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)
