Chapter 4

It hasn’t even been a week, but Seiji already made a lot of friends in the class. Arriving early, he greeted each student that entered our room and then went over to talk to them. He also stood out a lot during class, answering our teachers’ questions almost  every chance he got. It looked like he was after the class’ ‘perfect student’ award, if there was such an award.
“Yo, Koji! Let’s eat together!” he called me, as soon as lunch break started. “Eating alone’s boring.”
“Looks like they want to eat with you, though…” I said, pointing to our classmates on the right side of the room. They were looking at him, so it seemed like they really did want to ask him to eat lunch with them.

Seiji turned around to look at them, and saw them waving at him. “You’re right,” he said, turning to me. “But you can eat with us!” he grinned.

“Don’t worry about me. I don’t do well with crowds.”
“Come on! It’ll be fun!” he insisted.
“Really, just go ahead.”
Sighing, he gave up. “Well, maybe next time then.” He said before running to the others.

As usual, I just bought bread and headed to the library while eating. I go there during lunch time to look for some books that seemed interesting. And then I just returned after school hours to read them. It was better than hanging around the noisy classroom.

After some time, I found a couple of books that seemed interesting; the titles were “Journey Ahead” and “Closed Space”. Closed Space was written by the author as Knight and Sword, so it seemed promising. I decided on taking both books, in case one of them turns out boring. After returning the books to their shelves, I went back to the classroom.

During class, my attention was glued on the grey skies outside. I didn’t bring my umbrella, so I would be stuck in school if it rained. As expected, it rained heavily during the last hour of classes. It didn’t end even after the dismissal bell rang. As I was planning on going to the library anyway, I just shrugged it off and went on my way.

There were a lot of students in the library when I arrived. Taking the two books from their shelves, I rushed to an empty seat I found near the window. I started reading Closed Space, as it seemed to be the more promising one.

I wasn’t even done with the third page when someone tapped me on the shoulder. Turning my head, I saw a girl with a long, peach-colored, hair tied up in a ponytail. Her facial features were soft and a calm feeling radiated from her. The attractive girl who stood behind me was a classmate of mine, Nakano, Ayumi.

“Takashi-kun, right?” she asked.
“Yeah… What is it?”
“I'm glad,” she sighed. “I wanted to read some books while waiting for the rain to stop. But the place is crowded. So I’m happy to find someone I know. Is that seat taken?” she asked, while pointing to the seat across the table.
“Nope, go right ahead…”
“Thank you!” she chirped. She then looked at the other book I took, Journey Ahead. “Are you reading that?”
“Nope.”
“Can I read it?”
“Go ahead.”
“Thankies~”

After that, she read the book quietly, as I did. As the story went on, I found myself captured by it. I could almost see it. An amazing scene, intricately painted with words.

A vast city, abandoned by life, draped with a monochrome atmosphere. In the middle of the place forgotten by time, the main character stood, bewildered and lost.

Taking a pencil and my sketchpad from my bag, I began drawing. I was so engrossed with my activity that I felt like I was taken to a different place, only to be brought back by Nakano's voice.

“Waaah! Cool! What’s that? What’s that?” she chirped, looking at my drawing, her voice filled with excitement.

Her sudden outburst made me jump a bit. The pencil I was using escaped my hand, hitting the side of the table, before falling on the floor. It then rolled to Nakano’s side of the table.

I glared at her for suddenly making so much noise in the library.

“Ehehe, sorry sorry…” she apologized nervously. She then bent down to get the pencil.

THUD! The table protested, followed by a slowly rising Nakano. She rubbed her head with her right hand. I detected some tears from her eyes, as she handed over the pencil with her other hand.

Seeing her clumsy side, a small chuckle escaped my lips. I quickly stopped myself, since that was thoughtless of me. I averted my eyes from her as I reached for the pencil.

“Tee hee,” she giggled, rubbing the tears from her eyes. “So even Takashi-kun could laugh like that.”

I felt myself blush from embarrassment. I turned my attention to my drawing in an attempt to continue. But the image in my mind was already gone.

“Ne… May I borrow your sketchpad for a moment?” she asked.

Unable to continue my drawing, I handed my sketchpad over. I had faith in my drawing skills, so I didn’t have anything to be embarrassed about. I then proceeded in reading the book. The library was silent again. Despite the number of people in the library at the time, the only sounds I could hear were the tapping of the rain against the window and the flipping pages from the sketchpad.

A few minutes have passed before Nakano returned my sketchpad. “You’re amazing, Takashi-kun,” she whispered. “Even though they were just sketches, I felt a lot from them. Emptiness, sadness, melancholy, anguish, isolation…”
“Arigatou…”
“Ne… are you lonely?

Her trembling voice made me look up. She looked like she was about to cry. She seemed worried about me. And despite the fact that this was the first time we talked to each other, I felt a genuine concern from her.

“I’m not…” was my answer.
“Each painting reflects the soul of the artist. I believe it’s the same for other works of art. Though your sketches were beautiful, I couldn’t find anything that had a happy feeling. That’s why I thought maybe Takashi-kun felt sad all this time.”
“I draw based on the books I’ve read,” I explained, flustered. “I can’t help it if the best scenes I found reflected those feelings.”
“Then let me help you find a good happy book sometime,” she smiled.
“Do whatever you want…” I answered, turning my attention to the window. Looks like the rain stopped.




Ayumi Nakano addresses Seiji by his last name, Takashi, as they aren't close. Normally, one would also use the honorific "-san", since they don't know much about each other and since they're both the same age. But she adds "-kun" to Seiji's last name to be friendly. But she can be considered as impolite for this, acting overly familiar with him.
Ne = Could mean "Hey" or "Right?", depending on its usage. Nakano uses it as "Hey" in this chapter.