The childhood friend who'd dumped me for being cringe now came running up to me with a beaming smile.
The way she'd flipped was almost impressive.
Two days since the lunchtime exposure.
The air around me was still buzzing. The ones who came sidling up, and the ones who sneered from a distance. I hadn't managed to keep a proper distance from either.
In the middle of all that, someone stopped me in the hallway.
"Ren!"
When I turned around, it was Yuna. She came trotting toward me, her soft, loose brown hair bouncing. As if that cold profile from when she'd dumped me had never existed, she now wore a smile like a flower in bloom.
"Isn't that amazing, Ren? You're number one in the rankings, right? I had no idea."
It wasn't that she had no idea. She'd never even tried to know.
"Hey, remember? Back in the day, we used to walk home together and stuff, right? I was the very first to know you were writing novels."
I remember. I remember well.
That Yuna who'd been "the very first to know" had peered at my manuscript in the classroom after school and said this:
Who would even read this? Ren, you're so cringe.
With that one line, something inside me had quietly snapped. That was three years ago.
"I'll cheer you on. I've always been on your side, anyway."
Yuna looked up at me through her lashes. The mouth that once stabbed me had taken on its sweetest shape.
Strangely, I wasn't angry.
She just felt far away. This girl's words sounded like they were coming from terribly far off.
For those three years, while I kept writing stories no one read, Yuna surely never once thought of me. That I'd worked multiple part-time jobs and cut into my writing time, that I'd kept my fingers moving even on mornings when my PVs were zero—this girl knew none of it. She probably hadn't felt any need to know.
I'd spent those three years with just one person. With the "one" at 12:02 a.m., whose face and name I hadn't known.
The weight of those three years, erased with a single I've always been on your side. I wasn't angry, but there was just distance, gaping and hollow.
"Are things okay with Shota?"
When I asked, Yuna's smile stiffened for just an instant.
"...He's kind of been cold lately. That guy. I'm kind of thinking I'm done."
I'm kind of thinking I'm done. It was the usual tone she used when she switched. Toward whoever was cool right now. That was all.
The reason Shota had been cold lately—this girl probably didn't know. Or what kind of ground Shota's family was standing on right now. Yuna was always outside the circumstances, hopping only from one light place to the next.
I couldn't bring myself to blame her. It wasn't that she meant any harm. She just always drifted toward whatever was lighter, like a leaf tumbling in the wind.
But—I thought.
The Yuna who'd laughed at my manuscript as cringe three years ago and the Yuna sidling up to my number one now were standing in the same place. A place where people's worth was measured in numbers.
The same place as Shota, who had laughed at my story two days ago.
In this hallway, there wasn't a single person who'd read what I wrote.
Except for just one. That silver who'd bowed her head in front of the whole school.
The old me, if Yuna had said this, would probably have jumped for joy. Being acknowledged by my childhood friend. That was the only thing I'd ever wanted.
But it was different now.
I'd already seen the real thing, in that courtyard. Someone who held on to a single line I'd written, not to numbers, like a lifeline. Once I knew that, no matter what, Yuna's smile looked flimsy.
I think I was the one who'd changed. For better or worse.
"Hey, Ren, are you listening?"
Yuna's voice brought me back.
"Next time, let's go somewhere, just the two of us. Like old times."
I tried to quietly shake my head.
"Sorry. I'm already—"
She didn't let me finish.
Yuna's hand grabbed my sleeve tightly.
"Why? I'm reaching out to you this much."
Her nails dug into the fabric. Deep in her upturned eyes, a chilly light I didn't recognize flickered.
Just then, at the far end of the hallway, footsteps coming up the stairs stopped.
The silver was looking our way.