Chapter 3

                                                                      A Cup Left Half Full

The cafeteria was unusually quiet for a Tuesday.

Sunlight filtered through the windows in golden streaks, dancing on half-filled trays and discarded notebooks. Most students had already left, their laughter fading into the corridors. Only a few tables remained occupied—scattered islands of solitude.

Renji sat alone near the corner, a steaming cup of milk tea between his palms. He wasn’t much of a tea drinker, but the warmth helped him think. Or maybe helped him not think too much.

He stared into the tea, watching faint ripples form and fade. The world had grown strangely loud inside him since Yui’s return. Her presence stirred something he wasn’t ready to name.

“Do you mind if I sit here?”

He looked up.

Amamiya Yui stood there, holding a cup of lemon soda and an unopened notebook. Her smile wasn’t forced, but it wasn’t casual either—it carried a silent question he couldn’t read.

Renji gestured to the seat across from him. “Sure.”

She sat, quietly placing her drink and book on the table. A soft silence followed—not awkward, but fragile, like a delicate thread stretching between them.

“I used to hate milk tea,” she said, glancing at his cup.

Renji raised an eyebrow. “Used to?”

She nodded. “Now I don’t know. Tastes change, right? Or maybe… people just forget what they liked.”

Renji didn’t respond right away. His fingers tightened slightly on the cup.

“I didn’t forget,” he said, voice low.

Her eyes flicked to his face, searching. “Forget what?”

But he didn’t answer.

The silence between them deepened.

Outside, wind rustled the trees. Somewhere in the hallway, a club announcement echoed faintly through the intercom. But here, in this little bubble of stillness, they sat—like strangers who almost remembered each other.

Yui opened her notebook but didn’t write. Instead, she glanced at him again. “You always sit alone?”

“Not always,” he said. “But often.”

“Why?”

He gave a half-shrug. “Quieter that way.”

“I used to write about people like you in my diary,” she said, tapping her pen on the cover. “Mysterious boys who hide behind windows and long silences.”

Renji smirked faintly. “That sounds embarrassing.”

“It is,” she laughed. “But maybe that’s what makes it honest.”

The conversation lulled again, but it was warmer now. Easier. Like a melody they hadn’t played in years but somehow remembered.

Yui took a sip of her drink. Then, almost hesitantly, she asked, “Did we ever meet before this?”

Renji froze.

The question hovered, delicate and sharp.

He wanted to answer. Every part of him screamed to tell her—about the umbrella, the rain, the forgotten day etched forever in his memory.

But instead, he looked at his tea.

And said, “Maybe.”

She didn’t push. She just nodded, and that was somehow worse.

Their cups sat between them, half-finished.

Not empty.

Not full.

Just enough to know there was more to come.

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