Unknown Variables

Extra Chapter: If I Hadn't Taken That Class

It was raining again. The kind of soft drizzle that felt more like a whisper than weather.

I sat at the café near the tutoring center—half-distracted, notebook open, pen idle.
I was supposed to be reviewing calculus.

Instead, I found myself watching the girl across from me draw shapes in the fogged-up window.

Sora.

Back then, she barely said five words during break time. We weren't close. We weren't anything, really. Just two names on the same summer class roster.

And yet...

There was something about the way she watched the world—as if she was always half a page ahead in a book you didn't know you were reading.

She looked over suddenly.

"Why are you staring?"

"Just wondering," I said, "what you were like before I met you."

Sora tilted her head, thoughtful. "Same as now, I think. Just... quieter."

I hesitated. "Do you ever think about it? How if we hadn't taken the same class..."

"We wouldn't have talked," she said, finishing the thought.

I nodded. "Yeah."

She smiled—not sadly, just softly.

"But we did."

Simple. Final.

Then she turned back to her notebook, picked up her pen, and added quietly—

"Lucky me."

Author's Note:
Sometimes love stories don't start with fireworks.
Sometimes they start with one accidental choice—
like registering for the same class,
or sitting at the same table.

And those choices?
They don't look like fate at first.
Until one day, you look back and realize—
they were everything.