Happy?

It was spring break. We would only be back here-to this school, and to see these classrooms- for our graduation. Hiro and I...we have so many memories here. So many lost thoughts and abandoned feelings are cluttered in the halls, our kisses have been left for dead in the library, and Hiro is no where to be found. I wasn't going to ever come back here, this was goodbye. 

To my school. To the old life. To Hiro. To our baby in heaven. To that old love we had.

He is the bane of my existence, but yet he made me so happy. We knew that one day it had to happen, but we didn't expect it so soon; Hiro left me, trampled my heart and discarded any hope or trust we had in each other. 

On that day so long ago, I saw Hiro for the first time. He was fighting with Nozomu in the hallway, and Aya swore she would get Nozomu as her own. Sure enough they had fallen in love, or at least something that resembled it. Maybe Aya is thinking of him now, just as I am thinking of Hiro.

But I shouldn't dwell on that. I can't stick to things that happened in the past. My future is with Yuu. We'll be happy at university together. Maybe we'll even grow old together, have children and just...just be.

Happy. Sad. Sick. Rich. Poor. In love. Together. Forever. And happy.

Still I wondered. All that time together, all those days spent laughing, all those nights close to one another. Every day spent and lived to the fullest. I had been so full of joy- no sheer bliss-when I was with Hiro. But had he felt the same way?

Were you happy?

I wrote it on the black board in smooth letters even though my hand was shaking, my heart was quaking; I had to know. The wondering would kill me before I gave up on that question. 

When Hiro met me? When we talked on the phone, and he made me feel secure? The times we went to the spot by the river? When we were on the class trip? Hanging out with Aya and Nozomu? With me, when the baby was still here? Visiting together at Christmas time? Was there any day? Any time? Any place? Was he ever happy?

It was just a classroom. A plain space in an ordinary school, an ordinary town. Not a special place at all. By graduation they would have cleaned the boards, locked the doors. I won't be able to get in here. It's for the best, I think.

-----

The day of graduation arrived and we ran around; Aya and I. Talking with friends and celebrating the wonderful reality of moving on to our own lives. Laughter and tears filled the air, everything felt so free.

I suddenly remembered, near the end of our celebration, my silly writing. That stupid question I had written. It probably isn't there, I told myself, Someone has cleaned the boards already.

Still, I found myself wandering through the halls and soon enough, reaching my old classroom. What am I doing? This is stupid.... I thought as a slid the door open and stepped inside again. Aya was visiting Nozomu. It was a kind of graduation for both of us. 

We were leaving our old lives, old loves behind and going forward.

------

I stared at the chalkboard in shock. He had come back here? Had he missed me that much? No, I couldn't tell myself that; it just wasn't possible. If I did, there was no way Yuu and I would be happy together. No way I could graduate from Hiro. But...the board, it had paralyzed me.

Were you happy?

I was so happy.

Seeing that shook me out of my daze. Realizing that Hiro really did care. That he had been happy, at least a little bit. It made the pain of graduating greater. But at the same time it was less.

Tears leaked down my face and I covered my mouth. What we'd had, it was gone, I knew that.

We were moving on, graduating from things that no longer existed and pushing forward to a new future.