering over me for days like a shadow I couldn’t shake. My friends mentioned it in passing, with excitement in their voices that felt almost foreign. “You’ll come, right?” they asked, laughing about old classmates and memories. I nodded politely, but I didn’t answer. Not really.

Every time I thought about it, my chest tightened. I had avoided the idea from the moment Takumi’s message arrived. The thought of returning to the town I grew up in, the people I once knew so well—it felt heavier than I wanted to admit.

I spent the evenings quietly, drawing, folding laundry, reading, anything that could keep my mind busy. But one night, as I reached for my sketchbook, my fingers brushed against something I hadn’t touched in years.

It was a photo.

I pulled it out slowly, almost afraid of what memories it might unleash. There he was—Kosuke. His smile was the same as I remembered, quiet and small, the kind that made everything else in the background blur. He had given it to me that day in the library, a simple gift, a fleeting moment that somehow lingered far longer than it should have.

I hadn’t thrown it away. I never had. Somehow, tucked in my sketchbook, it had survived the years of distance, the letters we never sent, the silence that stretched between us like a canyon.

I held the photo in my hands and closed my eyes. The memories came back in waves—the winter snow, the letters, the train rides, the afternoons spent walking silently together. Every line of that memory carried warmth and pain. Every memory reminded me that the life I had chosen wasn’t the one I had imagined for us, not really.

And yet, I couldn’t deny the truth anymore.

I had been running. From my past. From the feelings I had for him. From the name I still whispered quietly in the dark. From the quiet ache in my chest that refused to fade no matter how carefully I constructed this life of duty, routine, and obligation.

It was time to stop.

I opened my phone slowly, hesitating over the message app. Takumi’s name blinked on the screen, a reminder that he was organizing the reunion, a gatekeeper to a world I had avoided for far too long.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I thought about what I could say. I thought about all the ways I could avoid it again. But the photo pressed into my mind like a gentle insistence. The warmth of his smile, the quietness in his eyes, the memory of his voice—it wouldn’t let me pretend anymore.

Finally, I typed:

“I’ll come… but don’t tell anyone.”

I stared at the words for a moment. They were simple. Vague. And yet, in their simplicity, they carried everything I couldn’t say aloud.

I didn’t name him. I didn’t have to. He was the one who had always mattered. The one who had never really left, no matter how far apart we were.

I hit send.

Immediately, a strange calm settled over me. The decision itself was heavy, but freeing in a way I hadn’t expected. For the first time in years, I felt like I was taking ownership of my own heart again, even if it meant stepping into a moment that would be uncomfortable, even painful.

I put the photo back into my sketchbook carefully, as if placing it somewhere sacred. Then I ran my fingers over the cover, feeling the smooth edges beneath my fingertips. The photo, the memories, the quiet longing—they were all mine to carry. And now, finally, I had decided to act on them, even in the smallest way.

I sat there for a long time afterward, listening to the faint hum of the city outside, the soft sounds of my home. My heart was still heavy, but the tension in my chest had shifted. It was no longer only fear. There was anticipation now, delicate and fragile, like the first flower of spring pushing through winter soil.

I didn’t know what would happen at the reunion. I didn’t know if seeing him again would make me ache, or if it would bring closure, or if it would leave me feeling more lost than before. But I knew one thing clearly: I couldn’t keep hiding.

I couldn’t keep pretending that distance, time, or the life I had built could erase him from me.

Not anymore.

I folded my sketchbook carefully, as if sealing a promise inside it. I didn’t look at the calendar. I didn’t check the map or plan my route. I just let the decision settle in my chest, a quiet weight that felt both frightening and right.

And for the first time in years, I allowed myself a small, honest thought:

I was going back.

For him, for me, for the memories we had never truly left behind.

I took a deep breath and whispered it softly, even though no one was there to hear me:

“I’ll see you soon, Kosuke.”

The words were mine alone, carried into the quiet night, ready to meet the past that had been waiting patiently for us both.