Hana Fujimoto woke up already tired.
Not the sleepy kind of tired. The emotional kind. The kind that sat on her chest like an invisible cat that refused to move. Still, she smiled at the ceiling anyway, because that's what she always did. Smiling was easier than explaining things. Smiling was quicker than thinking too hard.
"Hana! You're going to burn the toast again!" her mother shouted from the kitchen.
"I didn't even touch it yet!" Hana yelled back, rolling out of bed and nearly tripping over her own blanket. She recovered with a dramatic spin, arms flailing like she meant to do that on purpose. She did not. She never did.
Downstairs, chaos waited lovingly for her.
Her younger brother, Kenta, was slurping miso soup far too loudly, their father was reading the news with the intensity of someone defusing a bomb, and her mother was already on her third sigh of the morning.
"You're smiling way too early," Kenta said, squinting at her. "That's suspicious."
Hana stuck her tongue out at him. "You're suspicious."
"That makes no sense."
"Exactly."
Breakfast ended with Hana burning the toast anyway. She scraped off the black parts, told herself it added flavor, and ran out the door with crumbs in her hair. Her mother shouted something about remembering her lunch. Hana waved without turning around. She forgot it immediately.
At school, Hana was exactly who everyone expected her to be.
Loud. Bright. Laughing too much.
She greeted her friends with exaggerated enthusiasm, nearly knocked over a first-year student by accident, and apologized so profusely it became awkward. People liked her because she felt easy. Safe. Like sunshine that didn't ask questions.
But today, her attention kept drifting.
To him.
Aoi Takahashi sat under the cherry blossom tree again, pretending very badly not to exist. Hana noticed things. She noticed how he held his pencil like it was fragile. How he flinched when people got too close. How his ears turned red when someone said his name.
She noticed him noticing her.
It made her stomach do something stupid.
"Why are you smiling like that?" her friend Mika whispered. "You look like you just remembered an embarrassing dream."
"I do not."
"You do."
Hana looked away quickly, cheeks warm. "Shut up."
Classes blurred together. Hana answered questions too loudly, laughed at jokes that weren't funny, and tapped her pen against her notebook in an uneven rhythm. Her mind kept replaying the way Aoi had snapped his sketchbook shut at lunch, like she'd caught him stealing candy instead of drawing.
Cute, she had said.
Why had she said that?
At lunch, she found herself staring at the cherry blossom tree before she even realized her feet had taken her there. Aoi was alone, sketchbook open, shoulders hunched like he was bracing for impact.
Hana's heart thumped. Once. Twice.
"Mind if I sit?" she asked, already sitting.
Smooth. Real smooth.
He jumped like she'd fired a starter pistol.
Watching him panic made something inside her soften. She didn't tease him. She didn't push. She just talked. About clouds. About nothing. About everything that didn't matter but somehow felt important.
When she called him cute, she meant it. Not in a mocking way. Not in a flirty way she'd practiced in the mirror. She meant it in the quiet, honest way that scared her a little.
When lunch ended and she walked away, she didn't look back.
If she had, she might have lost her nerve.
The rest of the day dragged. After school, Hana stopped by a small bakery near her house. The owner knew her well enough to ask, "Who's it for this time?"
Hana blinked. "It's not for anyone."
The woman raised an eyebrow.
Hana bought the ingredients anyway.
At home, she tied her hair up, turned on music, and baked like her feelings depended on it. Flour dusted her cheeks. Sugar stuck to her fingers. The kitchen smelled warm and sweet and comforting.
Halfway through, she burned the first batch.
She laughed it off. Then stared at the ruined cookies a little too long.
Sometimes, when the house was quiet, the smile slipped. Just for a second. Thoughts crept in. Doubts. The fear that she was only fun on the surface. That if she stopped laughing, people would stop staying.
She packed the good cookies into a box, tied it with a ribbon she'd saved for no real reason, and held it against her chest.
"Get a grip," she muttered to herself. "It's just a boy."
But when she imagined giving them to Aoi tomorrow, her heart fluttered traitorously.
That night, lying in bed, Hana stared at her phone. No messages. No notifications. Just her thoughts being annoyingly loud.
She rolled onto her side and smiled into her pillow.
Tomorrow, she decided, she'd be brave too.
Even if her hands shook. Even if her heart raced. Even if she tripped over nothing again.