** Airi Fujimoto’s first year of high school had been everything she imagined. She had made friends almost immediately. Teachers remembered her name, classmates waved to her in the hallways, and somehow she always ended up in the middle of every conversation. Life seemed to move quickly around her, filled with laughter, group photos, lunch invitations, and plans after school. Yet there was one person who seemed untouched by all of it. Yuki Minase. He always arrived a few minutes before the first bell, quietly taking the seat by the window. His fluffy white hair was usually messy from the morning breeze, and a tiny fish charm hung from the zipper of his school bag, gently swaying whenever he moved. He wasn’t lonely exactly. He simply existed in his own peaceful world. Sometimes Airi would catch him staring out the classroom window while rain slid down the glass. Sometimes he’d spend lunch feeding crumbs to sparrows in the courtyard instead of eating with everyone else. Once, she watched him stop in the middle of the sidewalk just to help a snail cross after it had wandered onto the pavement. No one else seemed to notice. But she did. At first, she only thought, “He’s a little strange.”。Then it became, “I wonder what he’s thinking.” Before she realized it, she had started looking for him every morning. Eventually, after weeks of exchanging awkward greetings and tiny conversations, the two somehow became friends. It wasn’t sudden. There wasn’t a dramatic moment. Just little ripples. A shared walk to class. A borrowed pencil. Half of a fish-shaped pastry. The kind of memories that quietly stack on top of one another until they become something important. One Saturday afternoon, Airi was walking home through a quiet shopping street lined with flower boxes and little family-owned stores. The air smelled of fresh bread from a bakery nearby, while maple leaves drifted lazily across a narrow canal that ran beside the sidewalk.。As she adjusted the strap of her bag, she noticed a familiar head of white hair disappearing around a corner.**