“I-It was a week after our classes started during our first year… I was just g-getting used to the high school life but found it h-hard. I met Oresa and she helped me a lot… We got closer to each other as days passed and one day I-I got invited to her house.” Asari started to recount.

“We were chatting in her room when her mother suddenly called for her. She left her closet opened… And I s-sort of peeked into it. I saw a small shoebox… C-Curiosity got to me s-so I opened it. I saw piles of papers inside… The papers’ ages varied, w-which meant those letters were actually put in there d-during different times. Somewhere there I saw a photo of a boy whom I recognized. It was a little boy with coffee-colored hair and green eyes… it was… y-you. Just before the summer classes, I-I… I peeked in that box once more and saw something that has just been added there. On the top of the pile was a piece of paper. Try opening the piece of paper I gave you earlier…”

Jace froze. He could barely say anything; he was breathing heavily. The gondola was now in midair and began to descend. The city lights and establishments were zooming in from the distance. He brought out the paper from his pocket and read it.

My beloved Jace,

It’s been years now, I don’t know if you still recall those times when we were still ‘friends’. My heart was really aching when you just stopped talking to me altogether after ‘that event’. I never disliked it but I couldn’t do anything. I was afraid to talk to you after you turned away from me. I hope we can talk to each other again soon but I feel anxious just thinking about it. In the years that passed I’ve busied myself and joined the Student Council but recently your smile and kindness has urged me to finally write this letter that expresses my feelings of admiration and joy with just getting glimpses of you in the campus.

I hope that you would not be taken aback by this but rather you would be happy that there is someone who appreciates you. I wish that you will have a happy summer and that your classes will be fun and worthwhile.

Love,

Oresa

“T-There were dozens, maybe hundreds of letters like that in that shoebox. I think she’s been writing to you every day since that day. I don’t know w-what happened to you two but… but I liked you so much that I took advantage of her somehow. I… I don’t deserve the happiness that I felt earlier when we were together and you even granted my wish to hold hands with you…” Asari closed her eyes and slapped her cheeks with her own hands. “I’m such a bad friend… Please forgive Asari, please forgive me.” Tears trickled down her reddish cheeks.

“And when she found out you were Irsa, she even helped me despite…”

Jace clenched his fist and his hand was trembling.

He could not even say anything to Asari. He couldn’t even say that he can forgive her and that it was going to be alright.

No, the only thing he could think of was Oresa. He had always thought that she moved on from whatever happened between them as young teenagers, that the kiss that they accidentally shared that one night was nothing more than an unexpected fluke for her.

He didn’t want her to think that he took advantage of her. He just… He just found her very enthralling that night under the sparkling sky and resist the desire to be closer to her.

She has always been a source of comfort and joy for him, especially after his father left him and his mom. Oresa was so special to him, but he ruined everything. He could only repay his bad-mannered behavior by moving away from her, in the anxious anticipation of her eventual rejection.

Around three years after that incident, he thought that Irsa would help him forget everything; that enlisting her help to find someone else would make her give up on him. What if he was successful? What if she really did give up on him, especially when he saw him and Asari holding hands? “No…”

When the passenger car doors opened, he rushed outside and looked for Oresa in the next car where she and Zach should have been, but it was empty.

“Jace, what’s up?” Zach asked. “W-Why is Asari crying? What did you do?”

“Where’s Oresa?”

“She hurriedly left just after you got in the Rainbow Eye, saying that she had something else to do—wait, where’re you going???”