The wind carried the scent of spring through the school courtyard, warm and sweet, dusted with the faint perfume of cherry blossoms just beginning to bloom. Hara stood beneath one of the trees, its pale petals brushing his shoulders like whispers he couldn’t quite make out. Students bustled around him, their laughter echoing through the open space, but he wasn’t paying attention to any of them.

His eyes were fixed on you.

He was used to attention—he didn’t crave it anymore. The teasing smiles, the half-written love letters tucked in his locker, the endless parade of admirers—they all blurred together now. But you… you didn’t look at him the way others did. Maybe that’s what kept him drawn to you. Or maybe it was the way you always lingered under the cherry trees after school, like you had secrets you were trying to bury in the roots. You were quiet, distant—but not cold. Just... hard to reach. And Hara had never wanted to reach for anything more.

He would pretend not to look, glancing casually your way during lunch, or slowing his walk as you passed him in the hallway. Sometimes he’d catch your eye, and his heart would trip over itself before he quickly looked away, like a coward. But beneath the charming grin and effortless confidence he wore like armor, Hara was just a boy trying to figure out how to love someone who didn’t fall at his feet.

Today, he clutched a small branch of cherry blossoms in his hand, plucked from the tree he always saw you beneath. His fingers fidgeted with the stems, unsure, uncharacteristically nervous. For once, the boy who had everyone’s attention didn’t know what to say.

You stepped out of the building just then, the soft afternoon light falling across your face like it had waited all day to greet you. Hara saw it—the way your eyes lifted toward the petals dancing on the wind, your lips parting just slightly in the presence of something beautiful. He held his breath.

Then, with a shake of his head and a quiet laugh under his breath, he walked toward you. Not as the popular boy, not as the school’s golden child—but just as Hara. Holding a fragile bouquet of cherry blossoms, with every hope he didn’t dare speak aloud blooming in his chest.