A heart drifting apart [First Half: Aisa’s Perspective; Second Half: Kouki’s Perspective]

The trigger was something truly trivial.

“Hey, it’s Takanishi the ugly girl!”

“I’m not ugly!”

Here we go again, I thought.

The boys’ teasing was practically a daily routine, and back then, I was the perfect target, always rising to their bait.

But that day was different from the usual.

“Kouki, you think so too, right?”

I’d always thought Kouki was different from the other boys.

We were close, always together forever—or so I thought. Even if we hadn’t talked much lately, I believed Kouki would…

But Kouki…

“Uh… I dunno…”

He just gave a vague smile.

◇

Thinking back, when did things with Aisa start going downhill so fast? Probably around middle school, when I became the reason we drifted apart.

“No way, that’s hilarious!”

“Kyaha!”

Aisa had been popular since elementary school, always teased by boys who wanted her attention.

I don’t know if she got fed up with that life, but in middle school, it felt like Aisa started keeping her distance from the boys. Or maybe it was the boys who pulled away?

Either way, around the upper years of elementary school, our families’ interactions started to fade, and my distance from Aisa grew too.

“Huh? Why’s he staring… creepy.”

Aisa ended up joining the flashiest group of girls in our class.

And just like that, staring at her led to this mess…

“Wait, uh… was it Fujino or something?”

I hurriedly looked away, but the conversation had already shifted to me.

“Were you staring at Aisa? I mean, she is cute.”

“Huh? Is that… true?”

“But, like, super creepy, right? Know your place, dude.”

“Haha…”

I wished they wouldn’t say it so loudly, but part of me couldn’t help but perk up my ears, desperate to know what Aisa thought of me now.

Aisa was cute. She was one of the most popular girls in class.

Being childhood friends with her, playing together countless times when we were little—that was, in a way, a kind of status for me back then.

Maybe I was blindly in love with her back then.

“I mean, a guy like that—some background character—doesn’t suit Aisa at all! Right?”

That’s what they asked Aisa.

Deep down, I believed she’d deny it.

Even if we’d grown a bit distant, I convinced myself our feelings still connected us somehow.

That’s why the words Aisa said next were so hard to accept—they shattered the faint confidence I’d been clinging to.

“Well… maybe?”

“Right?!”

That was it. Just that.

I can’t even recall what Aisa and her friends talked about after that or what kind of expressions they had.

No, I didn’t want to recall, so I erased it from my memory.

“Spoiled… huh.”

Thinking back to Aisa’s words at the pool, I felt a faint something—like back then—stirring in my chest.

But I don’t want to feel that way again.

Aisa’s feelings are just familial affection, nothing more. I have to keep telling myself that, or else something inside me might crumble again…

“Time to sleep.”

I stopped thinking.