Chapter 29: Things They Never Learned to Say

The tension starts in the most ordinary way.

A Monday morning.

Gray sky.

Half-awake students drifting into class.

Ren walks in and sees Yuki already at her desk, staring out the window. She doesn’t look mad. She doesn’t look sad.

She just looks… distant.

He hesitates before taking his seat.

“Morning,” he says softly.

She doesn’t respond at first. After a long pause, she says, “Morning,” without looking at him.

Something inside him sinks.

They haven’t fought.

They haven’t argued.

But something feels off.

By lunch, it’s worse.

Yuki avoids sitting near him.

Ren tries to approach, but Mina blocks him with a tired smile.

“Give her some space,” she whispers.

Haru watches the two from behind his juice box, uneasy. “Feels like the air’s wrong today.”

---

After school the classroom empties until it’s just the two of them.

The sky outside turns orange.

Ren finally gathers the courage.

“Yuki… did I do something?”

She keeps packing her bag. “It’s not about you.”

“That’s what you said last time, too.”

“Because it’s true.”

“Then why won’t you look at me?”

She freezes.

Her hands tighten around her notebook.

“Ren,” she says quietly, “I don’t want us to repeat the same mistakes.”

He steps closer. “We’re not repeating anything.”

“You say that now.”

“Because I mean it.”

“That’s what scares me.”

Ren’s breath catches. “You’re scared of me?”

“No,” she whispers. “I’m scared of how easy it is to fall for you again.”

He doesn’t know what to say.

She’s shaking slightly—frustrated, confused, trying not to cry.

He tries to reach for her hand, but she steps back.

“Yuki—”

“You still don’t get it,” she says. “We didn’t divorce because we stopped loving each other. We divorced because we didn’t know how to hold on.”

“That’s exactly why we should try again.”

She finally looks at him. Her voice cracks.

“And what if trying again breaks us worse?”

Silence fills the room.

Ren clenches his fists, frustrated. “Why is every answer you give me a wall?”

“Because I’m scared of losing you twice.”

She grabs her bag and turns away.

“Yuki—wait.”

But she leaves before he can reach her.

---

Ren stands alone in the quiet room.

His heartbeat is loud.

His thoughts are a mess.

He whispers to the empty doorway, “I’m not going to lose you.”

The lights flicker faintly.

He doesn’t notice.

But outside, near the stairs, someone stands half-hidden behind a pillar.

Yuki.

Breathing unevenly.

Holding her chest.

On the verge of saying something she can’t make herself say.

“Ren…” she whispers.

Then something strange sweeps through the corridor.

A breeze that shouldn’t exist indoors.

A faint pulse of static.

A chime too soft to be real.

Yuki shivers.

For a moment, she feels like the world is shifting around her—like the floor is tilting under her feet.

And before she can take a step back toward the classroom…

The hallway blurs.

The sound cuts.

A tear falls from her eye—

And she vanishes.