Morning hadn't arrived yet. Only a dim, unkind light from the corridor seeping through the door. My pillow was damp, the air thick with that sour trace of dried tears. I turned the phone in my hand; the screen glowed for a second, then went dark again, as if it was tired too. Out of habit, I scrolled back. Old messages, random photos, unread memories stacked in digital dust. Her name sat there, frozen above a thousand small talks, stickers, and emojis that once felt infinite.
I replayed them all.....not because I wanted to change anything, but because I wanted to understand why it meant so much.
The screen lit up with an old picture from a spring three years ago.
Sunlight on cafeteria tiles, her half-smile bright and certain, unaware of the rain waiting at the end of us.....and just like that, the past began to breathe again.
Spring had just begun to warm the concrete when I first met her. The air still smelled of chalk and new notebooks; sunlight poured through the windows in thin golden strips.Yuto leaned across the table, grinning. "She's vegetarian too," he said. She looked up from her tray, surprised, then smiled. "Oh. So I'm not the only one." We both laughed, and it felt like a small discovery the world had hidden until then.
That day passed like any other, but she stayed somewhere in the background of my thoughts, like the aftertaste of a song I couldn't name.
We began talking more.....first through the group chat, then private messages. Homework, cafeteria food, random rain, everything became an excuse. Her replies carried this gentle rhythm...lower-case words, unpunctuated but warm, like breathing through the phone. Sometimes we'd exchange songs, sometimes nothing but stickers, and still it felt like a conversation worth keeping.
By mid-May, our messages had become a small world of their own. I didn't call it love. It was something slower, safer - the comfort of a light left on in another room.
Then came that programming lab.
She'd messaged "Done. Disaster."When I called, her voice was so quiet I could hear the static more than the words.
"Everyone else got output. I just froze," she said."Hey, it's fine," I told her, trying to sound casual. "One bad lab doesn't define you.""You don't get it," she whispered. "I worked so hard."
I could picture her sitting on the edge of her bed, hoodie pulled over her knees, the blue glow of the monitor still on.
"Then cry," I said softly. "You earned that too. Just… don't think it means you're not good enough."
There was a long pause. I heard her breathe in, shaky, trying not to let it turn into a sob."I'm fine," she said finally."You're not," I replied, "and that's okay. You can rely on me if it ever feels too heavy."
The line went quiet again, but this time it was a different kind of silence...not emptiness, just two people letting the words settle.
That night, my phone lit up with a long message. She wrote that she hadn't realized words could feel like shelter, that it meant something when someone stayed on the line without rushing her.
I read it twice, smiling at nothing, pretending it was ordinary. But something in me shifted. Small, phosphorescent, impossible to name.