Day 89.
Summer was approaching.
The air was warmer.The uniforms felt heavier.And the days… somehow shorter.
It wasn't even June yet, but I could already smell salt from the distant sea—the kind that clung to your skin and stayed long after you left the shore.
And today, for the first time,I remembered a summer that didn't exist anymore.
Flash.
A boy and a girl.
Barefoot. Running through shallow water.Her hair was tied in two braids. His shirt was too big for him.They laughed.She tripped.He pulled her up again.They sat on the rocks until the sky turned pink,and he whispered something only the wind remembered.
"Let's stay like this forever."
And then—silence.
The memory ended.
I sat up, breath shallow.
"Ren," I said during lunch, "did we ever go to the sea together when we were little?"
He froze.
"Yes," he said slowly. "We did."
"Did we promise to stay together forever?"
He looked at me with a pain I couldn't read.
"…You did."
That evening, I opened my notebook.
But something was wrong.
There were words missing.Sentences half-erased.Smudged ink I didn't remember writing.
"Day 89.I forgot where I put my own notebook.Ren found it in my bag.I didn't remember putting it there."
I tried to stay calm.
But the truth came quietly—like the tide pulling at my ankles:
It's starting.
Later, I found Ren by the vending machines.
He was leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets, eyes low.
"I'm slipping," I said softly.
He nodded.
"I know."
And then I asked what I never thought I'd say:
"When the time comes…and I forget everything—will you tell me who I was?"
He looked at me.Then slowly nodded.
"I'll remind you every day.Even if you forget me ten thousand times.I'll still be here."
That night, I looked out my window at the sky,wondering how many stars I'd forget.
Wondering how many more memories I could fit into 89 days.
Wondering how it was possibleto feel so full of loveand so afraid of lossat the same time.
"That summer never came again.But maybe…something just as beautiful is happening now."