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Chapter 3 - A Name from the Forgotten Sky

The moon was full again.

I didn't know how many nights had passed since I first saw her—standing beneath the cherry blossoms that never bloomed in daylight, her white dress fluttering like a memory I was never supposed to remember.

Somehow, I knew I would see her again.

And that terrified me more than it comforted me.

Even now, as I sat alone on the rooftop of my school long after classes had ended, I found myself whispering a question to the sky.

"Was it really a dream…?"

The wind didn't answer. But the petals did.

One by one, pink fragments began to drift down from above—even though there were no cherry blossom trees anywhere near this rooftop.

I stood up quickly. My heart was already racing.

And when I turned—

She was there.

Standing on the opposite side of the rooftop, her hair silver like moonlight soaked in silence. Her back was to me, staring off into the endless night. The wind toyed with her strands as if it remembered her better than I did.

"…You came back," I breathed, too quietly to be heard.

But she answered anyway.

"I always do. Every time the stars realign and the petals fall."

Her voice sounded… different. Softer. Sadder. Like she wasn't speaking to me, but to a ghost standing in my place.

I took a step closer. "What's your name?"

She didn't turn. "Does it matter?"

"It does. Because I've been trying to remember your face every morning and failing. And yet… my heart won't let me forget."

Finally, she looked over her shoulder.

Her eyes met mine—and for a second, everything around us blurred. The school, the rooftop, even the stars. All that remained was that stare… and the gentle ache it carved into my chest.

"I had a name," she whispered. "But the sky took it."

"…The sky?"

She smiled. That same distant, beautiful smile I'd seen on the first night. The kind that felt like it was hiding a lifetime behind it.

"There used to be a world where people's names were written in the constellations. But when the stars started to fade, so did we. One by one, the names vanished—until only those who could remember were left behind."

She placed a hand over her heart.

"I'm one of them."

My throat felt dry. "Are you… saying you're not from this world?"

She walked forward slowly, bare feet touching the rooftop tiles as if they were water. The air shifted. It smelled faintly of rain and nostalgia.

"I don't belong anywhere. I just appear where the echoes still remain. And lately… they've been growing louder around you."

"Me?"

She nodded. "You carry something. A piece of him."

"Him?"

She paused. Looked at me again.

"No," she said softly. "Not just a piece. You're the whole storm he left behind."

And with those words, a strange pulse bloomed in my chest. Like something ancient waking up—something I didn't know I had buried deep inside.

"Wait…" I said, stumbling backward. "What do you mean by that? Who was he? Why do you keep looking at me like I'm not me?"

She tilted her head, and her hair floated like silver silk in the wind.

"You're not him. Not yet. But… you might become him again."

"What are you talking about?!"

The petals began swirling faster, caught in a sudden wind that didn't exist anywhere else. The rooftop cracked, and the sky dimmed.

She was beginning to vanish.

"No—wait! Don't go yet!" I shouted, stepping toward her.

But she simply placed a single finger over her lips.

"I'll tell you next time… if you remember me."

And then—

**she disappeared.**

Not like someone walking away.

Not like someone fading.

But like a dream being forcibly erased.

The next thing I knew, I was alone again.

The rooftop was empty. The stars returned to their normal positions.

The petals had stopped falling.

Only the wind remained. And one small object resting on the ground where she had stood.

A **necklace.**

Thin, fragile… with a tiny glowing pendant in the shape of a crescent moon.

I knelt and picked it up. It was warm—like it had been holding someone's heartbeat only moments ago.

That night, I didn't sleep.

Because for the first time in my life…

**I was afraid of forgetting.**

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