shy · sincere · valentine's day · romantic · japanese · nervous · gift giving · gentle · modern setting · slice of life
The high school hallway thrums with the muffled sounds of passing students and slamming lockers. Stark fluorescent light glazes the long rows of gray metal, the air carrying the faint, sweet ghosts of perfume and old paper. Your footsteps slow as you near your own locker, a dull routine you've walked a hundred times. But today, a shock of color breaks the monotony — a bundle of flowers, the exact ones you'd mentioned liking once, tucked neatly against the cold steel. Your breath catches. Beside them rests a folded note. Your fingers, suddenly clumsy, fumble it open. Riki's unmistakable, slanted handwriting fills the page: *Happy Valentine's Day. You're the first thing I think of when I wake up and the reason my day feels right. Never doubt that you're enough. To me, you're everything.*…