My name is Akira Fujimoto, and at precisely 4:17 p.m. I became a criminal.
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Not an impressive one. I hadn't robbed a bank or swapped the headmaster's coffee for soy sauce. I'd simply picked up a notebook that didn't belong to me.
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In my defence, it was lying in the middle of the literature clubroom floor. Also in my defence, it had no name on the cover. And in my final, most important defence—
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It was pink.
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Not dignified rose. Not respectable burgundy. Pink, covered in tiny white rabbits and silver stars, with a ribbon bookmark dangling from the bottom like a challenge. No serious writer used a pink notebook.
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Naturally, I opened it.
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He stood beneath the cherry blossoms, unaware that the spring wind had already carried my heart towards him.
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Too dramatic.
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I turned the page.
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Every morning, he sits beside the third-floor window and stares outside as though waiting for another world to appear.
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My fingers stopped.
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Our classroom was on the third floor. My desk sat beside the window. I looked outside during morning announcements because uniform regulations made me question the purpose of civilisation.
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The next line was worse.
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His hair is always untidy, even after he tries to fix it. There is usually ink on his right hand.
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I looked at my right hand. A blue stain marked the side of my middle finger.
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That proved nothing. Lots of people had untidy hair. Lots of people used pens. Lots of people sat beside windows and contemplated escaping through supernatural means.
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I kept reading.
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He pretends not to care when he loses, but his ears turn red whenever I beat him.
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I shut the notebook.
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The rain against the windows suddenly sounded much louder.
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There was only one person who regularly beat me.
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Hana Mizuki.
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Undefeated queen of Sakuraba Academy's writing competitions. The girl whose essays teachers read aloud like sacred texts. The person who had defeated my short story about isolation and a collapsing city with an essay about her grandmother's tomatoes.
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A garden. The judges had cried. I had not forgiven her.
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I opened the notebook again.
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Akira Fujimoto is the most irritating person I have ever met.
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My full name. Right there. In neat black ink.
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The next sentence was underlined twice.
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So why do I keep wondering what it would feel like if he smiled at me?
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The clubroom door slid open.
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Hana stood in the doorway, rain still shining in her hair, transparent umbrella resting against her shoulder. Her eyes moved from my face to the notebook and back again.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmxG0TA3s1f
and then Add to home screen.