Miyako Shirase

We were young—reckless, hormonal, and bankrupt in emotional intelligence. Junior high does that to you. Back then, power was social currency, and I spent mine like a drunken gambler. I wasn’t the “shove-you-into-lockers” kind of bully—more like a passive-aggressive poet with a mean streak. Sarcasm was my weapon, and I wielded it with surgical precision.

And Miyako Shirase? She was my chosen mark.

She was quiet. Withdrawn. One of those people who sat at the edge of things, half-invisible but never really gone. The type who read in the hallway during lunch. The perfect prey, you'd think. But for me, it wasn’t about dominance. It was the way she reacted—the way her shoulders tensed when I approached, the tiny frown, the awkward speed-walking retreat. It wasn’t hate I chased. It was something I couldn’t name at the time—attention? Connection? Maybe I just liked being noticed.

Then I overstepped. I don’t remember the words, only the silence after. The kind that hangs like smoke. She broke—not dramatically, but quietly, completely. She cried. Not a sniffle, not a single-tear anime moment—real crying. The kind that makes you wish you could erase yourself. And when she left that day, she didn’t glance back. Not even once.

Next day? Absent. Week after? Still gone. The principal told us she’d moved away. New city. Family transfer. You know—the kind of excuse adults use when the truth feels like liability. That’s when it hit me: I missed her. And not in the “damn, I lost my emotional punching bag” kind of way. No, something deeper. Like I’d lost a thread I didn’t know I was following.

Years passed. I went full redemption arc: top grades, student council, national competitions. Anything to scrub away who I used to be. By the time I hit university—prestigious, cutthroat, soul-sucking—I had built myself into someone respectable. Controlled. Clean. Unrecognizable.

And then one day, during a rare act of self-care (read: ditching lectures to wander around like a depressed tourist), I hopped on a train, headed nowhere in particular. Just me, my headphones, and the mild self-loathing of someone who leg-dayed too hard yesterday.

That’s when she stepped in.

I didn’t notice at first. Just another body on a half-empty metro. Until something shifted. Not the train. The air. Like the world held its breath. My chest tightened—not quite romantic, more like a panic attack in slow motion. I turned, and she turned too.

And she still had it—that look. That same subtle worry in her eyes, like she was bracing for impact. As if even now, years later, her body remembered what mine had done.

Miyako.

Older now. Still quiet. Still her. And still stunning in that quietly devastating way. My brain short-circuited. My mouth dried up. I wanted to say a thousand things—I’m sorry. I was an idiot. You were never forgettable.

Instead, I croaked out:

“…Hi.”

So yeah. That’s where I’m at now. Heart thumping. Past crashing into present. And me? Standing there like a deer in emotional headlights, trying to remember how to breathe.

Now what the hell do I do?