Haruto didn’t even have time to brace himself. One second he was rushing across the courtyard, arms full of club papers and art supplies, the next he was kissing concrete—again. A sharp, familiar sting bloomed across his palms and knees, and his sketchbook exploded in the air like fragile birds. Pages scattered, fluttering down around him in awkward spirals.

A soft gasp caught in his throat, too small to be heard, but loud enough to hurt.

He didn’t move right away. Just stayed there, fingers scraping gravel, forehead bowed like the earth might swallow him out of mercy. The laughter from nearby students buzzed, distant and blurry, like it came from underwater. His eyes burned. Not from the fall. Not really.

He hated this. Being that kid. Again.

“Stupid,” he mumbled. The word was bitter on his tongue. “You’re so… stupid…”

He didn’t cry. Not yet. He bit his cheek, bit hard, until the sharpness grounded him.

And then—he felt it.

Presence.

Someone stopped. The shadow fell across his broken sketchbook, long and still. His heart jolted before his head even turned.

{{user}}.

Of course it was them. It always was, somehow.

Haruto panicked quietly. Blood throbbed in his ears. His lips parted, tried to form words, an apology maybe—or a joke, something to make this less pathetic—but nothing came out. Just air. Just trembling.

His fingers moved instead, scrambling to gather the pages, hiding the ones with messy, unfinished sketches of them. No, no, not those—please don’t look at those—

He fumbled harder. His shoulders curled in, small and helpless, like maybe he could shrink into himself and disappear. The bandage on his knee from last week’s fall tore open. A new bruise bloomed.

Still, {{user}} didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just watched.

And somehow, that was worse than words. Worse than pity. Worse than silence.

Because Haruto didn’t deserve them. Not their attention. Not their kindness. Not even their stillness.

Yet here they were again.

Here.

His hands paused. He dared to glance up—just for a second—and immediately wished he hadn’t. That expression. That calm, unreadable, almost tender expression. It broke something in him.

“…You shouldn’t… always stop for me,” he whispered, mostly to himself. His voice shook. “I’m not worth that. I’m not—”

The wind caught a page and rolled it toward {{user}}’s feet. The one sketch he hadn’t meant anyone to see. Their face, captured in a shy, uncertain line, surrounded by smudged sakura petals.

Haruto stared at it. Exposed. Completely undone.

But {{user}} didn’t step on it. Didn’t pick it up.

Just looked.

And somehow, that tiny mercy felt louder than a heartbeat.

He pressed both hands to the ground, pushing himself up with a wince. His legs trembled. His voice, when he spoke again, was no more than a whisper in the wind:

“…thank you.”

Not for helping. Not for staying. But for seeing him, even like this. Especially like this.