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When sorting through her room Sakiko stumbled across a notebook. It had no title, but even without opening it she could tell what it was. She had not read it in a while, but still knew the words within by heart. If she were to recite them, their gentle warmth would burn her throat before even a single one of them could escape her lips. The notebook will remain unopened, the pencil lines within never seeing the light of day again. But like their graphite will never fade from the paper like that, their sentiments would never leave her mind.
–
Tomori brushed her thumb over the metal handle of Sakiko's shoe locker. Its paint was faintly worn from the touch of countless generations of students, but to her it just bore the warmth of a day in spring that now seemed so long ago. The desire to once again open the locker and leave a message bubbled up within her. She knew it was selfish. Knew that even a small note had weight beyond its paper. The metal door raddled against its neighbours from her shaky grip. Tomori let go, a few specs of chipped paint stuck to her fingers.
–
Once. Just once, just a little. She could reach out to the hand that twitches her way every time they pass each other in the hallway. Indulge the past just for one brief moment. They could keep in touch, meeting up every other week doing this and that. Then only meet once a month. Then only send each other post cards at new years and maybe then Sakiko's heart could finally live in peace. Who was she kidding? Receiving something Tomori wrote for her could never put her at rest. Even in that imagined future she would never know peace.
–
It was years down the line when they met again. On a rainy night, in an otherwise empty traincar they spotted the other, both averted their gaze instantly as soon as they noticed. They remained at opposite sites of the cart, not daring to risk another look, instead facing out the windows as the gentle rain washed over the glass. In its blurry reflections of the city they both could see a splotch of pale blue and gray brown besides each other at last. Immersed in the gentle beating of wheels against two metal tracks they both missed their stops.