Before my eyes, a high, high wall appears before me, blocking my way.

Many strive to see the view from the top, but one cannot get there solitarily.

However, the sight at the summit was one I never wanted to see again.


"Sensei, what does it mean to be happy?" Saito Kaori leaned back in her seat with her arms crossed and her gaze fixated off to the side toward a lone window.

The man seated across from her looked up from their journal with a smile that did not feel too sincere. "Are you ready to go back to school?" he repeated, though she heard him the first time.

"How can you tell if someone is truly happy?"

He sighed, his face relaxing to the point where all she could see was pity. "What do you think happiness is?"

Of course, he would answer her question with another question.

She wondered if he could count the minutes and seconds it took for her to respond in the silence. Did they teach that kind of skill wherever he got his degree?

She closed her eyes, trying to picture some vague embodiment to the word."…it would be…the sun."

"Yes…well then, are you ready to be happy now, Kaori?"

She tilted her head over to him with narrowed eyes. "I don't believe in something as flimsy as that."


Kaori leaned against a tall privacy fence by the bus stop with her hands tucked away in the pocket of her hoodie, tracing the edges of a sealed acceptance letter. She tilted back her head against the bricks as she tugged her hood down further to shroud her face from the various passersby.

Nao's bus should be here any minute….

The slight breeze and fragrant smell of flowers reminded her that Spring had come. People usually went cherry blossom viewing, but the thought of it made her stomach churn.

Without rest, the seasons continued to change and bring out hateful, melancholic reminders of what had been lost to the waves of time.

Though, if she had to choose, she hated the smell of a fading Spring far more than the coming.

"

She was fourteen at the time.

The first term of her second year at Yukigaoka Junior High had just come to an end and summer vacation was a hot topic amongst the students. Most kids her age were eagerly making summer plans with their friends long before the bell even rang, but she was not like them.

The summer of her second year wouldn't be full of beaches and festivals or catching bugs in the forest.

"We can go to the sundae place you like and—" her boyfriend, Hinata Shoyo, rambled on about all the things they could do as Kaori's heavy thoughts slowly drowned him out.

As they took a shortcut through the park, Kaori hesitantly reached out and tugged on the back of his shirt. She couldn't bear to face him as her light brown eyes were glued to the ground and the lens of her red glasses began to fog up from the anxious heat generating from her body.

"Kaori-chan? Is something wrong?" When she didn't respond, he parked the bike he had by his side and took her by the shoulders, trying to get a good look at her face. "Are you not feeling well?"

She flinched, knocking away his hand as soon as he pressed it against her forehead. "A-Ah!" She fumbled, quickly grabbing the hand she slapped and pressed it against her cheek. Her messy brown locks successfully hiding part of her face from Hinata's line of sight. "Sorry…," she apologized, biting her lip to stop the tears that threatened to fall.

Hinata was a goof, sure, but he was surprisingly perceptive to those close to him. She couldn't afford to drag this out any longer. If she did, she would never be able to leave.

His thumb caressed over her cheek as if testing to see if she was crying while trying to comfort her.

She was frustrated. Why was she doing this to herself? To him of all people?

With a huff she blurted out the dreaded words any couple feared most, "I'm sorry, Shoyo-kun…. I-I'm breaking up with you."

The light breeze tickled by them through his messy orange locks and her two long, thin braids that reached down to her waist. Her glasses slowly eased their way down the bridge of her nose from the lack of stability.

"…what?" he asked as if he didn't hear her correctly. His warm hand tensed up between her hands and cheek before slowly slipping down into a strange, lazy handshake.

Kaori sucked in a deep breath, regretting what she was about to do next. She sent a silent prayer to any higher being listening to grant her the strength for the worst possible decision she would ever make in her life.

"Aren't you tired of this? Look, I can't be tied down by someone like you. I need to be able to spread my own wings and being stuck with you is just burdensome. Let's just end things here and pretend it never happened." She was surprised how clear she was able to say all that without stuttering, but the pounding in her heart and squeezing sensation pressing on her brain told her it was the adrenaline.

She retracted her hands, not sparing him a glance before she retrienved her bag from the basket of his bike and took off running.

A part of her hoped he would chase after her like he always did, but he didn't.

Why didn't he?

No, it was best he didn't.

He would most definitely convince her to take everything back and reassure her that they would be fine no matter what came between them.

And she would let him.

This was her only chance to break away.

Her head and her heart were raging at one another to run away versus run back into his arms. She settled for a final glance, figuring a small action such as that wouldn't hurt her any more than she already was.

She was wrong.

She saw the small figure of the boy she cared for with all of her being. The boy who showed her the true meaning of radiance in her small world. A part of her wanted to run to him and say it was all cruel joke, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She didn't have the confidence to go after him.

She was always the one being chased, never the chaser.

But he wasn't going to chase after her this time and that broke her further.

"Maybe…. I was the only one truly in love…," she whispered as she continued on her way.

The tears she held back fell freely as she promised herself not to look back again. She didn't want to remember the expression he had when she broke his heart to set him free.

"

Nearly two years had passed since that day.

Her long twin braids have long became undone and shorter, reaching past her shoulders as opposed to her waist.

The days following that awful afternoon were filled with darkness and the question of what would have happened if she had decided to properly explain her situation instead of coming up with a duplicitous breakup. Though, her actions were on-brand with her personality, always running from her problems.

She had moved from the Miyagi Prefecture in Northern Japan to Osaka, only to move back to Miyagi where her extended family sparsely made their residence. Per her uncle's request, she was to attend Shiratorizawa Academy, but a week into the new school year passed and she had yet to be released to return to school by her psychiatrist.

That was, until earlier that day.

The nerve of that man, thinking he understands me.

The sound of the bus honking to announce its arrival tore her from her thoughts. She pushed herself off the brick fence as passengers filed out of the public transit.

For the first time that day, she smiled, spotting a mop of messy brown hair descending down the steps. She made her way over and threw her arms over his shoulders, towering over him with her height. "Welcome back, Nao."

Her younger brother, Saito Naoko, grumbled, somehow able to manage her weight on him as they made their way home. Upon arriving, their mother was in the living room, folding laundry. Kaori released Naoko, complaining how she was planning on finishing up the clothes when she got home.

"I couldn't help it," their mother laughed, but Kaori could sense a hint of sadness laced in. "I wanted to iron this before it got wrinkled." She held up the white and purple uniform of Shiratorizawa Academy.

Kaori reached into her pocket where the letter was, hesitant to show it to her mother.

"Nee-san, do you really want to go to Shiratorizawa?" Naoko asked, catching her off guard.

"Why wouldn't she?" her mother panicked. "They have the best academics in the entire prefecture, not to mention their girls' team goes to Nationals every year. They usually place within the top five." Kaori's face darkened and her mother flinched, realizing her mistake. "T-That is if she decided she would like to play again. A-Anyways, it's not easy getting into Shiratorizawa even with how diligent she's been with her studies lately. Make sure to thank your uncle when you see him, Kaori."

She didn't see the point in attending classes when she could just get accommodations to study from home. She had no interest in mingling with her classmates either when it would only lead to a headache on her part.

Despite all this, she couldn't completely ignore the fact that her family was worried. They compromised and accommodated her over and over to the point where she felt smothered. They jumped circles around her as if one wrong move would shatter her.

Even then, she was ready to throw it all away.

"That's good and all…but wouldn't it be better for her to go somewhere that'll actually make her happy?"

There it was again. Happy.

Kaori couldn't understand why everyone was so keen on finding happiness when it would inevitably turn into pain. Three minutes had pasted since she tuned out their conversation, mulling over her brother's statement until she found a painful answer. When she was younger, she had dreamed of going to Karasuno High School despite the pressure from her father's side of the family to attend Shiratorizawa Academy. Karasuno was the school of her early life's memories and the place where ghosts filled the halls of her parents' love story.

The version of her in the present though…

"Kao-chan…," her mother called out to her, hesitantly shaking her by the shoulder. "Do you want to change schools?"

She looked from her mother to her brother, his eyes confirming the answer she knew to be true.

If Naoko wanted her to go to Karasuno, then she will do as he wished. After all, she only decided to throw herself back into the claws and fangs of adolescent schooling because of him.