The Library is Quiet, My Grades are Suffering, and Also My Best Friend is Acting Weirdly Philosophical

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"Yo, Tsukasa!"

A hand smacked down on my shoulder and my half-asleep body jolted forward like a crash test dummy. The culprit? Yashiro, grinning like a delinquent as usual.

“How’d your weekend go? Did you leave your room even once this time?”

Yashiro was my classmate and my annoying best friend. He transferred into my class back in junior high and just happened to sit next to me. And after weeks of bugging me, I finally gave in to his antics. I guess we’ve been close ever since. Though, nowadays, I mostly just copy his homework whenever I can. 

“‘Kasa! Hellooo??”

Too exhausted to acknowledge Yashiro’s existence, my gaze drifted to the front of the classroom.

At the very front, a girl with silky jet-black hair was giggling with her friends at their desks: Minase-san, the Student Council President and resident popular girl. She was perfect... well, in the way that the universe sort of bent itself around her without her even trying.

That’s when Yashiro noticed.

“Ha! I know that look.”

“What look?”

“That one! Anyway, quit ogling her. You got no chance, buddy.”

“Are you some kind of woman expert now? I’m not into her.”

“Riiight… you know what happened to the last poor soul who tried asking her out—?”

SLAM!

Before he could torment me further, the classroom door crashed open. The noise jerked the barely conscious students in the classroom awake. 

In strode our physics teacher Mr. Sakamoto, as disheveled as ever.

Then, like a robot, he immediately dove into whatever unhinged lecture he had planned for the day. 

He wasn’t wrong though. We were third-years now and things were starting to ramp up the closer we got to graduation. Teachers, family, friends, family-friends… They all asked you those same few questions once you’ve reached this point. 

“Studying hard for those entrance exams?”
"Are you planning to take a gap year if you don’t pass?”

And worst of all, it was constant too. I dreaded it. I dreaded the reminders because admittedly, I had no plan. I never expected to make it this far, yet here I was. Halfway through the third year. With college entrance exams and graduation in my future. If I could even make it that far. 

I sighed. 

Crazy how my high school life had slipped by so quickly. It felt like only yesterday I had zero worries, zero responsibilities. Just a young boy with manga in one hand, and a PSP in the other. Now the only thing anyone ever talked about was college plans. 

In the end, my high school life had been quite unspectacular. No grand adventures with childhood friends. No epic coming-of-age story. No mysterious transfer girl from overseas. And most depressing of all, no secret confessions under a cherry blossom tree.

I briefly looked over to Minase.

Not in a million years. 

I tried to shift my focus back to the lecture in front of me. 

“And remember, energy can’t be created or destroyed... but your study time sure can be!” 

Sakamoto was still rambling about formulas and college preparations. 

Yashiro whispered in my direction from the desk behind mine.

“Man, if one more person asks me what college I’m applying to, I’m faking my death and vanishing into the mountains.” 

“Solid plan,” I muttered. “I’ll write a heartfelt tribute for your funeral.”

I didn’t see it, but I could sense the grin forming on his face. 

*

“HEYYY! TSUKASA!” 

A voice shouted from down the hallway as I was grabbing my lunch from my locker. I didn't need to turn around to know who it was. Sayuri, one of Yashiro’s friends, had taken an interest in me recently.

She bounced over to me, her extremely long hair smacking a few nearby students in the face in the process. 

“So I was thinking about the cultural festival the other night and I’ve got all these ideas and they’re gonna blow your mind!” 

Sayuri’s energy could power the whole school if it was harnessed right. 

We were only two weeks into the semester and she was already talking about festivals. She always had the most insane ideas, and I tried my best to not get too involved.

“The semester just started and you’re already planning for the festival?”

“Of course! How could we possibly be the best stand if we don’t get a head start?”

To be brutally honest, I was far more concerned about college entrance exams than some school festival. 

“No thanks, I’ll pass.”

At that moment, Sayuri’s eyes doubled in size, and her lips pouted. 

“Pleeaaaasse??”

I rubbed my temples. There was no escaping this and I was far too sleep-deprived to resist her. It would have been a guaranteed loss anyway. 

As soon as I agreed, Sayuri’s eyes lit up. 

“Yayyy! You’re the best, Tsu-kun!”

Tsu…kun…?

Then she skipped away like an elementary school child.

And I still had no idea what I had just agreed to. 

*

When classes were done for the day, I eagerly stuffed my bags and headed for the main doors. 

Just as I was about to escape, I heard a voice.

“Hey, ‘Kasa, you up for some after-school studying at the library today?”

I turned to see Yashiro behind me. Grinning, as usual, hands in his pockets. 

“You? Studying? That’s a new one.”

“Yeah, I figured I gotta step up my game if I pass this semester.” He made some weird marching gesture. 

“Or my dad’s gonna kill me.”

He did have a point. The increasingly excessive workload on top of looming midterms and college exams, admittedly kept me awake at night. Some extra studying wouldn’t hurt. Otherwise, I might meet the same fate as Yashiro: the kind of disappointment that hit harder than his father’s belt ever could.

“I suppose I could for a bit.”

“Awesome. Let’s go.”

* 

The library was in the school’s so-called “old wing” and despite the rest of the school being fairly modern, at least as much as a public school could be, the library looked straight out of the Taishō period. The first thing you notice upon your arrival was how dimly lit it is, how the floorboards creaked beneath your feet. 

Polished hinoki pillars kept the ceiling from collapsing, and the whole place smelled of dusty, decaying book bindings. It was larger than you’d expect at a medium-sized high school and relatively quiet, with the only sounds being the scratching of pens and the occasional turn of a textbook page. It was the kind of quiet that made you aware of the ticking of a clock or the electric hiss of a dying light bulb.

Yashiro and I sat where we normally did, at a small table in the back hidden between two large shelves. 

I flipped through the pages of my textbook, taking out a notepad and started working on the math problems from today.

Yashiro, however, seemed to be somewhere else entirely. His head was tilted forward, flicking a pen as he stared at what looked to be an old map that had been lying on the next table over.

I tried to focus on my work, but eventually pen-flicking became too obnoxious to ignore. 

“You’re not actually studying, are you?” 

“Maybe I’m just letting it marinate in my head.” 

“Right…” 

We sat there in silence again. 

I began to wonder why Yashiro even bothered inviting me to study if he wasn’t actually interested in studying. 

Then, he spoke again. His voice was almost thoughtful. 

“You ever think these maps are kinda crap?”

I stared blankly at the randomness of that question. 

“What?”

He twirled the pen between his fingers. His eyes were on the ceiling. 

“I mean, they pretend to tell you where you are. But they only show stuff someone else decided matters. Everything else? Left out. Doesn’t exist on paper, so people act like it’s not real.”

“Is this about the moon landing again?”

He ignored that. 

“Just sayin’, sometimes it feels like you’re following the map, doing everything right, and then BOOM. You hit a place that’s not even on it. And suddenly, the whole thing feels wrong. Like it wasn’t made for you in the first place.”

I continued to stare blankly, utterly confused. Yashiro wasn’t exactly a deep thinker by any intellectual standard, and now he’s talking like some philosopher who had just discovered sentience. Maybe the library was a good environment for him after all. 

“You okay, man?”

Yashiro’s eyes never left the ceiling, like there was an insect up there or something. 

“Just thinking. Don’t mind me.”

Then he stopped rambling, and I went back to my work. But it didn’t last long, as he abruptly began again. 

“Like... everyone’s got their own version of the world. Things are always changing, right?”

Man, this is getting awkward. I decided to answer him so he would return to being quiet. 

“Yeah, I guess things… change... Is there an insect up there or something??”

Yashiro finally looked away from the ceiling and his grin returned. With that, his usual carefree self snapped back. 

“You’ve got no idea, ‘Kasa”

“You’re not making any sense today.”

He laughed. “Maybe.”

“Still, impressive seeing you try to use your brain for once, though.”

“Woah, woah! Who’s the one copying my homework answers every morning? I’m surprised you even did it just now.”

“…Touché.”

Yashiro stretched his arms and let out a yawn loud enough to get us thrown out of the library.

“Anyway, screw this. I’m going home. My stomach's about to start a revolution if I don’t feed it soon.”

“What about studying?”

But he was already walking away. Reluctantly, I gathered my stuff and followed suit. 

And just like that, the weirdest Yashiro study session of my high school career came to a close.

*

“Thank you for the meal.” 

I looked down at the steaming bowl of curry rice on the table. I was starving. Wasting no time, I grabbed my chopsticks and dug in. 

Mom and Dad were discussing something about work in between bites, but I was too busy wolfing down my dinner to care. 

The faint sound of the TV drifted from the living room, where a rerun of Doraemon was playing.

Tohru, my younger sister, sat across from me. She watched with a disgusted look as I stuffed my face.

“Don’t eat like a pig,” she muttered, ironically with mouth full of food herself. “You’ll get fat.”

I stuck my tongue out at her, and she smirked, poking her tongue out at me. 

What a brat.

After a few minutes of cleaning my plate of every speck its contents, I stood up and excused myself. 

“I’m heading up.”

I climbed the stairs up to my bedroom and then shut the door behind me. 

It was a small room, but cozy. The walls were lined with bookshelves cluttered with manga, old textbooks, and a few random trinkets. A desk, covered end-to-end in papers and textbooks, and a single window on the back wall that let in far less light than ideal. Tonight, my room felt chillier than normal. 

I tossed my bag onto the bed and went over to my desk, pulling a manga from the shelf and distantly flipping through it as I leaned in my chair. The characters on the pages seemed almost too familiar, their conversations almost too predictable. Maybe I had grown out of this stuff.

I raised my head and looked out the window. The last batch of cicadas continued to chirp away, their calls growing gradually weaker as the summer came to an end. The view wasn’t bad, though. 

The night was beginning to settle and the street lamps had lit up on my street. In the distance, you could barely see the lights of the city blinking like fireflies.

My gaze wandered over the neighborhood and rested on an old tree across the street. It creaked and groaned under the pressure of the evening breeze, swaying, its leaves rustling with an almost hypnotic sound.

It was then that my eyes locked on to something.

A figure. Standing right across the street. Not moving, not turning.

At first, I tried not to think much about it, but…

The figure didn’t move. 

It was a girl, I think. Long, dark hair, blowing in the wind, as if waving to me. And a school uniform I didn’t recognize. 

It was too dark to make out her face, and she didn’t budge an inch. Then it became evident that she was staring. Staring into my room. Right at me. 

Instinctively, I dropped below the window line, out of sight.

My heart suddenly felt like it was in my throat. The cicadas’ chorus seemed to fade, replaced by the pounding of my own heartbeat.

Paranoia took over. I wondered who it could have been. I’d never told anyone my address except for Yashiro. Was he just messing with me? He was acting strange today. Was it some kind of prank?

A minute passed. Maybe more. 

I stayed crouched behind the wall. My mind was racing. The room felt even colder now and the sound of my sister’s anime still faintly audible from downstairs. 

Had I simply imagined it? Were my eyes just playing tricks on me? I’m just tired and I’m seeing things. Yes, merely a figment of my imagination, created by my excessive consumption of fiction. I’ve just been reading too much manga. Or… What if?

Slowly, I built up enough courage and crept back up to the window. 

I forced myself to look again.

But she was gone.