The festival was a disaster of lights and screams, and I was there because, of course, staying at home staring at a white wall in the dark wasn't pathetic enough for a Tuesday. The fireworks exploded in the sky as if someone had decided that silence was a luxury we didn't deserve, and I walked among the crowd, unfocused, hands in my pockets, kicking an empty can someone had left lying on the dirt path. The photography club had its exhibit near the river—Haruto was probably there, adjusting his lenses and looking like the world owed him applause for every perfectly framed photo. I didn’t go to see him. I didn’t feel like it. Or at least that’s what I told myself as I dodged a group of girls fighting over cotton candy that was melting in their hands, leaving sticky pink strands on their fingers. The crowd was a constant hum, a noise that left no room to think, which was fine because lately my brain felt like it was full of dynamite. The months I had left—assuming the doctor wasn’t exaggerating with his "maybe a year"—felt like a bad joke still waiting to be delivered. I hadn’t told Haruto yet, though he would probably notice if I stopped showing up at the club one of these days. But there I was, wandering among stands selling steaming takoyaki and cheap, hand-painted masks made by first-year students, because sitting at home rereading the diagnosis was too much, even for me. People passed by, bumping, laughing, some with paper lanterns swinging in the air like beacons in the fog. It smelled of fried oil and burnt sugar, and the summer heat clung to my skin like a layer of discomfort I couldn’t shake off.

There was a shooting range booth to my right, with a guy shouting that the next winner would get a goldfish in a plastic bag—a cliché of these festivals. A first-year kid shot and missed, and his friend laughed so hard he almost fell into the plastic tank. I watched them for a second, thinking about how easy it was to laugh when you didn’t have a clock ticking in your head. I wondered how long it would take before I’d get fed up and leave, go home and lock myself away before someone saw me and asked why I’d been so quiet lately. Not that I had a good answer. "Oh, I’m just dying, normal stuff, right? And you?"

Then Rina caught me, and I felt like a zebra being caught by a lion, like in those documentaries. I saw her coming from the other side of the path, running through the crowd with that notebook of hers pressed against her chest like it was a shield against the world—shouldn’t you have let go of that a long time ago?—was the first thing that crossed my mind. Her hair was messy, falling in strands over her face, and her steps were clumsy, like always when she got nervous, made worse by her lack of experience wearing traditional dresses. She tripped on a stone and almost fell but quickly straightened up, pretending nothing had happened, adjusting her dress with a sharp motion. "Kaito," she said, her voice cutting through the noise, louder than usual, as if she had to force it out of her throat. "I need to talk to you, and it has to be now."

I looked at her, and for a second, I wanted to say something sarcastic—what a cliché moment for a serious talk, right?—but her eyes were too bright, too serious, and I swallowed the words before they came out. There was something in her face that didn’t fit with the festival, with the lights and the laughter. "Now? I thought you’d be at Haruto’s exhibit," I said, shrugging as if I didn’t care. "Fine, but don’t expect me to say anything worth writing down. I’m out of practice with deep conversations, and I don’t know when my brain’s coming back from its vacation."

She didn’t reply, just grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the bridge, away from the human tide. Her hand was warm against my sleeve, gripping tighter than I expected, like she was afraid I’d slip away. The air on the bridge was heavier, quieter, as if the festival couldn’t reach it with all its noise and colors. The fireworks were still exploding above, red and gold, casting reflections that danced in the river below, dark and slow, like it didn’t care about anything happening above, like it was just waiting. Rina stood in front of me, breathing hard, clutching that notebook like it was the only thing keeping her upright. Her fingers were white at the edges, and the notebook’s cover was worn, full of bent corners.

"I like you, Kaito," she said, and I swear I felt the ground crack beneath my feet. Me? Why? I stood there, speechless, my head buzzing as if someone had turned off the festival and the entire world. I didn’t see it coming. Rina had been closer lately—coming up to the rooftop after school, talking more than usual, staying late after the club when everyone else had left—but I thought it was for Haruto, not me. Everything I did, those stupid pieces of advice I gave her, was to get her closer to him. The days on the rooftop, the talks about how to approach him, how to talk to him—it was all for Haruto. Not for me. "What?" I said, and my voice came out drier than I intended, like I needed to confirm that I hadn’t misheard, that I wasn’t making this up, that the smoke and lights weren’t making me hallucinate.

"I like you. I know it doesn’t make sense, it wasn’t supposed to happen, but it’s what I feel," she repeated, and her eyes locked onto mine, bright and wet, like she was about to break. The notebook shook in her hands, and for a second, it seemed like she was going to say more, explain something, but she didn’t. She just looked at me, waiting, and I didn’t know what to do with that. My head was a poorly built wall, and right now, it was collapsing—a hit of noise, fire, and her face in front of me, saying words that made no sense. I thought about the months I had left—if I made it. The doctor said "maybe a year," but who trusts a guy who hands out pills like they’re candy, right?

"Rina, I… I like you too…" it slipped out before I could stop it, and it sounded weaker than I expected, like it escaped without permission. I didn’t plan it. I didn’t want to say it. But there it was, hanging between us, words suspended by an imaginary thread, and for a second, I wanted to pull her closer, accept her feelings, stay with her and enjoy the festival like I was living a normal life, but imagining that hurt even more. Our time was moving at different speeds.

I exhaled heavily, leaving an awkward silence between us. "But confessing to someone who’s dying sounds like a bittersweet joke... though knowing you, you already sensed it, didn’t you?" I said, with a sarcasm that even made me feel sick, and there it was, the truth I never wanted to speak, falling like dead weight between us. "This was supposed to be all about Haruto, right? When did everything change?" It wasn’t supposed to end this way, but I’d be lying if I said those weren’t the words I’d wanted to hear for a long time. "His exhibit’s probably over by now. Go to him... that's how all this started, and I think… we should pretend this never happened." My voice cracked a little at the end, and I hated how it sounded—weak, lost, as if I were pushing her away, though deep down, I was asking for forgiveness. But I had already said it; there was no going back. This wasn’t about me, it couldn’t be about me, it wasn’t supposed to be about me. Everything I did was to get her with Haruto, to give her something good, something lasting. I was just a passenger, as much as I liked to think otherwise.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

She cried, and it was like someone had stabbed me in the chest and squeezed whatever was left inside. Tears ran down her face, quick and silent at first, then a sob escaped, low and broken. Her shoulders slumped, and the notebook sagged a little, hanging loose in her hands. She looked at me, and I felt the air leave me, like there was nothing I could say to fix this. I didn’t want this—I didn’t want to see her like this, didn’t want to hurt her. Everything I did was for her to be happy, to be with Haruto, not to end up crying on a bridge over someone like me. But I can’t change it. I can’t keep her, not when I’m halfway to erasing myself from the map.

"The fireworks are about to start again," I said, avoiding looking her in the eyes, pretending to be normal in an attempt to soften the situation because I didn’t know what else to say. I turned around before the lump in my throat suffocated me completely. Her sobs followed me as I descended from the bridge, soft at first, then louder, blending with the distant noise of the festival. Each step felt heavier than the last, as if the ground wanted to swallow me and end this once and for all. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. If I did, I would have run back, told her to forget everything, that I would stay with her until I couldn’t anymore. But I can’t. I won’t drag her down with me. "Now I must have the word 'idiot' written on my forehead. Was it the rejection? Was it what I said that I should've taken with me to the next world? Probably a combination of everything... I'm good at ruining things," I said aloud, sarcastically patting myself on the shoulder.

The festival kept roaring around me, but all I could hear was her voice—"I like you, Kaito"—bouncing around in my head like an echo that wouldn’t stop. People passed by, laughing, shouting, and I felt like the protagonist of a bad joke. I wish I could go back to being that carefree. A vendor shouted something about half-price kakigori, and the smell of charcoal from the nearby stall and sweet sauce hit me in the face, but I didn’t stop.

I kept walking, stepped on a mask that must have fallen from someone, the crunch echoed in my head for a second, as if I were the one who had cracked instead of the mask.

The noise began to fade and the lights dimmed. I didn’t know where I was going—home, I guess, but I wasn’t in a hurry to get there.

The streets became narrower, the stalls began to disappear, and the noise of the festival faded until it was just a distant murmur, like a poorly tuned radio. The river vanished to my left, dark and still, reflecting pieces of the fireworks that still exploded occasionally. I passed by a closed stall, one of those with broken awnings and lights turned off, and something stopped me. On the dirty glass of the storefront, my reflection stared back at me—blurred, broken, as if I wasn’t entirely me. The edges were filled with cracks, and the light from a distant streetlamp filtered through, making the glass seem to tremble. For a second, I saw her eyes instead of mine, green and bright, her mouth trembling like when she cried on the bridge.

I took the Polaroid out of my backpack, my hands shaking a little more than I wanted to admit, and aimed it at the glass. I don’t know why I did it—maybe because it was the only thing I could do, capture something before it was gone completely, before her face faded from my mind. I shot. Click. The photo came out slowly, blurry, a mess of shadows and lines barely recognizable. "What a shitty angle," I muttered, and tucked it in my pocket without looking at it much. I didn’t want to see it yet. I didn’t want to see those eyes.

The houses started to appear, small and cramped, with most of their lights turned off. The air regained the scent of the neighborhood, and the sound of my footsteps on the street was the only thing breaking the stillness. I thought about Haruto again. He was probably celebrating, with his framed photos set apart from the others as if they were going to change the world. He, who always had everything so clear—the cameras, the exhibitions, the future. We were close once, a year or two ago, when I still believed I could keep up with him, with him or with the world. We used to sit in the club after class, talking about lenses and frames, laughing at the bad photos we took in the beginning. Not anymore. Now he was on one side and I was on the other, and she was in between, or worse; by his side. If it had been clear from the start, maybe things would have turned out differently.

"This was supposed to be for Haruto," I told her on the bridge, and I meant it. Every piece of advice I gave, every talk on the rooftop, was to make her be with him. The days she sat next to me, scribbling in that notebook while I took photos of the sky—I thought it was because she trusted me, because we were friends, not because she felt something more. How did I not see it? How didn’t I realize that she was looking beyond Haruto, at me? And now she was drowning in herself because of me, and I couldn’t do anything to fix it.

I thought about Rina again, about her face when I told her I was dying. I didn’t want her to know directly—I didn’t want anyone to know. My parents barely mention it, and I kept it like a secret I could ignore. But it slipped out with her, and now it was there, between us, and I couldn’t erase it. "I like you too," I told her, and I meant it, more than I wanted to admit. But I can’t keep her. Not when every pill I take is like a sandcastle watching the tide slowly rise.

I kept walking, the streets quieter now, the houses closer together. My house was a few blocks away, a dark square among other shadows, and when I got there, the silence hit me like a wall. My parents weren’t home—my mom working the night shift, my dad who knows where, drinking, probably—and the door creaked when I opened it, a sound that always made my nerves spike. I climbed the stairs, each step echoing in the empty house, tossed my backpack in a corner of my room. I collapsed onto the bed, the old mattress sinking under my weight, and stared at the ceiling as if waiting for it to give me some kind of answer.

The photo was in my pocket, and for a moment, I thought about taking it out, looking at it, seeing what I had captured in that broken, dead glass. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to see it yet. I didn’t want to see what I had left behind on that bridge. I closed my eyes, the echo of her voice returned, and with it, the knot in my throat that wouldn’t go away. "Definitely a shit angle," I said to the ceiling, and I stayed there, listening to the silence, hoping sleep would take me before this all really caught up to me. But it didn’t. Not that night.

I couldn’t stop thinking, her crying, Haruto probably receiving praise for his exhibition, and me here, away from it all. "If only this were a movie, she’d definitely call me now," I told myself, knowing it wouldn’t happen.

The room was dark, just a sliver of light coming through the broken curtain, and the silence was so heavy I could almost touch it. I turned over, looking at the wall, and tried to imagine what Rina might be doing now. Was she still on the bridge? Had she gone back to the festival, looking for Haruto? Or was she home, scribbling something in that notebook of hers, trying to understand what the hell had just happened? I didn’t know. And I didn’t want to know, but I couldn’t stop asking myself.

There were no answers.

Had these months passed so quickly that I missed something this important? —Living in the moment was supposed to make everything easier, something in those talks, in that trip, something slipped through my fingers at some point. "What a shit angle, if my life were a photo, it’d be one of those best left to burn."