The morning felt softer than most.
Not because the sun was brighter, but because Yuto noticed it. For the first time in a long while, he noticed how the sunlight spilled across the pavement, how it touched the dust on his desk at school, how it rested on Mika's hair beside him.
He didn't see color not yet ... but there was something about her that made the gray world less empty.
"Takamine-san," he said softly, unsure if she'd even answer.
She didn't turn, just kept looking out the window. The wind brushed her hair across her face, and for a second, Yuto caught a flicker of movement not in color, but in feeling.
"What is it?" she finally asked. Her voice was quiet, dry, but not harsh.
He smiled faintly. "You… didn't look okay yesterday. I just wanted to ask."
She hesitated, her fingers fidgeting with the edge of her notebook. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me."
But even as she said it, her tone betrayed her. It wasn't cold it was tired.
Yuto didn't push. He'd learned not to. People like her, people who carried silence like armor, didn't need loud concern they needed patience.
The bell rang.
Students shuffled out, laughing and chatting in the hallway. The ordinary noise of life. Mika didn't move; she just sat there, staring at the sunlight filtering through the window.
"You'll miss lunch," Yuto said.
"Maybe that's fine," she murmured.
He stood for a moment, then quietly placed a small bread roll on her desk the one he'd bought earlier. "At least eat something. You'll get sick if you skip again."
She blinked at it, as if the gesture confused her. "…You didn't have to."
"I know," he said simply, "but I wanted to."
He left before she could respond.
That afternoon, Yuto sat beneath the tree in the courtyard, sketchbook open. He wasn't really drawing just moving his pencil across the page, tracing shapes that didn't exist.
"Do you always draw outside?"
The voice startled him. He looked up Mika stood there, holding the bread roll wrapper.
"Sometimes," he said. "The light feels different here. Even if I can't… see it properly."
Her gaze lingered on him, puzzled. "What do you mean?"
Yuto paused. He'd never told anyone about his world of black and white. Not Hisoka, not even his teachers. But something about Mika her calm, her silence made him feel it might be safe to say it.
"I can't see colors anymore," he said quietly. "Since I was ten."
Her expression didn't change at first but then her eyes softened, just a little. "How?"
"I don't really know," he admitted, watching his pencil. "One day, they just… faded. Everything. Maybe I was too sad for them to stay."
A faint breeze passed between them, carrying the scent of rain.
Mika looked down at her hands then at the bread wrapper, then at him. "You still draw, though."
"Yeah." He smiled faintly. "Maybe I'm trying to remember what colors felt like."
For the first time, Mika's lips curved. Not a full smile, but the beginning of one uncertain, almost shy.
"You're strange, Yuto," she said softly.
"I've been told that," he replied, laughing quietly.
And for a moment, the silence between them wasn't heavy. It was gentle like a quiet breath after years of noise.
Days passed like that.
They didn't talk much, but their silence became something both could live inside. Mika would sometimes glance at his drawings. Yuto would sometimes ask about her day. Slowly, the edges around her began to soften.
One afternoon, when rain drummed faintly on the windows, Mika turned to him and whispered,
"Do you ever feel like you're stuck in between?"
Yuto looked up. "Between what?"
"Between feeling and not feeling. Between being alive and… just existing."
He stared at her, unsure how to answer. Then he said, "Every day."
Her eyes met his steady, fragile, real.
In that shared moment, something wordless passed between them. Not love, not friendship just understanding. Two people broken in different ways, standing quietly in each other's gray world.
And though Yuto couldn't see it, somewhere inside that silence, a color flickered faintly not in his eyes, but in his heart.