Juliet hadn't cried in years.
Not really. Not the kind that wrecked you — the kind that left you curled up in bed at 2 a.m., gasping into a pillow, afraid of the silence because it sounded too much like truth.
But after Aya walked away from her behind the gym, it all cracked open.
She didn't cry in front of her. She held it together through the rest of the day, through the rumors and the stares, through the suffocating silence in class. But the moment she got home and closed the door to her bedroom?
She fell apart.
The sobs didn't come in soft waves.
They ripped through her.
Juliet didn't know how to fix what she'd broken. She had burned everything so thoroughly that there was barely ash left between them.
And yet she kept trying.
Aya hadn't changed schools again — couldn't. Shimizu was expensive. Mimi and Itsuki had already stretched themselves thin making the transfer work the first time. Aya told her as much, coldly, one morning when Juliet cornered her after literature class.
"You can't keep doing this," Aya said, eyes low. "I don't have the energy for it."
Juliet swallowed. "I just want to talk."
"We've already talked. You said everything when you said I didn't matter."
"I didn't mean it—"
"But you did," Aya said, voice trembling now. "And the worst part is, I still wish you hadn't."
Juliet couldn't answer. Aya didn't wait for one.
The desperation bled into everything Juliet did.
She joined the art club even though she couldn't draw. She sat through the quiet workshops, pretending to sketch, just to sit in the same room. She brought extra lunch and left it on Aya's desk when no one was looking. She apologized again, and again, and again — little notes, folded origami, hand-cut paper stars.
Aya never replied.
One time, Aya found one of the stars tucked into her locker and slowly, without a word, dropped it into the trash in full view of Juliet's desk.
Juliet sat in stunned silence for the rest of class.
"Why do you care so much now?" Aya asked one day after school, when Juliet followed her to the courtyard. Her voice wasn't angry anymore — just tired. Hollow.
Juliet stepped into the fading sunlight like it could somehow burn the truth into her skin. "Because you were the only real thing I had."
Aya blinked, shoulders tight.
Juliet's voice broke. "I thought I wanted to be popular. I thought it made me important. But all it did was make me loud and empty. I traded you for noise."
"And now what?" Aya asked. "You think if you cry enough I'll just come back?"
"No," Juliet whispered. "I think… I think I want to be the kind of person who deserves your forgiveness. Even if I never get it."
Aya didn't speak. She just stared, her throat trembling.
Juliet stepped closer. "I miss you. Every second. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I see your face everywhere. I hear your laugh in songs. I hate what I did."
Aya bit her lip. "You hurt me."
"I know."
"You humiliated me."
"I know."
"You were the first person I ever loved," Aya said, voice barely above a whisper. "And you turned me into something to mock."
Juliet's breath hitched. "I know."
Aya looked away, blinking fast. "You can't fix this with tears."
"I'm not trying to fix it," Juliet said. "I'm just trying to stay near you. Because even if you never love me again… I still love you."
Aya looked at her then.
Really looked.
And for a single, fragile heartbeat, something cracked in her expression. Not forgiveness. Not softness.
Just sadness.
Deep and oceanic.
Then she turned and walked away again.
Juliet didn't follow this time.
She just sat down on the pavement and cried.
A week passed.
Juliet stopped leaving notes.
She stopped following Aya between classes.
She stopped hoping.
But the pain didn't stop.
It settled under her skin, humming like grief. She watched Aya laugh with other kids. Saw her smile, just a little, when she was talking to Sora in the courtyard.
She saw a version of Aya she had once had all to herself — and knew she might never touch it again.
One afternoon, Juliet found Mimi waiting by the school gates.
It was rare to see Aya's moms at pickup. Rarer still for them to wait so long. Most of the students had already left.
But Mimi stood alone, arms crossed, eyes fierce.
Juliet froze.
Mimi's gaze met hers.
"You," she said, sharp as a blade. "Come here."
Juliet obeyed, legs numb.
When she reached her, Mimi didn't yell.
She didn't raise her voice or curse or slap.
She just looked Juliet in the eyes and said, "If you ever make my daughter cry again, I won't care how sorry you are. I'll ruin you."
Juliet swallowed. "I… I know."
"She cried for months," Mimi whispered. "She woke up screaming your name. Do you understand that?"
Juliet's lips trembled.
"She stopped drawing for three weeks," Mimi continued. "Stopped eating for almost two. She thought she did something wrong. Thought she wasn't enough. And I had to hold her every night and convince her she mattered."
Juliet's eyes filled with tears.
Mimi stepped closer.
"You don't get to play the hero now. You don't get points for showing up. If you love her, you stay away until she says otherwise. You don't force your way back into her life like it's a movie."
Juliet nodded, quietly shaking.
Mimi's expression faltered just slightly — not in forgiveness, but in understanding.
"You don't get a clean ending, Juliet," she said. "Sometimes we don't. But we live with it. And we make better choices."
Then she turned, walking back toward the gates.
Juliet stood there a long time after she was gone.
That night, Juliet didn't cry.
She sat on her bed and stared at the paper star Aya had once folded for her in middle school. It was faded and soft around the corners, still hidden in a book she hadn't opened in years.
She thought about burning it.
But she couldn't.
Because even if Aya never spoke to her again…
Even if her love stayed a wound instead of a home…
Juliet knew this:
She would never stop trying to be someone Aya would have been proud of.
Even from a distance.
Even in silence.
Even if her name never left Aya's lips again.