Chapter Text
Finding a note was one thing. But finding it in what seemed like a secluded area of the campus felt like discovering a secret.
Haneoka Girls' High School had a huge campus. It might be a little smaller than her previous school, Tsukinomori, but it was still decent for a prep school. Sakiko would still find herself lost sometimes, and roaming around the campus might not have been a good judgment on her part. She could've played the piano in the music room instead, as she usually did. And her friend Anon might've dropped by to listen.
But that afternoon, she wanted to walk around and sort her thoughts as the cold autumn breeze touched her skin. She wanted to spend some time alone just before she left for band activities. Only when it got too quiet with no wind did Sakiko notice that she had reached an unfamiliar part of the campus.
It was behind a building surrounded by tall grass. There was a bench by the wall, and, strangely enough, despite its secluded look, the place was clean. It was free of moss or trash. And it was there that she found the yellow note stuck to the wall.
A note? So someone had been here after all. Could this have been their secret spot? But sticking a note is vandalism.
It didn't have to take a student council member to take it down. Whoever did it should be reprimanded, in her opinion. She walked up to it, hoping to find something that might reveal who left it. However, she found none, only the message in it.
"I don't even understand myself at all.
But I still wanted to understand you.
The letter resting on my palm is warm,
It feels like I'm holding your hand."
Her thumb traced the words on the note. The words may have been limited by the small size of the sticky note, but to Sakiko, it was a song. She strangely found herself absorbed in it, and the loneliness creeping on it.
Her plan to reprimand the person quietly faded. Instead, she found herself writing a note. A response to the person who wrote it.
"Instead of putting this here, please try to send it directly to them.
They might want to understand you just as much as you want to understand them.
Do not waste the chance while you can have them. We only have this lifetime."
Her heart was hopeful as she stuck the note to the wall, taking the original note for herself.
***
Tomori was filled with guilt since the night before. She couldn't take her mind off the note she had left in a strange, secluded area of the campus. It was a place she found by accident while she was looking around for an interesting rock during lunch break. Anon and Taki had to talk her out of coming back to the campus after their band practice, just to clean it up.
Instead, she went to school early. Sports clubs with morning practice were the only ones around when she passed through the campus field. It was a little chilly compared to going there in the middle of the day or after school. Tomori barely noticed them as her mind was focused on getting her note back.
She didn't know what came over her to leave a note there instead of keeping it to herself. Maybe she wanted to reach someone. It was a message she wanted to convey to one person after all. But she couldn't simply send it to her again anymore. They had decided to walk their separate paths.
As she reached the area, she didn't find her note, but a different one, a blue note, much to her surprise. Tomori took it with wonder. She was struck by nostalgia and strange familiarity when she read it. It was a response to her, and she couldn't understand why, couldn't explain why, but her heart pounded at the feeling.
This time, she let her resolve take over her guilt and decided to respond as well.
"The chance is still here. It's going to come upon me, and I would take it that way.
Thank you for your words of encouragement.
You finding my note here must be some kind of fate, too."
Fate…
A face from her middle school days flashed in her mind.
Saki-chan…
It was Sakiko who first believed in fate among them. Surely, she would've called this the same thing if it were her.