---
It started with a vending machine.
One of those old ones—half-working, faded buttons, probably haunted by the ghosts of expired soda cans.
She wasn't planning to stop.
She wasn't even thirsty.
But the sound caught her first.
---
A guitar loop.
Barely audible over the street noise.
Then a familiar beat.
A piano chord progression she knew too well.
---
She froze.
Right there on the sidewalk, between the yakitori stall and a beat-up ramen joint.
People walked past.
Someone brushed her shoulder.
She didn't move.
The song kept playing.
Through the half-open window of a corner bar.
The cheap speakers crackled, but the melody still came through.
It was their song.
---
Track Nine.
The one he picked after losing a coin toss.
He said it "felt like late afternoons with nowhere to be."
She told him that was the dumbest description ever.
Then kept listening to it on loop.
---
The lyrics hit harder now.
Because she wasn't in a train car with him next to her.
She was alone.
And the song didn't care.
---
She reached for her phone.
Opened the playlist.
The screen felt heavier than it should have.
> "Next Stop (ver. 4.1)"
It hadn't updated since the last time he played it.
No new songs.
No new notes.
Just... still there.
Like he was still holding on.
---
She stared at the song title:
> I Never Said It Out Loud.
And suddenly, her throat closed.
Her chest tightened like someone was pulling string through it.
And the first tear slipped before she could stop it.
---
She ducked into the alley beside the ramen place.
It smelled like oil and old receipts.
But it was hidden.
And right now, that was enough.
---
She leaned against the wall, hoodie pulled over her head, arms crossed tight.
Cried into her sleeve like it was rehearsed.
Small sobs.
The kind that don't make a sound but steal all your air.
---
Because it wasn't just the song.
It was him.
It was the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn't watching.
The way he always offered the earbud without a word.
The way he never asked why she disappeared.
The way he never needed to.
---
She remembered the sketch he gave her.
Folded, quiet, shy.
Like it might combust if she looked too long.
She'd tucked it into the back of her math notebook.
Like it was safer buried beneath something dull.
But she'd opened it last night.
Stared at it for too long.
Cried a little then, too.
---
Because he'd drawn her smiling.
Not the practiced smile.
Not the deflect-and-distract one she gave teachers or her mom or literally anyone who asked "are you okay?" with no intention of listening.
But the one she didn't even know she made.
The one she must've made with him.
When she wasn't thinking.
---
She took out her phone again.
Scrolled through their messages.
Nothing for the past few days.
But his last text still sat there.
> "You don't have to be okay."
And she realized—
That was the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to her.
---
Another tear.
Angrier, this time.
"Stupid song," she muttered.
"Stupid boy."
"Stupid heart that won't stop remembering."
---
She hit play on the track again.
Listened all the way through.
Eyes closed. Shoulders shaking.
And when it ended,
She didn't feel better.
But she felt less alone.
---
She stared up at the sky through the alley's exit.
It was dusk now.
Golden hour — the kind that made ugly things look almost beautiful.
Her reflection in the cracked window still looked like her.
Just… quieter.
Like someone who'd forgotten how to talk without breaking.
---
She whispered, barely audible:
> "I miss you, idiot."
---
The song replayed on shuffle.
This time, one of his.
She didn't skip it.
She walked out of the alley.
And for the first time in days,
She wanted to get back on the train.