Her friends were waving to her with concerned faces. These were the same friends who she would laugh out loud with while walking together on any other day. Seeing their concerned expressions, she couldn’t help but feel supported and loved. She was blessed to have people who cared for her.

"See you tomorrow,” she said as she got on the bus.

She hadn’t gone straight home after school in a while. Even when she didn’t have scheduled practice sessions, she often visited the acting club room after school to hang out with other members. However, today, she was quietly going back home.

Before the bus took off, she leaned onto one of the poles. She thought of Maru. If he was here, he would have held her hand without any word.

'How did this relationship move so quickly.’

He was a weirdo who went up to her and asked her name, then there was the time he professed his feelings for her, and now he was someone that gave her comfort whenever she thought of him. She cried a little last night after speaking to him over the phone. When he said she shouldn’t cry, she felt a sense of release and cried.

The front of her nose started tingling again. She always cried like a fountain on the anniversary day of her father’s passing. She thought she was okay, but her eyes were truer to her feelings.

‘Eek.’

She felt that she’d start crying immediately, so she forced herself to smile. Taking out her cell phone,...