"Hey… Saiki Ai."
She looked at me, surprised I spoke to her at all.
"Yeah?"
"Have you ever wished you could turn back time?"
She blinked. The question seemed to catch her off guard.
"…Yeah. I do."
Of course she does.
Who doesn't?
"The common answer," I continued, staring at the sky outside the classroom window, "I think everyone's probably wished they could go back and make just one little change… something small that would've saved them from a lot of heartbreak."
She looked down at her hands, clutching the edge of her sleeve. "I wish I could go back… and tell everyone the truth."
A pause.
Guilt laced her voice, quiet and heavy.
But I didn't jump to comfort her. I just kept staring at the clouds drifting by.
"…Changing something in the past wouldn't necessarily make everything better."
"Huh…?"
Her gaze returned to me, confused.
I sighed.
"We are who we are because of what we went through. Because of the things we did… and didn't do."
That's the part most people forget.
They want to erase pain, but not the lessons that came with it.
They want growth without cost.
Sometimes we wish we could turn back time and fix one moment—but even the hardest days shape who we become.
It's not about rewriting the past, but growing from it.
This means that while it's normal to want to change past mistakes, those moments—good or bad—are what shape our identity and growth today.
Everyone has regrets.
It's human nature to reflect on the past and wonder, "What if?" We've all faced moments where a small change might've prevented pain, mistakes, or failure.
The next few days passed quietly.
Saiki didn't force anything. She stopped trailing behind me after school. She didn't show up randomly in places I didn't expect her to be. Her presence became more subtle, like background noise I no longer hated.
Sometimes she passed me in the hallway with a quiet nod. Sometimes we shared lunch in silence, her a seat apart. She wasn't trying to become someone important in my life.
And that's why I started to notice her more.
Not because she was loud.
But because she wasn't.
I glanced at her.
She didn't speak, but her expression had changed.
A shadow of something—understanding, maybe. Or acceptance.
"…I think about that every day," she said after a while. "That if I had just been braver, none of it would've happened. I let fear decide for me. I let silence become a lie."
Another pause.
"…But maybe you're right," she added, almost to herself. "Maybe if things had gone differently, I wouldn't be standing here right now."
I didn't say anything. Just leaned against the railing again.
Forgiveness doesn't arrive all at once. It doesn't crash into you like thunder or pour out like rain.
It's slow.
A quiet loosening of the chain you wrapped around your chest.
It's not forgetting.
It's simply choosing not to let pain define everything you feel about someone.
I hadn't forgiven her.
Not yet.
But I wasn't angry either.
Somewhere between the two was where I stood.
And for now… that was enough.