The First Sabotage

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CHAPTER 40: THE FIRST SABOTAGE

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It started small.

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It started with Hana not answering her phone.

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Yuki texted her. Ren texted her. I texted her. She didn't respond. Not that day. Not the next day.

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Yuki went to her house again. The door stayed closed.

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Then Yuki stopped going.

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Then it moved to Yuki.

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She started pulling away from the group. She stopped coming to the roof. She stopped coming to the park. She was still at school. She was still at the archery range. But she was not with us.

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When I asked why, she said she was busy.

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When Ren asked why, she said she was tired.

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When Mei asked why, she didn't answer.

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Then it moved to Ren.

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He stopped drawing in front of us. He stopped showing us his sketchbook. He made the same jokes, but they weren't as funny. He stopped staying after school.

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He said he had to study.

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He said he had a test.

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He said it in a voice that didn't believe itself.

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Then it moved to Mei.

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She stopped coming to the library. She stopped sitting in her usual seat. She stopped reading the same book over and over.

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I looked for her. I found her in a corner of the library I had never been to before. She was reading a different book. She was sitting with her back to the wall.

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She saw me. She looked away.

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I didn't sit down.

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I didn't know if I was allowed.

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The group was fracturing.

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Slowly. Quietly. In the spaces between the words.

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It wasn't a fight. It wasn't a disagreement. It was just... erosion. The way a river wears down a stone.

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Nobody said anything.

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Nobody admitted anything.

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We just stopped showing up.

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On Friday, I sat on the roof alone.

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Ren wasn't there. Yuki wasn't there. Hana wasn't there. Mei wasn't there.

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Charlotte wasn't there either.

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I sat against the water tank and looked at the sky and thought about nothing.

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Then I thought about everything.

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I thought about Hana's left arm. About Yuki's extra practice. About Ren's unfinished paintings. About Mei's long sleeves. About Charlotte's watching eyes.

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I thought about the first day I had met each of them. About the way they had looked at me. About the way they had talked to me.

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I thought about the fact that I had started to care.

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And I thought about the fact that caring didn't seem to be working.

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I opened my notebook when I got home.

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The one with Akari's name.

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I read the last page. The date. The name. The sentence I had never finished.

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"The thing about being invisible is—"

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I closed the notebook.

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I didn't finish the sentence.

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But I wrote something else.

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A question.

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"What do you do when showing up isn't enough?"

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I didn't have an answer.

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I didn't know if I would ever have an answer.

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But I wrote the question down.

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Because sometimes that's all you can do. 4Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCGSCabWmZs

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