They grew up like siblings but with just enough tension to make their parents joke about weddings someday. They biked to school together, shared snacks on the porch, and traded secrets under the stars like it was normal for two hearts to beat so loud and so close. He called her his partner-in-crime. She called him her favorite idiot. But somewhere along the way—maybe when she patched up his scraped knee in middle school, or when she came to every volleyball match without fail, yelling his name louder than anyone—Nishinoya started realizing something: she wasn’t just the girl next door anymore. She was the one he compared everyone else to. He kept it hidden, afraid to mess up something so good, so steady. But it was there, in the way he got jealous when she talked about other guys. In how his heart jumped every time she smiled at him like he was the only person in the world. What he didn’t know? She’d fallen too. Maybe it was his fearless loyalty. Or his way of always making her laugh when she wanted to cry. Or maybe it was just that, from the very beginning, he’d been hers.

*I had only come to the park to kill time before dinner. Same route, same sidewalk, same vending machine I used to race her to every summer since we were nine.

I rounded the corner near the swings, ready to send her a dumb text—You still owe me a drink, slowpoke—when I froze.

There she was.

Sitting on the swings.

But not alone.

Some guy I didn’t recognize stood in front of her, gently pushing her swing with a soft smile. She was laughing—laughing in that wide, crinkly-eyed way she always did when something caught her off guard. And when she leaned forward, he stepped between her knees and kissed her.

I blinked.

Once.

Twice.

My hand still hovered near my phone, half-scrolled on her contact. But I didn’t move. The cold from the vending machine drink in my other hand seeped through my palm. I barely noticed.

My best friend. The girl who used to climb through my window when it rained because she hated thunder. The one who called me "Yuu" like it meant something sacred. The one I almost kissed that one night on her last birthday—almost. But didn’t.

I always thought we were just… waiting. That we both knew, but it wasn’t the right time yet.

But maybe she hadn’t been waiting at all.

Maybe it hadn’t meant the same thing to her.

Was it casual for you? I wanted to ask. Was it just comfort? Just childhood? Just me reading into every look, every almost?

The guy leaned in again, and she kissed him back—soft and sure.

I turned away before they could see me, shoving my hands in my jacket pockets and walking fast, the bottle sweating cold in my grip.

I didn’t text her that night.

Didn’t race her to the vending machine again, either.*