[F/N] [L/N] meets with an eccentric girl named Mina Ashido by chance. Through this meeting, [F/N] learns of Mina's "secret" and ends up spending Mina's final August with her.
My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia and its characters belong to Kohei...
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1:14 P.M. / Sunday, August 12th ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
At this point in my life, I had never experienced loss. No one in my family had passed away, no pets had died, etc. Loss was a completely new experience for me and I wasn't taking it too well. The only way I thought of coping was staying in my sanctuary, my room. No one could bother me in there, so it was always peaceful. But, while I was laying on my bed staring into space, my peace was interrupted by a sudden knock on my window. My room was on the first floor, so it wasn't impossible for someone to be at my window, but I was still shocked.
I shot up from my bed and cautiously moved to the window, opening the blinds that were covering it up. As the blinds moved out of my sight, I was greeted by Mina with a surprised face. But, she quickly smiled and waved through the window.
'Wha-?' I thought. 'Why is she here...? Why...'
Then, she said something, but I couldn't hear her through the window. I didn't open it right away. I continued to stare at her for a few seconds before realizing she was mouthing the same thing over and over. Curious about what she was saying, I opened it up.
"Oh, thanks!" she exclaimed. "I was wondering if you were ever gonna open up!"
I stared at her with a blank expression. "What are you doing here?" I asked.
"Hm?" she questioned, tilting her head. "I came to see you! And to ask you a question,"
"A question?"
She nodded excitedly in response. "Yep! I was thinking we could go to that carnival that's in town this weekend! Today's the last day it's here, and I've been busy these past two days, so..." Then, she anxiously started fidgeting with her fingers. It was the first time I had ever seen her act remotely close to being anxious, so it caught me off guard. But, due to my clouded mind, I didn't think much of it.
I sighed. "Fine, I might as well get out of the house,"
With my answer, Mina shot up with excitement and a big smile quickly grew on her face. "Really?! Thanks, [F/N]! Let's get going, then!"
"Wait? Right now?" I questioned. "But, I'm only wearing pajamas-"
Then, without warning, Mina reached through the window and grabbed my hand, pulling me through my open window. I could've fought it, but I didn't really see any point in doing so. If I did, she would've just begged until I had eventually agreed, so this seemed like the safer option to me. But, that was obviously just me trying to find an excuse.
And so, for the rest of the day, we walked around the bustling carnival that was taking place. You know, now that I think back on it, that carnival was the perfect place to relax and have some needed fun. But, at that time, I could only think about one thing. I could only think about the fact that Mina's lifespan was cut short. She obviously tried her best to help me have some actual fun, but I was too out of it to even notice. Basically, I was an idiot that should've paid more attention to her and accepted her help. I wish I did.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 6:33 P.M. / Sunday, August 12th ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Eventually, the carnival had to shut down. Seeing as it was the last day it was in town, it closed earlier than the previous two days. So, we began walking back home.
"Aw, it sucks that it had to close down earlier, huh?" said Mina, stretching her arms into the air. "At least it was still fun, though! Right, [F/N]?"
She turned to me with a bright smile on her face, as per usual. Even though the carnival was over, she was still trying her best to make sure I was feeling better. Funny how that works, isn't it? The person who needed all the support in the world was trying to support me instead. I'm not sure if I can say this enough, but I was an idiot then.
I solemnly nodded, staring at the ground as we walked. "Yeah," I said in a lower tone than usual. Then, Mina suddenly stopped in place, staring at something on the side of the street. I quickly noticed and stopped as well, turning over to her with a confused look. "Mina..?"
She was staring at a garden of Hydrangeas. The same garden that I had found her at before, in fact. As I looked at the garden, my view went back to her. My eyes glanced across her face, and even though I couldn't see the whole thing, I was able to see the emotion in her eyes. Purity... and sadness. An odd, but heartbreaking, combination. Then, she took a deep breath through her nose.
"Hey," she said, beginning walking over to the garden. "Remember when I taught you the meaning of Hydrangeas?"
My eyes widened and I instinctively gulped. "Mhm..." I muttered before nodding.
Mina knelt down and gently picked up a Hydrangea from the bountiful garden that laid in front of her. It was bright pink, not too far off from her own hair color. She slowly rose up and looked up at the sky, which was a beautiful orange due to the sunset.
"Heartfelt emotion... apology... and gratitude," she said. "Those were the meanings I taught you, right?"
I didn't respond. Not because I didn't want to. Just because it felt right not to, for some odd reason.
She brought her view down from the sky and back to the Hydrangea. Then, she slowly turned around to face me. The look on her face... It hurt me so much. She didn't look like she was in pain or anything... The thing that hurt me was that she didn't look any different than how she normally did. She wore a big, warm smile. I didn't know if it was to hide her pain or if it was genuine happiness, but it still hurt like hell.
Then, she began walking closer to me. "So... to show my thanks to you..." she said. As she got a few inches away from me, she held out the Hydrangea to me. "I'm gonna give this to you... It's so you never forget me... even after I'm gone,"
I took a small step back and stared at her with my mouth slightly agape. Before I could muster any words, she continued.
"My mom told you the news, right?" she asked. "About how my lifespan was cut to the end of this month..." I noticed the grip she had on the Hydrangea tighten as she continued her thoughts. "I don't want you to feel bad for me... That's the last thing I want you to do... But... seeing how you've acted after hearing the news... It's made me realize something..." she said. Then, she stared at me with her signature smile, tears beginning to fill her eyes. "I'm so happy that you actually care about me, [F/N]..."
That sight broke my cold heart into a thousand pieces. I grit my teeth as I began to become teary-eyed as well. With my emotions being all over the place, I did something that only an idiot would do.
