Autumn didn't arrive all at once.
At first, it only showed itself in small ways. The air felt lighter in the mornings. The cicadas grew quieter, replaced by sounds that didn't demand attention. Evenings darkened sooner, and streetlights came on before we were ready for them.
School started again, and with it came structure.
Schedules were handed out. New seating arrangements decided. Club hours adjusted. None of it seemed important at first. It was the kind of change you accepted without thinking, because it happened every year.
But this time, it landed differently.
We no longer finished at the same time every day.
Sometimes she stayed back longer. Sometimes I did. Sometimes one of us left early, saying we'd meet later, only for later to quietly turn into tomorrow. It wasn't anyone's fault. It wasn't intentional.
It just… happened.
One afternoon, I waited outside the clubroom longer than usual.
The hallway was already empty, the sound of voices fading as students headed home. I leaned against the wall, scrolling through my phone without really reading anything. When she finally appeared, she looked surprised to see me.
"You're still here?"
"I said I'd wait."
She frowned slightly, as if replaying the day in her head. "I thought you'd already left."
"I almost did."
She apologized quickly, lightly, like it wasn't something that needed to linger. And I told her it was fine, because it was. We walked out together, but the sky had already darkened more than usual, the day having moved on without us.
That became a pattern.
Waiting, or almost waiting.
Meeting, but later than planned.
Walking together, but starting from different places.
Our conversations stayed the same.
We still joked. Still complained about school. Still shared observations that didn't matter to anyone else. But they happened in shorter bursts now, squeezed between responsibilities that seemed to multiply overnight.
Once, while we stood near the station, she checked the time twice within a minute.
"Are you in a hurry?" I asked.
"A little," she said. "I promised I'd be home early today."
"Oh."
She hesitated. "We can walk part of the way together."
"That's fine," I said.
And it was.
But when she turned off at a different street than usual, earlier than she used to, I stood there for a moment longer than necessary, watching her disappear into the evening crowd.
I told myself it was temporary.
Autumn had a way of sharpening things.
The sky looked clearer. The air colder. Sounds carried further. When trains passed, they felt louder, closer, as if reminding everyone that time was moving forward whether we adjusted or not.
One evening, she texted me later than usual.
Sorry. Club ran late. I'm exhausted.
I stared at the message longer than I needed to.
It's okay, I typed back.
Get some rest.
She replied with a simple emoji. Nothing more.
I put my phone down and realized, not for the first time, that I'd been holding it the entire evening.
We didn't stop meeting.
That part is important.
We still crossed paths. Still shared moments. Still stood beside each other at the crossing while the bell rang and the barrier lowered. Still stopped at the convenience store when time allowed.
But the moments had edges now.
They began and ended more clearly.
One night, as we walked home under the streetlights, she talked about something that had happened during club—someone new joining, someone else leaving. I listened, nodding, but my attention drifted to the space between her words.
The pauses felt longer.
"You're quiet," she said.
"Am I?"
She glanced at me. "A little."
"I'm just tired."
She accepted that easily. "Me too."
We walked the rest of the way without speaking.
At the corner where we usually parted, she stopped and adjusted her bag strap.
"I might be busy tomorrow," she said. "I'll let you know."
"Okay."
She looked like she wanted to say something else. Or maybe I imagined that. After a second, she smiled and waved lightly before heading off.
I stood there, listening to her footsteps fade, the street emptying behind her.
Later that night, I opened my notebook and tried to study. The words blurred together. My thoughts kept returning to small things—how often she checked the time now, how quickly she packed up, how often plans ended with maybe instead of definitely.
None of it felt serious enough to question.
And that, more than anything, unsettled me.
Autumn continued quietly.
Leaves gathered along the sides of the road. The air cooled further. Jackets replaced short sleeves. Our routines adjusted again and again, each time just slightly out of sync.
We didn't talk about it.
There was nothing to talk about.
Still, I began to recognize the feeling that accompanied the end of our days together—a faint sense of incompleteness, like a sentence that stopped too early. Not wrong. Just unfinished.
One evening, standing alone at the crossing after she'd already gone, I realized something.
This was the first time I'd noticed the separation while it was happening.
Not years later.
Not after it had settled into memory.
But right then.
And even then, I didn't know what to do with that awareness.
I only knew that autumn had arrived,
and with it, the quiet understanding that things no longer moved at the same pace.