Just Before the Collection Box

Aima · Apr 26, 2026

Her name was Meiro.

A flyer had gone up on the school bulletin board —
a Pair Matching Event.
You write down up to seven names, people you're interested in,
fold the paper, and drop it in the box.

From the day she received her slip,
Meiro had been holding a pen.
But she hadn't written anything yet.

There was no one she liked enough to call it like.
But there was someone she thought about.

A upperclassman.
Someone who had picked up her printed handouts
a few times when she'd dropped them in the hallway.

Every time she'd said "thank you,"
he had looked away and hurried off —
so she didn't know his name, or his class.
Not really.

But the distance of that one moment —
when the papers passed from his hand to hers —
and the warmth of his fingertips,
had played back inside her, again and again.

Even so.
Writing his name on her slip felt like
overstepping something.

"I can write up to seven names,
and I'm not writing anyone —
that's kind of weird, isn't it..."

She lay on her bed with the paper resting on her chest,
murmuring this at the ceiling, more than once.

The day before the deadline,
Meiro finally gathered just enough courage
to write one name.

Not her first choice. Not exactly.
But someone she thought about.
A boy in her class who had lent her his notes once.

She wrote his name carefully in the first slot,
top left of the page.

"...This is fine."

She decided to leave the other six spaces blank.

The afternoon of the submission day.
At the end of the hallway,
the collection box had been set out.

Classmates walked past with their slips,
laughing, waving the papers around.
"Who'd you write?" "Oh come on, it's obviously —"
Voices drifting from somewhere behind her.

Meiro had tucked her slip between the pages of a textbook.

With every step toward the collection box,
her heartbeat got louder.

No one's watching.
Just drop it in and go home.
That's all this is.

She told herself this while carefully pulling the slip free.

Then, without warning, someone called her name.

"— Meiro?"

She turned.

Coming down the hallway toward her
was the upperclassman.

The one who had picked up her handouts.

She'd only ever seen his sleeve before —
but today, the distance was close enough
that she was looking at his face.

"...Oh."

Meiro managed to make some kind of sound.

He slowed his pace and stopped a few steps away.

"I thought so. You're the one who dropped those papers in the hallway."

He said it like it was obvious.
Like of course he remembered.

He... remembered?

Something unbelievable rang out, somewhere deep in her chest.

She noticed he was holding a slip too —
the same event form, a little creased,
balanced easily in one hand.
He leaned against the hallway wall and looked at her.

"You about to turn yours in?"

Meiro clutched the paper to her chest.

"Y— yeah...
I was just about to put it in..."

Her own voice sounded too high to her.

He went quiet for a moment,
like he was deciding something.

Is he going to ask? Who did I write?
Is he going to tease me?
Or — is he going to check
whether his own name is on there?

Inside her chest, possibilities surged all at once.

Her hands were still holding the paper.
The slot of the collection box, just a few steps away.

He folded his slip and slipped it into his pocket.
Freed hand into his uniform pocket.
Then he turned his body slightly toward her —
and opened his mouth.

"Meiro, I —"

Whatever was going to follow his name for her
dissolved into the hallway air,
still warm,
still unspoken.

Meiro hadn't heard anything yet.
But somewhere deep in her chest,
a reply was already waiting.