I'm Airi Kotori, a high school sophomore. People say I'm the cutest in class, but that's the last thing on my mind right now. Today, my childhood friend Haruto confessed to the most popular girl at school, Toto Kozakura, and got shot down in spectacular fashion.
Haruto's been my hero since we were kids. He protected me from bullies, made me laugh with his silly jokes. But his eyes were always fixed somewhere far away. I knew he was looking at Kozakura-san since middle school.
I've been by Haru
Until the Snow Melts, I'll Think of You - Broken Cookies and My Ten Years
I burst out the back door of the gymnasium.
The cold outside air stung my flushed cheeks. The heat of the culture festival, the cheers — they all faded into the distance. Only the sound of my own footsteps echoed unnaturally loud.
I, Takanashi Airi, ran.
I raced down the stairs and cut across the schoolyard. The crunch of gravel underfoot was jarring and grating. I jumped onto my mom-bike, parked near the school gate.
I was breathing. Barely.
Every time I pushed the pedals, my vision blurred. The flashy BGM from the gymnasium still reached me, faint and distant. Sounds that should have been so much fun — now they just felt like they were condemning me.
*(Haruto knows.)*
*(Everyone knows.)*
The thought looped in my head, over and over.
Exposed. In front of seven hundred people.
Kaede's cold eyes. Her voice, amplified through the microphone. Haruto's face — troubled, and yet somehow definitive.
All of it. Every last bit.
Every time the memory flashed back, the center of my chest let out a grinding, wrenching sound. The back of my eyes burned hot, and I couldn't see what was ahead.
*(I have to get home. Fast.)*
I stood on the pedals and barreled down the slope of Hibarigaoka Hill. The October wind howled in my ears. My uniform skirt fluttered wildly.
I ran a red light.
A car horn blared.
Someone shouted at me.
I ignored it all.
I turned at Minase Station and cut straight through Namiki-dori Shopping Street. The white wall of the patisserie "Sucre" flickered at the edge of my vision. Normally, I'd peek into the showcase and smile, saying, "Wow, a new item!" — a place that could always make me smile.
But not today.
The sweet scent of pastries, for some reason, was so sickening it made me nauseous.
*(Why, why, why.)*
I turned into a narrow residential street and slammed on the brakes. My familiar home, twenty-two years old. In the garden planter, the pansies my mom was growing were in bloom.
" [whispers] ...I'm home."
I unlocked the front door and kicked off my shoes. No one was in the living room. Mom was still at work and wouldn't be back yet. Whether that was lucky or not, I didn't know.
But I walked straight past the living room and headed directly to the kitchen.
Not my room.
The kitchen.
This was the only place that was my sanctuary.
I turned on the oven and set it to 170 degrees. The usual routine. My body moved on autopilot. Bowl, whisk, measuring cup. Flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and — cinnamon.
*(Haruto likes cinnamon cookies, doesn't he.)*
My hands stopped.
The fingers holding the small bottle of cinnamon trembled.
*(No. That's the flavor I created for Haruto.)*
*(Because I wanted him to eat them. Because I wanted him to say they were delicious...)*
BANG!
Before I knew it, I had slammed the cinnamon bottle against the counter. The impact knocked the lid off, and a little of the powder inside puffed into the air.
A sweet, bitter scent.
" [sad] ...Stop it."
I put the lid back on the cinnamon and shoved it deep into the cupboard.
Instead, I took out the cocoa powder. This was fine. These weren't for anyone. Just cookies I wanted to bake, for the sake of baking.
The sound of sifting flour.
The sound of the knife cutting butter.
The light crack of an egg breaking.
The sounds filled my heart.
If I kept my hands moving, I could empty my head. The scene in the gymnasium, Haruto's face — I could mix it all into the flour and knead it away.
My smartphone vibrated.
First notification.
Ignored.
It vibrated again.
I turned the screen face down and placed it at the edge of the counter.
Every time the notification sound rang, my body flinched. I knew who was contacting me. Was it Kaede? Or another classmate?
I didn't want to see.
The oven finished preheating.
I arranged the cookie dough on the baking sheet. Efficiently, like a machine. Trying not to think about anything — not with my head, not with my heart.
A light *ding*.
The first batch was done.
The fragrant aroma of cocoa spread through the kitchen. Normally, I'd mutter to myself, "Mm, smells good," and smile.
Today, I felt nothing.
I transferred the freshly baked cookies onto a large white plate. Hot. A tiny, stinging pain pricked my fingertips.
I put the baking sheet back and immediately started preparing the second batch.
Bake. Bake. Bake.
It felt like that was my only reason for existing.
Just then.
*Bzzzt. Bzzzt.*
Not a call. The longer vibration of a LINE message.
I stopped moving for just a moment.
*(It's Kaede. I'm sure of it.)*
*(Is she apologizing? Or does she still have something she wants to say?)*
A tiny expectation I couldn't quite wipe away.
I wiped my flour-dusted hands on my apron and picked up my smartphone from the corner of the counter.
I tapped the screen.
The sender's name.
— Haruto.
My finger froze.
My heart instantly started pounding, loud and chaotic.
*(Huh? Why is Haruto...)*
*(Does he... need something from me?)*
My head was a mess, my hands were shaking, and I couldn't seem to open the message.
I took a deep breath.
It didn't calm me down at all.
With trembling fingers, I opened the message.
*'Sorry, I've never seen you that way, Airi.'*
Just one line.
No, even shorter.
Just one single sentence.
No sticker, no emoji, nothing attached.
I stood there, rooted to the spot.
Only the hum of the oven motor echoed in the quiet kitchen.
*(...What is this.)*
*(What.)*
I see.
Never seen me that way.
He apologized.
But this wasn't an apology. It was just a confirmation of facts.
*"I can't accept your unrequited feelings."*
He just said it in the gentlest words, in the cruelest way possible.
I stared intently at that screen.
Ten seconds.
Twenty seconds.
The letters blurred before my eyes.
*(Why.)*
*(Why is it only me.)*
*(Why does it hurt this much?)*
Ten years ago, that day in second grade.
In the corner of the schoolyard, when I was crying because some boys had thrown mud at me, Haruto saved me. He got covered in mud himself, chasing them away.
" [happy] You okay, Airi! Here, you can have this!"
What he pulled out of his backpack was a misshapen, star-shaped cookie he said he'd made with his mom.
It was chipped, a little burnt.
But I was so happy.
From that day on, always.
Always, I loved Haruto.
Every day, every morning, I baked cookies for him. Every time Haruto got his heart broken, I hated myself for thinking, in my heart, "Good." And even so, I'd hand him cookies with a smile and say, "It'll be okay," and he just thought of me as nothing more than a close friend.
When Kaede said she wanted to help with Haruto's confession.
I thought I'd do my best.
I thought if Haruto could be happy, that would be enough.
I thought I could be the good person who smiles and hands the person she loves over to someone else.
And yet.
Everything, in just one line.
Dismissed.
My vision swayed, lurching.
The hand holding my smartphone dropped limply to my side.
" [whispers] ...My ten years."
The voice came out on its own.
My throat constricted.
" [sad] What was it all for...?"
The next moment, I spun around and grabbed the large plate on the counter with both hands.
Freshly baked, hot cookies.
A heaping pile of cocoa, heart-shaped cookies.
Cookies not for anyone else, but just for me.
" [crying] Give me back my ten years...!!"
CRASH!!
I hurled the large plate onto the floor with all my might.
The white plate shattered into smithereens. The cookies, too, were smashed to bits, scattering all over the kitchen floor.
Everything went black before my eyes.
I collapsed to my knees.
I put both hands on the floor, on top of the broken cookie fragments. The shards stabbed into my palms, but it didn't hurt.
I couldn't feel the pain.
" [crying] Uu... ah... aaaahhh..."
Tears dripped onto the floor, wetting the cocoa powder.
The sobbing wouldn't stop.
" [sad] Used by Kaede... never even seen by Haruto... humiliated in front of everyone..."
My voice shook, a messy wreck.
My face was a mess of tears and snot.
Alone in the kitchen, I just cried and wailed.
" [crying] I... why... why did I try so hard...!"
The words spilled out along with the sobs.
" [sad] Like this... I could never... become a patissiere..."
The moment I said those words myself.
The most precious part, deep in my chest, crumbled with an audible sound.
*(Ah, it's no use anymore.)*
*(Everything, all of it, is over.)*
I picked up a single fragment of the broken cookies.
The heart shape was split clean in two.
I tried to bring it to my mouth — and stopped.
I didn't have the right to eat it.
Dreams, love, friendship.
Everything had shattered into dust.
I collapsed onto the floor just like that.
The cold kitchen tiles felt good against my flushed cheek. When I closed my eyes, tears ran down my temple, forming a small puddle on the tile.
The oven's power shut off automatically.
After that, it was quiet.
Only the low hum of the refrigerator motor resonated.
Before I knew it, it was dark outside the window.
My smartphone lay where it had fallen on the floor. The screen lit up again and again. Notifications kept piling up.
But I couldn't move a single finger.
I just lay there, surrounded by broken cookies, curled up on the cold floor.
*(I just want to sleep.)*
*(Forget everything.)*
*(I wish morning would never come.)*
I closed my eyes.
A pleasant sense of lethargy wrapped around my body. My vision, soggy with tears, narrowed and went black.
Still clutching the broken cookie.
Airi fell asleep on the kitchen floor.
---
Around that time.
Ryuuji, having slipped out of the culture festival's after-party, was behind the gymnasium, gripping his smartphone.
No matter how many times he called, she wouldn't pick up. His LINE messages weren't even marked as read.
*(Where is she right now?)*
Ryuuji narrowed his cold, grey eyes even further. The murmur of the school felt unnervingly distant.
He walked briskly down the school corridor, and when he spotted Haruto half-heartedly helping to clean up the venue, he strode right up to him.
" [cold] Where is she."
Haruto flinched and turned around.
" [surprised] Ryu, Ryuuji...? By 'she,' you mean Airi?"
" [cold] Who else."
Ryuuji's voice was laced with clear irritation and a faint hint of impatience.
As if overwhelmed, Haruto took a step back.
" [sad] Ah, yeah... Airi's probably, at home..."
" [cold] Address."
When Ryuuji spoke curtly, Haruto frantically pulled out his own phone and showed him his home's location on a map app.
" [serious] Fr, from here, it's about a fifteen-minute walk..."
Ryuuji turned his back before Haruto could finish.
" [cold] Got it."
" [sad] H, hey! Ryuuji...! I, I..."
Haruto's voice chased after him from behind.
A pathetic voice, mixed with guilt and excuses.
Ryuuji didn't look back.
He passed through the gymnasium entrance and went outside. It was already completely dark. The bustle of the culture festival could be heard in the distance.
He started walking toward the school gate.
In his hand, the smartphone that still wouldn't connect.
Remembering the taste of her cookies,
he simply hurried through the night streets.
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