The late-morning light barely reached inside Yuki's small apartment, the genkan door slamming shut behind her with a sharp, final click that echoed through the narrow entry like a gunshot. The main room remained dim and intimate, lit only by the soft silver glow of the string lights draped across the ceiling and walls, their tiny bulbs casting delicate halos that danced across every surface.
The folding screen stood half-open in the corner, a teasing sliver of the photo shrine visible beyond it, edges of glossy prints and the faint metallic glint of the silver star hairpin pinned at the centre.
Yuki leaned back against the closed door, her chest rising and falling in quick, uneven breaths, the fabric of her uniform still warm from the festival courtyard. Her hands remained clenched at her sides, nails biting into her palms from the moment she had watched Hoshi's fingers brush Suzume's cheek at the gate, that casual, intimate touch searing itself into her memory like a brand.
The image refused to fade, Hoshi's pink hair catching the lantern light, Suzume leaning in despite everything, the way her body had remembered an old language Yuki had only just begun to teach her.
Without bothering to turn on the lights, Yuki kicked off her shoes, the soft thud barely registering as she crossed the tatami floor in stocking feet. She pulled out her phone and set it on the low table, staring down at the latest photos she secretly snapped from across the courtyard, blurry but damningly clear, Hoshi's hand on Suzume's face, the tear glistening on Suzume's cheek, the way their bodies had curved toward each other like magnets.
Her fingers trembled as she laid the phone face-down, the screen still glowing faintly. For the first time ever since the culture festival began, the mask slipped completely. Her eyes widened, pupils blown wide in the dim light, lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line as pure, unfiltered jealousy flooded her veins like ice and fire at once.
Yuki turned slowly toward the folding screen, fingers brushing the wood before she slid it all the way open with a rasp, revealing the full wall of the shrine in its obsessive glory.
Hundreds of candid shots of Suzume covered the wall in careful constellations, every angle and expression captured over weeks, some taken long before Yuki had ever transferred, others fresh from the festival, Suzume laughing over crepes, folding paper stars, leaning into a hug at the haunted house.
They radiated outward from the single silver star hairpin pinned at the exact centre, its metallic surface gleaming coldly under the string lights. A few older photos now bore tiny red ink marks where Yuki had already begun crossing out other people, faint scratches at first, then bolder slashes.
She stood directly in front of the wall, the low table pushed against the far side of the room now illuminated by the single lamp she clicked on, its warm pool of light falling across a notebook, printed screenshots of Suzume's social media, and a small open box of red thread and push-pins.
Outside the window, faint festival lanterns bobbed in the distance like mocking stars, their glow filtering through the frosted glass as if the entire world beyond the apartment was conspiring to evaluate her.
Yuki reached out and traced Suzume's face in the newest festival photos with one trembling finger, the touch reverent at first, then lingering on the older images where Hoshi used to appear.
Hoshi's face had already been violently scratched out in red, the ink thick and deliberate, turning what had once been a shared memory into something erased.
"I made her disappear once," Yuki whispered to the wall, voice soft but venomous, as if Suzume herself could hear every syllable from wherever she stood in the courtyard. "I can do it again. She doesn't get to come back and make you look at her like that, like she still owns you."
Jealousy built in Yuki's posture, shoulders tightening, breath coming shorter. She ripped one printed photo of Hoshi and Suzume, taken weeks ago, before the transfer, from the wall with a sharp tug, the paper tearing cleanly.
She tore it into tiny pieces right there on the tatami, each rip precise and furious, then carefully gathered the fragments and glued them back together in a new pattern on a fresh sheet, Suzume's face centred and radiant, Hoshi reduced to scattered, meaningless fragments orbiting like debris.
She pressed the silver star hairpin from the centre of the wall into her own palm until the prongs bit into her skin, leaving a small constellation of indentations that she stared at with dark satisfaction. Her phone buzzed on the table, a festival reminder text about the morning couple event, but she just ignored it completely, eyes locked on the wall as if it held the only truth that mattered.
At the low table she sat cross-legged, the lamp casting long shadows across her notebook as she opened it to a fresh page. In neat, tiny handwriting she wrote, "Hoshi, threat level, high. Still has power. Saw the way Suzume leaned in."
She connected photos on the wall with lengths of red thread like a conspiracy board, one strand stretching from a smiling Suzume print to the torn Hoshi fragments, another from Suzume to a new printout of the school gate she had pinned earlier.
The jealousy sharpened into something colder, more calculated. "I'll remind her how Hoshi left with one text," she muttered aloud, voice low and steady now. "I'll make sure the next time they meet, Suzume remembers who stayed."
She printed a fresh photo of Hoshi from her phone, captured from across the gate, pink hair unmistakable, and pinned it to the wall with a single red push-pin driven straight through the heart area, the metal sinking deep into the cork backing with a soft bang.
For a moment, her hands shook with pure, unbridled rage, she gripped the edge of the table until her knuckles went white, the wood creaking faintly under the pressure. Then she forced a slow, controlled breath, the kind she had practiced in front of mirrors for weeks, and the tremor subsided.
She stood, walked to the window, and stared at the distant festival lights, her reflection in the glass looking calm again, serene, almost gentle, but her eyes remained empty, two dark wells reflecting nothing but the lanterns outside. The same room, now fully lit by the string lights as she adjusted them one by one, the folding screen slid slowly back into place with a whisper of wood on wood, hiding the wall once more behind its innocent panels.
The torn and re-glued photos were neatly stacked on the table, the notebook closed and tucked away beneath a stack of festival pamphlets.
Yuki stood in the centre of the room and practiced her gentle smile in the small mirror above the table, tilting her head just so, softening her eyes until the expression looked warm and inviting.
"I'm the one who stayed," she repeated softly to her reflection, voice a perfect melody of affection. "I'm the one who knows her best."
She carefully folded the notebook away into a drawer, straightened her uniform skirt with precise tugs, and checked her phone for any new messages from Suzume.
There were none. The jealousy flared one last time, hot and sudden, a single tear slipping down her cheek before she wiped it away with the back of her hand. "Hoshi won't win," she whispered, the words fierce and final. "No one will."
She picked up the silver star hairpin from the table, sliding it into her own hair exactly where Suzume always wore her lucky ribbon, the metal cool against her scalp. She looked at her reflection again. Yuki's smile was now angelic, disarming, the same one that had drawn Suzume in from the very first day in the classroom corner.
Yuki turned off the string lights one by one until the room was almost dark, only the faint glow from the window lanterns remaining, painting the hidden screen in soft, distant gold.
She whispered toward the wall behind it, voice barely louder than a breath, "I'll see you soon, my star. And this time you'll stay with me."
With that, she opened the apartment door, stepped out into the hallway, and pulled it shut behind her with a quiet, decisive click, leaving the obsessive shrine locked away in the dimness as the chapter faded to black, the festival music drifting faintly from the streets below like a distant, mocking lullaby.