The courtyard was almost tooquiet that afternoon.
Not empty—there was the wind, persistent enough to lift the loose ends of scarves and carry the faint rustle of pages from somewhere beyond the ginkgo tree.
But quiet enough that I could hear each leaf's slowdescent. They spiraled down like they were reluctant to touch the ground, and when they finally did, they landed without sound.
The ginkgo tree itself stood like a patient witness, its trunk ridged with age, roots weaving deep under the stone path.
They had chosen this spot without speaking about it, as if the bench beneath it belonged to neither of them but would hold them both without question.
A notebook lay between —closed, untouched. The kind of untouched that wasn't forgetfulness but hesitation.
Tea cooled in paper cups beside it.
Kaze had been showing up more often lately.
Not every day—never in a way that could be charted—but enough that I had started noticing a pattern.
She came with the same unassuming presence: scarf draped loose, hair a little wind-shifted, steps unhurried. And she left before the air got heavy with questions.
But today… she lingered-
She tilted her head, eyes still fixed on the golden scatter of leaves with her pencil moving effortlessly on the page.
"Why did you leave?"
I asked softly-
The words were quiet—no demand, no edge. But they landed with the weight of something that I've been waiting to understand.
Kaze didn't look startled.
She didn't even look up.
She was tracing the rim of her teacup, fingertip gliding in slow circles. The sound—ceramic and nail—was barely there.
It was the kind of pause that didn't come from not knowing the answer.
It came from deciding- whether to tell or not...
"You ever feel like you're screaming… but only inside your head?"
I didn't answer, this was the kind of question you didn't close too quickly.
So I let it sit.
I unconsciousy shifted my position and gazed a Kaze.
Let Kaze choose whether to fill the silence-
Kaze did.
"I was… there the whole time,"
she said.
"But I was never really there.
I smiled, laughed, waved in the halls. People liked me—well, the version of me they saw. But it was like clapping for a shadow on stage. No one ever knew the person holding the light behind it."
(Kaze pov)
When was it-
I must have been six, maybe seven.
- sitting at the kitchen table, drawing a crooked little house with a roof toobig for the walls.
Her parents were talking about something else entirely—until her father leaned over and said, "That's beautiful, so neat," and patted her head. Her mother smiled, took the page, showed it to the neighbor later that afternoon.
I liked that feeling.
The way praise warmed me from the insideout.
The next day I tried again—lines straighter, colors inside the borders. She didn't think of it as trying to be perfect; she just wanted to see that look on their faces again.
A week later I spilled juice across that homework. The paper bloomed with orange tint.
My teacher frowned, said gently,
"You need to be more careful, Kaze. You're usually so good."
It wasn't cruel.
But it stuck-
I realized "good" wasn't something Iwas—it was something she had to keepproving.
And it could be lost-
That night I sharpened my pencils until they all had clean, precisetips.
By middle school, the mask was musclememory.
Handwriting always even, notes were color-coded, laughter came in the rightplaces andhair was never out of place.
friends called her reliable.
Teachers called her a rolemodel.
And every day, I felt the quietcost of keeping it steady.
If I everfaltered—showed up tired, missed a deadline—she saw it: the slight shift in tone, the
-Are you okay?
that wasn't really a question.
So I made sure I didn't falter where anyone could see.
But-
There was one person who never required the performance. Not in a dramatic way—Ashpen wasn't someone who "saw through" her with piercing insight.
It was subtler.
Ashpen never seemed to notice in the way others did. Or maybe she noticed differently—like catching the faint outline of something in fog but not forcing it into view.
Once, in a group, as felt under the weather, I had gone unusuallyquiet.
Everyone else carried on.
Ashpen had glanced at her for half a second—not probing, not pitying—
then gone back to her book.
I remembered that.
It was the kind of noticing that asked for nothing.
(Back in the present)
Kaze's voice was almost too soft for the wind.
"I was good at being what people needed. Funny, poetic, stable.
It's a strange compliment, you know?
When people call you their anchor—"
she paused, almost smiled,
"—but they neverrealize you're the one drowning."
The breeze shifted, brushing strands of hair across her face.
She didn't move them away.
"I started disappearing long before I vanished,"
she said-
"I just… finally followed through."
I spoke for the firsttime since the question.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Kaze lowered her gaze to the tea she hadn't touched.
"You were the one person I couldn't lie to forever,"
she said-
"And I was terrified that if you really saw me—not the poet, not the calm girl, but the mess—I'd lose even that."
The air felt heavy, but not suffocating. Like both of them were standing in a space where words weren't the only way to speak.
A leaf drifted onto the notebook.
Ashpen brushed it aside, opened it to the first page.
There was only oneline written in Kaze's hand:
Sometimes the strongest disguise is a smile.
I looked up.
"You don't have to wear that anymore."
Kaze didn't answer.
But she didn't look away-
(Short Flashback)
It had been raining lightly after high-school.
Kaze's friends walked ahead, umbrellas bobbing, their laughter stretching forward into the drizzle. She trailedbehind, books pressed to her chest, umbrella tilted awkwardly to keep from hitting the edge of her bag.
No one looked back.
Except Ashpen-
Without a word, she slowed her steps until they matched Kaze's.
She took the tilted umbrella from my arms and spoke without looking at me-
"You could always for help-"
That was the only conversation,
She didn't fill the space with conversation. She just… stayed.
It wasn't much.
But for Kaze, it was one of the few moments where someone had seen the weight without demanding to prove it was heavy.