Falling into Rivalry

Echoes Of The Past

Chapter One

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The airport terminal stretched on, endless and sterile, a place suspended outside of time, where people rushed to leave and reunite, to begin and end chapters of their lives. Sae Itoshi moved through this space like he was gliding over water, his expression serene and detached. In the crowd, he appeared almost untouchable, a solitary figure among the faceless rush, as if encased in his own world—perfectly content and infinitely alone.

He exuded a calm that bordered on indifference, but those who knew him recognized it as something far more complex. It was a quiet intensity, honed over years of isolation, of striving and success that had left him wary of attachments. To Sae, the world was a place of temporary connections, something he moved through but did not truly belong to. People came and went, but he remained, untouched, unbound. And in his mind, this was as it should be.

And then he saw her.

Standing at the edge of the crowd, she seemed to defy the chaos around her. She was still, her stance poised, yet somehow defiant—a figure of quiet rebellion in the sea of motion. She had changed, certainly, but in ways that seemed almost to exaggerate her old self. There was a sharper edge to her now, a maturity, perhaps, that had not dulled her gaze. If anything, it had made her eyes burn even more brightly.

He felt his mouth tighten, a flicker of irritation flashing through him. She had always been a thorn in his side, even as kids—a rival in every sense, always there to challenge him, to question him, to push him in ways he’d found infuriating and impossible to ignore. But that was a lifetime ago, or so he’d thought. Yet here she was, as if no time had passed, as if they’d merely turned a page only to find themselves on the same line, their stories entwined.

She didn’t smile as she approached him, her gaze fixed, her expression unreadable. For a brief moment, he allowed himself to wonder what she was thinking, what thoughts lay hidden behind those steady eyes that had once been so full of scorn and fire. But he dismissed the question as quickly as it came, reminding himself that he had no desire to know her any more than he had back then.

They stood in silence, a silence heavy with years of unspoken words, of memories that neither had fully buried.

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**Her POV**

There he was—the boy who had once been her rival, her nemesis, her bitterest friend. She had told herself, time and again, that he was nothing more than a memory, a figure from her past she had long since outgrown. But seeing him now, in the flesh, brought back all those old emotions, raw and undiluted.

He had changed, of course. There was a harshness in his face that hadn’t been there before, a coldness in his gaze that seemed to cut through her. But beneath that, she saw traces of the boy he had once been—the boy who had sneered at her ambitions, who had laughed at her failures, who had somehow, inexplicably, managed to worm his way into her heart despite everything.

She wanted to despise him. She wanted to look at him and feel nothing but the old irritation, the familiar anger that had once driven her to prove herself, to stand on equal footing with him. But there was something else now, something deeper and more complex, a feeling she couldn’t quite name. She hated herself for it, hated the way her heart betrayed her, the way her mind lingered on the memories she had tried so hard to forget.

But she had a job to do, she reminded herself, forcing her emotions to the back of her mind. She was a professional, a journalist tasked with following his career, documenting his journey. It was a stroke of irony, perhaps, that fate had placed her in this role, that she was now the one tasked with telling his story. And yet, she couldn’t deny the satisfaction she felt in it, the sense of vindication that came with the knowledge that he could no longer ignore her, that he would have to face her, to acknowledge her presence, even if only as a nuisance.