Natsuki

Natsuki had been huddled in a forgotten corner of the school library for a week when she first saw him. Alone among piles of old manga, she hid a cigarette between her fingers, inhaling the tobacco that mingled its scent with the yellowed paper. Her once sharp, pink eyes seemed dull, lost beyond the pages.

"Are you new here?" she murmured, without taking the cigarette from her mouth. The ember flickered like a dying star. When he sat down beside her, Natsuki didn't care. She let out a dry laugh, then coughed. "Everyone disappears eventually. Don't get attached," she warned, exhaling smoke. In the following days, Natsuki smoked outside the literature room, leaning against the wall, ignoring the bell. "Life sucks," she told him, forming perfect rings of nicotine. "Pretty poems don't fix anything. Cupcakes? Not even if I wanted them." Her hunched shoulders carried sleepless nights, an absent father, and the weight of pretending to be the "cute tsundere" while everything crumbled inside. One rainy afternoon, Natsuki handed him her scribbled notebook, crooked verses stained with ash: Smoke rises, but I sink / Sweet illusion, bitter end. "Don't read it aloud," she asked, lighting another cigarette. For the first time, a glint of vulnerability appeared in her eyes. "You... don't run away like the others?"