Three months passed after the apologies.
Three months of effort.
Three months of silence.
Yuma did not waver.
He remained firm, distant, unresponsive. He did not initiate conversation. He did not attempt reconciliation. If anything, he retreated further into himself, as though building thicker walls each time they tried to reach him.
The warmth did not follow him home.
When Yuma stepped inside, the entire family was gathered in the living room, the television flickering in front of them. The moment the door closed, several pairs of eyes lifted.
As though they had been waiting.
The date was set two weeks after the phone call.
Saturday. Four o’clock.
Yuma arrived five minutes early.
He told himself it was coincidence, yet his palms were faintly damp as he stepped into Sweet Café. The interior was spacious, decorated in soft pastel tones and fairy-tale motifs—arched windows, hanging lights shaped like lanterns, delicate floral arrangements along the walls.
Tears blurred his vision when his phone vibrated beside him.
A notification.
Yuma reached for it without thinking.
Himari.
Meisa High School was my second appointment, and one of my greatest sources of pride. I was the school’s first—and still its present—principal. Thirteen years since its establishment, I watched this institution flourish under my leadership. Students excelled. Teachers worked with enthusiasm. Discipline was firm yet fair. I was respected. I was healthy. I was happy.
I had hoped to remain here until my retirement.
Yes. That was me.
That was me… until a year ago.
Five apologies, spoken by five different people.
Yuma did not feel relief.
Instead, the words reopened things he had long learned to live with. Not because the apologies were overdue—but because they dragged him back into the past he had never truly left behind. Each apology peeled away the careful layers he had built to survive, exposing memories he had endured quietly for years.
Haruma had avoided Yuma since the apologies began.
Not deliberately, not consciously—but every time he heard footsteps in the hallway, every time a door opened, his chest tightened, and he found an excuse to turn away. He told himself it was to give Yuma space. In truth, it was fear.
That day, Kotarou realised just how deeply they had been hurting Yuma.
He had overheard the conversation between Yuma and Arisa by accident, standing just out of sight when voices were raised and then abruptly fell into silence. He heard the words Arisa could not take back, and later, the sound of her door closing. He did not go after her. He did not try to mediate. He understood that whatever had broken could not be fixed by intrusion.
In Meisa High School, the biology department is well-equipped. We possess an extensive collection of specimens—frogs, lizards, fish, insects—used regularly during practical lessons. Dissection classes are always… entertaining. Some students turn pale at the sight of exposed organs, while others remain disturbingly calm. It is, all things considered, a beneficial subject, particularly for those aspiring to become doctors or veterinarians.
(sighs heavily)
Arisa did not plan to apologise.
If she were honest, she had been avoiding the thought altogether, skirting around it like a bruise she refused to press. She had seen what happened after their mother spoke, after their father bowed his head and said the words out loud.
Yuma had not forgiven them.
That frightened her.
She told herself she had reasons. She was busy. She was tired. She had her own pressures. She was not the parent. She was not responsible in the same way.
And yet—
They met by accident.
Yuma was in the entryway, tying his shoes, his movements precise, unhurried. Arisa halted when she saw him, the words spilling out before she could weigh them.
“Going out?”
Yuma nodded.
She hesitated, irritation flaring where guilt should have been. “You always do that. Leave without saying anything.”
The moment the words left her mouth, she knew she had chosen wrong.
Yuma’s hands stilled. Slowly, he straightened and looked at her—not with anger, but with something far more unsettling.
Expectation.
“I mean,” she rushed on, folding her arms, “you don’t have to be so distant. We’re family.”
The silence stretched.
“You weren’t distant when you wanted something,” she added, immediately regretting it.
Yuma lowered his gaze. He did not argue.
That made it worse.
“It’s not like we ignored you on purpose,” Arisa said defensively. “You could’ve said something. You could’ve told us if you were unhappy.”
“I did.”
Two words. Calm. Even.
They landed harder than any raised voice.
“When?” she asked, too quickly.
“I asked you to come to my sports day,” Yuma said. “You said you were busy.”
Her throat tightened.
“I told you about the school festival. You said you’d go if you had time.”
She remembered. Or rather—she remembered forgetting.
“And when I got into university,” he continued, quieter now, “you said, ‘That figures.’”
Her mouth opened.
But standing there, she could hear how empty it must have sounded.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said quickly. “I just thought—you were always good at things. You didn’t need us fussing over you.”
“You never fussed over me,” Yuma replied.
There was no bitterness in his voice. Only fact.
Her arms fell to her sides.
“I thought,” she admitted, her voice lowering despite herself, “that if I didn’t get your attention, it was because you didn’t need it. Or maybe… because Haruma needed it more.”
The truth slipped out before she could stop it.
“I told myself it wasn’t unfair,” she went on. “I told myself you understood. And when you didn’t complain, I took that as permission.”
She swallowed.
“I said things. Jokes. Thoughtless comments. And you never fought back, so I assumed they didn’t hurt.”
Her voice wavered.
“I’m sorry,” Arisa said, awkwardly, as though the word did not quite belong to her. “I’m sorry for deciding what you could endure without ever asking you.”
She looked at him, uncertain, exposed.
“But I don’t know how to fix this,” she confessed. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Yuma reached for the door.
“I’m not asking you to fix it,” he said quietly. “I just wanted you to know.”
He paused, hand resting on the handle.
“You always spoke as if I was invisible because I chose to be.”
The door opened.
“I wasn’t.”
He stepped outside and closed it behind him.
Arisa remained standing in the entryway, realising too late that the most damaging things she had ever said were not born of cruelty—but of carelessness.
Rikka High School, disappear.
Today, while conducting a listening exercise with Class 2-A, our school was suddenly bombarded by what can only be described as an explosive sound. At first, I thought something had malfunctioned inside our classroom.
I was wrong.
Shuuji had always believed that providing was enough.
Work had demanded his time, his attention, his energy, and he had told himself—more than once—that this was what being a father meant. He worked so his family would never lack anything. He worked so the house could remain standing, so their lives could continue without fear.
Somewhere along the way, he had mistaken presence for responsibility.
The Fujita family returned to their residence with a resolve that felt almost fragile in its intensity, each of them carrying a quiet determination to mend what had been broken with Yuma. They did not know how difficult the path ahead would be, nor how long it would take, but one thing was clear to all of them now: the first step mattered more than anything else, and it had to be the right one—just as Himari had said.
The day Yuma returned home, they greeted him without ceremony, without forced warmth or exaggerated concern, simply telling him welcome home as though trying not to disturb the delicate balance between them.
Yuma responded with a nod.
Nothing more.
Rikka High School. How I wish that institution would simply disappear from the face of the Earth.
Today, while teaching Class 2-A, a series of alarms began blaring from the direction of the neighbouring school. At first, I assumed it was merely their class bell—an irritation, but a tolerable one. I was wrong.
It was the fire alarm.
The dinner passed uneventfully, marked by quiet conversation and the soft sounds of cutlery against porcelain. Sasaki and Midori had cooked far too many side dishes, the result of the four children enthusiastically harvesting tomatoes, potatoes, and lettuce from the garden. Himari carefully avoided every dish that contained tomatoes. After eating and resting for about forty-five minutes, everyone gathered once more in the living room. Himari was the last to arrive.
During the time she had spent alone in her room, she had finally noticed something—something subtle, yet crucial—about the messages she had sent to Yuma.
Himari let out a heavy sigh after hearing their full story. It was worse than she had imagined. The embarrassment on their faces was unmistakable—having to seek help from a stranger to mend something they themselves had broken, exposing a side of them they likely wished had never come to light.
“Why don’t you stay for dinner?” Himari suggested after a moment. “We can talk more after we’ve eaten. This is a heavy topic—let’s take a short break first.”
Monday — History
Teacher: Owada Fumiko, age 35
Classes: 1-C, 2-A, 3-D
There is a saying often repeated in history: history should never repeat itself, especially when what occurred in the past was undeniably bad.
Unfortunately, Rikka High School appears to treat this as a personal challenge.
Yuma continued to walk on eggshells around them, polite yet distant, present only in body, as though his heart had already stepped far away. Deep down, they had no choice but to admit it — they were losing him. Just as Himari had warned. And despite their clumsy attempts to close the distance, Yuma only withdrew further, shutting everyone out one by one.
For the next few days, the atmosphere in the house grew noticeably heavier.
Everyone carried their own thoughts about Yuma, each trapped in quiet contemplation. On the surface, nothing seemed amiss — meals were prepared, doors opened and closed, greetings were exchanged. Yet if one looked closely, the difference was unmistakable. Something had shifted, subtly but irrevocably.
Yuma, however, remained unchanged.
By the time they reached home, it was already past midnight.
No one quite remembered how they had managed the journey back. The roads blurred together, the familiar turns taken on instinct rather than awareness. Ever since Himari’s words had settled into the room like a suffocating fog, their sense of balance had been thrown off, their routine fractured in a way none of them had anticipated.
They were not panicked. They were not arguing.
They were simply… disoriented.
Himari tapped her finger lightly against her cheek, the familiar chat window still open on her phone. Two blue ticks glowed beneath the last message she had sent. She stared at them for a long moment, unmoving, as though the answer might surface if she waited long enough.
Her other hand drifted to the dining table, fingers tapping softly, rhythmically.
“Is something wrong?” Midori asked gently, placing a plate of freshly cut fruit on the table as she studied her daughter’s distant expression.
The rich, aromatic scent of freshly brewed coffee filled the café, warm and familiar, clinging to the air as though it had seeped into the walls themselves. Dressed entirely in black—a black jacket layered over a black shirt, a black cap pulled low, black trousers, and polished black shoes—the man chose a seat in the far corner, one carefully positioned to give him a clear view of the counter, the kitchen entrance, and the bakery shelf. There were only a few customers scattered about, perhaps because it was still early, just past ten in the morning. This café was usually crowded during lunchtime and remained lively well into the night, its drinks and cakes selling out almost as soon as they appeared, coveted like rare treats.
The incident left Yuma with a reminder he could no longer ignore.
He needed to remember his place.
From then on, he began preparing himself long before he left his room, and long before he returned home after work — rehearsing restraint, steadying his breathing, reminding himself to keep his expression neutral, his reactions minimal. If the ache in his chest was inevitable, then he would at least control what showed.
There was a subtle change in Yuma, one that had begun quietly, almost imperceptibly, and yet its presence grew heavier with each passing day. That change was Himari. With her, Yuma had felt a warmth he had long forgotten existed, something gentle and unfamiliar, something that reminded him of how it felt to be seen, even briefly.
For that reason alone, being with his family had begun to hurt more than before.
It was not that they were cruel. It was not that they rejected him outright. It was the absence — the way attention never lingered on him, not even for a moment, the way concern always flowed past him as though he were standing slightly out of frame. His chest would tighten without warning, a suffocating pressure he had learned to endure in silence.
