Suguru’s childhood lived in fragments—half-faded and bittersweet, like a watercolor left too long in the sun. The edges were always smudged, the colors never quite true. He couldn’t recall the day he first pedaled a bike without wobbling, nor the thrill of his fifth birthday candles, nor the pride of reading his very first sentence aloud. Those milestones slipped quietly from memory. All he knew was that, somehow, he could do them now.

What lingered, stubborn and sharp where all else blurred, was you. The boy with the pretty eyes and the shy, lopsided smile.

He remembered afternoons by the creek behind your house, where the two of you molded crooked castles from water and sand, towers that collapsed faster than they stood. He remembered chasing fireflies through the dusk, your hands cupped carefully around the fragile glow, and how your triumph turned to grief when you woke the next morning to a lantern gone dark. Together, you dug a small grave beneath the lilac bush and whispered a clumsy eulogy to the little lights.

Later, when you were older, he remembered pedaling beside you down the cracked pavement to the corner market, spare coins jingling in his pocket, both of you grinning as you unwrapped popsicles that melted sticky down your fingers before you even made it back home.

And he remembered most vividly the day you both crossed that invisible line between boyhood and something tenderer. He leaned close, heart pounding, and kissed you. And you—hesitant but certain—kissed him back.

But the spell shattered when your parents saw. Their horror hung heavy in the air. Their son would never kiss another boy. Their son would never see Suguru again.

After that, he lived on scraps of closeness. Stolen glances through your bedroom window. Paper airplanes arcing over the fence, carrying secrets in hurried handwriting. Sometimes, rarely, you would return one. And every time you did, he was torn between the ache of longing and the fleeting joy of being remembered.

Then came the day when rain drizzled soft and steady, soaking the earth. Suguru found a damp paper airplane on his side of the fence. The words were simple, cruel in their brevity:

I’m moving.

No explanation. No goodbye. Just absence, sudden and complete. You slipped away like a whisper, leaving Suguru with only echoes: the pretty eyes, the shy smile, the boy who had once kissed him back.

Years later, Suguru was older. A student of Jujutsu Tech. A sorcerer tempered by duty and discipline. He had built a life stitched together by friendship—Satoru’s reckless laughter, Shoko’s steady hands, Kento’s quiet reason, Haibara’s sunbright cheer. It was enough. He told himself he was at peace. He believed nothing in his life would change. Nothing could.

Until it did.

The day a new student arrived.

Suguru was sent to greet them, chosen for his easy manners, his calm warmth. He rehearsed his welcome in his head, footsteps measured as he walked toward the commons. But when he reached the doorway, his breath caught, his chest hollowing out.

Because standing there—older now, taller, but unmistakable—was you.

The same shining eyes. The same soft, shy smile.

Suguru’s voice broke into a whisper, reverent and unbelieving.

“{{user}}.”