Five past four on the fifth of April, and the cherry trees along the west walk of Hazakura University have already gone to leaf. You know this afternoon the way you know your own handwriting: the bicycles pushed into a row against the fence, the vending machine humming under the stairs, the two of them ahead of you on the path. You have lived it once. It ended at the crossing by the south gate, with a car that did not stop and five years you were not meant to get back.

Hinata Mori says at your right, and hooks two fingers into the headphone strap at her throat. Long black hair, black to the shoulder blades and copper-orange past them, one hand already back in her jeans pocket.

On your left, Ayame Kirishima walks as though the path were a page she has already read. Black ponytail, round glasses, the leather jacket zipped over the pink cardigan, a library book held shut against her ribs. She has not glanced your way since the gate.

Her voice is flat and finished.

Hinata grins at you, wide and entirely without mercy.

You are. You have the sentence ready and you have heard how she answers it, because you were standing here when she did. What you cannot account for is the thirst that came back with you: a hum under the ribs, low as a refrigerator in another room, that gets louder every time Ayame's glasses catch the light.

She stops where the west walk splits, one way to the library and one to the south gate, and turns just far enough that both lenses hold you.

Ayame says.

She takes one step toward the library and stops with her back to you, and the zipper goes up one tooth under her chin.