Late-morning light fills the third-floor hallway of the main building.
Inside Class 3-C, the atmosphere remains as disciplined as an examination hall.
Sayuri sits in the second row near the window, filling her notebook with precise, organized notes.
Directly behind her, Ryosuke turns a page without making a sound.
To anyone watching, Sayuri appears completely focused.
Her mind is elsewhere.
11:42 a.m.
Her attention moves from the clock above the blackboard to her red watch.
Eighteen minutes until lunch.
For the past two years, this was when she would catch Aina’s eye across the classroom.
One small nod conveyed the entire plan.
“I’ll be there.
I promise.”
Now Aina’s former seat belongs to a classmate Sayuri barely knows.
Aina is in Class 3-A at the far end of the East Wing, separated from her by two long corridors and an entire section of the school.
The distance should be manageable.
Instead, it has made Sayuri aware of every moment Aina is somewhere else.
During the break between third and fourth period, Sayuri had gone to refill her water bottle.
The central courtyard was not on the shortest route, but the glass walkway offered a clear view of the East Wing balcony.
She had found Aina immediately.
Aina was carrying classroom printouts beside Saki, laughing at something he said.
He had adjusted the stack in her arms before she could drop it, stepping naturally into the role of the helpful classmate beside her.
Why am I tracking her movements like a target?
The memory leaves a bitter pressure beneath Sayuri’s ribs.
The lead of her mechanical pencil snaps.
Behind her, Ryosuke speaks without looking up.
“You’re pressing too hard on the page.”
Sayuri replaces the broken lead and resets her posture.
“My grip slipped.”
“You’ve checked the time six times in twenty minutes.”
“I am monitoring the schedule.”
“The East Wing follows the same bell schedule.” Ryosuke adjusts his pen.
“Aina is not going to vanish.”
Sayuri fixes her attention on the blackboard.
“I am adjusting to the new academic environment.”
“Of course.”
He sounds entirely unconvinced.
✦ ✦ ✦
The noon bell rings.
Sayuri is standing before the final chime fades.
She places her lunch box inside her tote and waits only long enough for the teacher to dismiss them.
“Sayuri,” Ryosuke calls as he rises.
“I will see you after lunch.”
She leaves Class 3-C and crosses the third-floor corridor at a pace just short of running.
✦ ✦ ✦
In Class 3-A, Aina pushes back her chair and gathers her lunch.
“Sorry, Saki-kun.
I have to go.”
“You still have forty-five minutes.”
“Not after the stairs.”
She slips into the crowded East Wing hallway before he can answer.
The dojo is much closer to the main building, so Sayuri reaches their usual bench first.
Four minutes have passed by the time Aina reaches the first-floor corridor.
Eight by the time she clears the courtyard.
At ten, she rounds the corner near the dojo and finds Sayuri waiting beneath the cherry tree.
Relief loosens something inside her.
“Sayuri.”
Sayuri crosses the remaining distance in three quick steps.
Her attention moves over Aina’s face, her ruffled hair, and the uneven line of her blazer.
“You ran.”
“So did you.”
Aina smiles despite her uneven breathing.
Sayuri appears to have several questions at once.
Whether the East Wing is too crowded.
Whether the classes feel different.
Whether being seated beside Saki has already changed more than either of them expected.
She asks none of them.
Sayuri raises one hand and straightens Aina’s collar with two careful fingers.
Aina leans slightly into the touch before she can stop herself.
“It took forever to get through the East Wing stairwell,” she says.
“The dojo is too far away for us to meet here every day.”
Sayuri withdraws her hand.
“We need another location.
Class 3-C is unsuitable.
Ryosuke remains at his desk during lunch.”
“And Saki-kun sits beside me in 3-A, so we wouldn’t have any—”
Aina stops too late.
“—privacy there either.”
The word settles between them.
Privacy?
They are discussing lunch.
A quiet place to eat, nothing more.
Why did she make it sound like they needed somewhere to be alone together?
Heat spreads across Aina’s cheeks.
She presses her lunch box against her chest.
“I mean—not privacy like that.
Just somewhere quiet, without people passing us every few seconds, or listening while we talk, or—”
“I agree,” Sayuri says.
Aina’s explanation ends.
Sayuri does not laugh or dismiss the word as a mistake.
She simply meets Aina’s eyes with quiet seriousness.
For a moment, neither looks away.
The clarification should make the situation less intense.
It does not.
Sayuri breaks eye contact first and turns toward the main entrance.
“What about the front courtyard?” Aina asks.
Sayuri considers the crowded stone steps.
“Too many people.
We would barely hear each other.”
They sit beside each other on the bench and open their lunch boxes.
For the next twenty minutes, they eat quickly while exchanging details of their mornings.
Every conversation is shortened by the surrounding voices, the passing students, and the clock.
The word privacy remains between them.
Before they can decide where to meet tomorrow, the midway chime rings.
Brrrrring.
Aina looks at her half-finished lunch.
“Already?
We still haven’t found another place.”
“We will settle it later.” Sayuri closes her lunch box with a crisp click.
“The warning bell rings at 12:55 p.m., and the East Wing teachers lock their doors three minutes afterward.
You cannot be late on the first day.”
“I should leave before the hallways become worse.”
Aina stands.
Sayuri immediately rises with her.
“I am walking with you.”
“Your classroom is in the other direction.”
“Only after the central junction.
The first-floor corridor is the quickest route to the East Wing, and I can use the stairs near the junction to return to Class 3-C.” Sayuri adjusts her tote.
“We can cover the first fifty yards together.”
The excuse is transparent.
Aina smiles.
“Okay.”
They enter the main corridor side by side.
Students are already streaming inside from the courtyard, but Sayuri keeps pace beside her.
Their sleeves brush twice.
The second time, neither moves farther away.
At the central junction, the corridor divides between the stairs leading toward Class 3-C and the long passage to the East Wing.
Sayuri stops at the threshold and positions herself between Aina and the crowd.
“Go.
Walk quickly.”
“I’ll see you at practice.”
Aina takes two backward steps before turning toward the East Wing stairs.
At the first landing, she looks back.
Sayuri remains at the junction, watching her.
Aina raises one hand.
Sayuri answers with a small nod.
Then another group of students passes between them.
Aina continues upstairs with the sharp realization that forty-five minutes—and an additional fifty meters—are no longer enough.
✦ ✦ ✦
By last period, Class 3-A is lively and loud.
Aina sits near the back window with Saki at the desk beside hers.
He is neatly stacking the modern-literature handouts they distributed during fourth period.
“Thank you for helping me with the printouts,” Aina says.
“We share a class and a club.
It made sense to help.”
Aina smiles, but her attention drifts through the window.
Class 3-A is welcoming.
Saki is kind, considerate, and easy to sit beside.
Still, the space where Sayuri should be feels immense.
She would correct my posture by now.
Aina traces the edge of her desk.
Then she would complain about the noise and stay beside me anyway.
Cold sweeps through her.
The classroom chatter recedes until it sounds impossibly distant.
Clack-clack.
Clack-clack.
Train wheels strike steel tracks inside her mind.
The bright classroom gives way to a late-night train car, the cold beyond its windows, and the mingled scent of tea and cedar.
The memory seizes her whole.
A crimson-haired girl had run along a dark platform, breathless, holding hands with a chestnut-haired girl in a white sweater and black cap.
Then they were seated inside a cramped train car.
The chestnut-haired girl pressed a pink gift bag into the crimson-haired girl’s hands before resting her head against her shoulder.
“I’m just glad I could finally get a gift for my girlfriend,” she whispered.
“Let me stay like this for a bit.”
The train vanished.
A modest hotel room replaced it.
A refrigerator hummed in the corner.
The room held one narrow bed, forcing the girls to lie on their sides, their bodies pressed together so neither would fall.
In the darkness, the chestnut-haired girl’s breath warmed the other girl’s neck.
Aina jerks upright at her desk and drags in air.
“Aina?” Saki’s voice reaches her through the remaining haze.
He studies her face.
“Are you all right?
You’re pale.”
“I’m fine.” The answer comes too quickly.
Heat rushes into her cheeks as the memory settles into recognizable pieces.
A pink gift bag.
A girl who looked like Sayuri.
Another who looked like her.
The word girlfriend.
It had not happened to them.
Not exactly.
But the memory overlaps with Valentine’s Day until Aina cannot separate the gift in the train car from the rabbit Sayuri gave her—or the remembered warmth against her neck from every moment Sayuri stood too close.
Her hands begin to shake.
Saki’s attention drops to them.
Recognition replaces the concern in his expression.
He leans closer, lowering his voice so no one else can hear.
“Take a slow breath.
You aren’t there anymore, Aina.
You’re here in Class 3-A.”
When Aina’s trembling worsens, Saki reaches across the space between their desks and closes one hand around her forearm.
His hold is steady without restraining her.
The classroom shifts for Saki.
For half a second, Saki is kneeling on a stone floor with the same arm secured in his grasp.
A woman kneels on Aina’s other side.
Long midnight-black hair falls over one shoulder as she holds Aina’s opposite arm, her free hand braced behind Aina’s back to keep her upright.
They are supporting her together.
Saki turns toward the woman.
Before he can see her face, the memory slips sideways.
Her features vanish first, followed by the stone beneath them, but the midnight-black hair and the protective weight of her hand remain for one breath longer.
Class 3-A returns.
Aina follows his instruction.
Her next breath enters unevenly, then leaves more slowly.
Saki knows what it means to be pulled into another life without warning.
His certainty gives her something solid to return to.
“Saki-kun,” she whispers, “this one was different.”
“Different how?”
“It wasn’t one of the dark memories.” Aina lowers her eyes to her unsteady hands.
“This was something else.”
Before Saki can respond, chalk taps against the podium.
“Tanaka-san?”
The teacher has stopped speaking.
Half the class turns toward Aina, and whispers move between the desks.
Saki rises slightly, drawing some of the attention toward himself.
“Sir?”
“Tanaka-san, you look ready to faint.” The teacher gestures toward the door.
“Shimizu-san, take her to the infirmary.
Make sure she stays there until the end of the day.”
“Understood.”
Saki offers Aina his hand.
She accepts it and rises carefully.
Their classmates watch them leave, but Saki keeps his pace slow until the classroom door closes behind them.
Once they are alone in the hallway, his expression turns serious.
“The fragments are accelerating,” he says quietly.
“They are no longer showing us only the worst moments.”
Aina looks at him.
“If you and Sayuri are experiencing fragments this clearly, mine may not be far behind.”
The thought offers little comfort.
✦ ✦ ✦
On the third floor of the main building, Class 3-C is midway through a quiet lecture when pain cuts through Sayuri’s temple.
The blackboard disappears.
A narrow mattress pressed beneath her.
Rain struck a window somewhere nearby.
A crimson-haired girl who looks unmistakably like Aina lay against her side, close enough that Sayuri can feel the warmth of her body in the dark.
“We’re dating now, so… this is normal, right?” the girl whispers.
The classroom returns.
Sayuri presses one hand over her mouth.
Her skin has gone cold, but heat burns across her face.
Behind her, Ryosuke’s pencil goes still.
His gaze moves over her rigid shoulders and flushed cheeks.
He does not call her name or draw the class’s attention.
He simply waits until she looks back.
There is no confusion in his expression.
Only recognition and quiet concern.
Sayuri lowers her hand and gives the smallest nod.
Ryosuke shifts forward slightly, as though ready to intervene if the memory returns.
He faces the front again, but his pencil does not move.
“Suzuki-san?” The teacher lowers his chalk.
“You look unwell.
Nakamura-san, escort her to the infirmary.”
“I can go alone.”
“You can barely stand,” Ryosuke says, already rising.
“I’m walking with you.”
The lingering dizziness makes argument impractical.
Sayuri allows him to accompany her through the quiet corridors to the first-floor infirmary.
✦ ✦ ✦
The school nurse looks up when the door opens.
“Another member of the kyudo club?” she asks.
“It is barely the first day, and I have already seen Tanaka-san.”
Sayuri’s attention sharpens.
Aina is here?
“Use the second cot,” the nurse tells Ryosuke.
“I’ll retrieve Suzuki-san’s records.”
Ryosuke guides Sayuri toward the curtained beds at the back of the room.
“Rest,” he says.
“I will inform the teacher and see you at practice.”
“Thank you, Ryosuke.”
He studies her for another moment before leaving.
As the infirmary door closes, fabric rustles behind the divider surrounding the first cot.
“Sayuri?” Aina’s voice reaches her through the curtain.
The divider shifts, and Aina pulls it aside.
She sits on the edge of the first cot with her blazer folded on the bedside table.
Her crimson hair rests loosely around her neck, and her thin white undershirt leaves her looking more exposed than usual.
Exhaustion shadows her eyes.
“Aina.”
Concern overrides everything else.
Sayuri crosses the space between them.
“Why are you here?
Are you hurt?”
“I’m all right.” Aina draws her knees closer.
“It was another fragment.
It happened during last period.”
Sayuri closes the divider around both cots, shielding them from the rest of the infirmary.
“Are you certain you are all right?” she asks.
“Does your head hurt?”
“No.” Aina’s cheeks begin to color.
She looks down at her hands instead of meeting Sayuri’s eyes.
“It was only another memory,” she says.
“It wasn’t one of the dark ones.
It was different.
I wasn’t prepared for it.”
Sayuri notices the shortened answers, the color spreading along Aina’s neck, and her determined refusal to look up.
“You do not have to discuss it if doing so would distress you,” Sayuri says.
“However, if you saw the same memory I did during sixth period, you do not need to hide it from me.”
Aina looks up.
“Y-you saw it too?”
“A train platform.
A small room with one bed.” Color reaches the tips of Sayuri’s ears as she sits beside Aina.
The narrow cot leaves their thighs touching.
“It was intensely private,” Sayuri continues, keeping her attention forward.
“But it was not something to be ashamed of.”
Some of the tension leaves Aina’s shoulders.
“You saw everything?”
“I felt every second of it.” Sayuri turns toward her.
“And I would be lying if I said I wished to forget it.”
Aina falls silent.
For one hopeful moment, Aina thinks Sayuri understands.
Then Aina looks down, and the openness in her expression disappears.
“It was only a memory,” she says.
“It wasn’t really us.
That was their life—their relationship and their feelings.
We only experienced what happened to them.”
The distinction creates an immediate distance between them.
Sayuri has no logical argument against it.
The two girls had been different people in another life.
That does not explain why the memory felt so natural.
She redirects the conversation before the silence becomes unbearable.
“Was Class 3-A difficult today?”
“It was quiet without you.” Aina studies her hands.
“Really quiet.”
“Class 3-C was disorganized without you.”
Aina glances at her.
“Disorganized?”
“The room was unchanged.
My schedule was unchanged.” Sayuri places one hand on the sheet beside Aina’s.
“It still felt incorrect.”
Their fingers remain less than an inch apart.
“Listen to me, Aina.
Regardless of which lifetime return—or what we may see in the future—you will always be Aina to me.
Nothing from the past changes who you are to me now.”
The guarded tension in Aina’s expression begins to ease.
Sayuri’s words stir another promise in Aina’s memory—the first echo she experienced when her past began to awaken, spoken beneath another sky.
“Whatever names we wore, whatever time took from us.
It doesn’t matter how many times we’ve failed.
As long as I can draw a bow, I will find you.
In every life, under every sky—that is my promise, Chiyo.”
Aina’s fingers curl against the sheet.
Sayuri closes the remaining distance and takes her hand.
Aina’s skin is cold.
Sayuri holds it firmly between her fingers until some warmth returns.
Before either of them can speak, the 3:15 p.m.
bell rings through the school.
The nurse rustles a stack of papers beyond the curtain.
“All right, you two.
If you have enough energy to talk behind my curtains, you are well enough for club activities.
Off you go.”
Their hands separate.
Aina reaches for her blazer while Sayuri retrieves her own.
Both straighten their uniforms before opening the curtain.
The nurse gives them an absence slip each.
They bow in unison.
“Thank you.”
Outside the infirmary, neither mentions what happened behind the curtain.
By the time the final bell rings at 3:30 p.m., they are walking toward the dojo together.
Their pace settles into the same rhythm without effort.
Their shoulders brush once, followed by the backs of their hands.
Neither moves farther away.
The brief contact follows Sayuri through every step toward the club building.
✦ ✦ ✦
Afternoon light enters the girls’ locker room through the high windows.
The remaining club members change around Sayuri and Aina, filling the room with conversation and rustling fabric.
Beside Sayuri, Aina reaches up to hang her blazer inside her locker.
Light catches in her crimson hair as she lowers her arm and removes her white uniform shirt, leaving another white T-shirt beneath it in place.
She slips into her kyudogi and begins adjusting the ties.
Sayuri’s hand remains on her locker door.
Her attention follows the lingering color in Aina’s cheeks, the line of her profile, and the careful movement of her hands.
When did looking at her become this difficult?
The last two first-years lift their gear bags.
“Vice-Captain, we’ll unlock the dojo and prepare the targets.”
“Thank you.
Make sure the bow racks are clear as well.”
“Understood.”
They leave, closing the door behind them.
The locker room falls quiet.
Everything left unresolved in the infirmary returns with it.
“Sayuri?” Aina turns toward her.
“Are you all right?
You were looking at me.”
Before Sayuri can answer, the lockers disappear.
Clack-clack.
Clack-clack.
Late-afternoon sunlight had warmed an empty train platform.
A crimson-haired girl with soft pink eyes stood beside a chestnut-haired girl whose guarded amber gaze remained fixed on the tracks.
Their joined hands were concealed between their coats.
“Your hand is cold,” the chestnut-haired girl murmured.
“Then keep holding it.”
She looked toward the tracks, but her fingers tightened around the crimson-haired girl’s.
She held on as though some forgotten part of her feared losing her for another hundred years.
The crimson-haired girl rested her head against her shoulder.
“I feel like I’ve waited a very long time for this.”
The chestnut-haired girl looked down at her, her guarded expression softening.
“Then I’m sorry I took so long to find you.”
The train arrived several minutes later.
Neither girl moved immediately.
There was no creature waiting in the darkness.
No arrow trembling in the earth.
No blood was shed that day.
There were only two girls beneath an ordinary evening sky, allowed to go home together.
The memory closes gently.
The locker room returns, but its happiness remains inside Sayuri.
Still carrying that warmth, she steps closer and reaches for the crooked strap of Aina’s chest protector.
“This is uneven.”
Sayuri straightens it with careful fingers.
Her knuckles brush the center of Aina’s chest.
A rapid heartbeat presses against them.
Both girls become still.
Sayuri withdraws her hands and turns toward her locker.
“Make certain it is secured,” she says, though her voice lacks its usual firmness.
“We cannot afford careless mistakes today.”
“Right.”
Aina checks the strap again despite it already being tight.
Sayuri occupies herself with the locker latch until the heat in her face begins to fade.
“Let’s go.”
“Okay.”
✦ ✦ ✦
The atmosphere changes as soon as they enter the dojo in their white kyudogi and dark hakama.
Ryosuke slides open the doors facing the range.
“First group in five minutes,” the club advisor says.
“Four arrows each.
Suzuki first, Tanaka second, Nakamura third.
Everyone else, observe from the waiting area.”
Saki bows without comment.
Five minutes later, Sayuri leads the group into the shooting area.
Aina follows second.
Ryosuke enters last, positioned to close the round.
They kneel together at the waiting line.
At the club advisor’s signal, they rise, advance to the shooting line, and kneel again before their targets.
Saki remains in the waiting area, close enough to study their timing and form.
Each archer carries four arrows in two pairs.
Sayuri places one pair on the floor before her, sets her bow upright, and prepares the first arrow from the pair remaining in her hand.
Years of discipline settle over her posture as she aligns her spine and shoulders.
Her awareness remains at the second position.
Aina’s sleeve shifts as she arranges her arrows.
Her movements stay quiet and exact.
The faint scent of her shampoo carries across the space between them.
Sayuri should be concentrating on establishing a steady rhythm for the group.
Instead, she remembers a narrow hotel bed, joined hands concealed between coats, and a heartbeat beneath her fingertips.
She corrects the position of her bow hand.
Whatever began between them did not begin at Tokui High.
For the first time, Sayuri wonders whether it was ever meant to end.