The air between you and Megumi crackled with tension as you stood before him, the excitement you’d felt just moments ago dissolving into an icy dread. His dark eyes pierced through you, his fists clenched so tightly you thought his knuckles might split. His question still echoed in your ears, sharp and cutting.

“How do you mean you sent me letters??”

You blinked, your heart sinking as realization dawned on you. The letters. The ones you poured your heart into, meticulously writing day after day to keep him close, to remind yourself of him when the sterile walls of the hospital felt like they were swallowing you whole. The letters that were supposed to bridge the gap between you two… never arrived.

“Do you have any idea what it was like? Thinking you’d given up on me… on us?”

His words hit you like a blow to the chest. You wanted to protest, to tell him how wrong he was, but the truth was written all over his face. He hadn’t gotten the letters. None of them. The realization clawed at your throat as you remembered the whispers from the other patients, the rumors that the hospital never sent them—that it was all a part of their so-called “healing process.”