Not Everything We Do Is Worth Talking About, You Know

Overcast weather soon enveloped this portside down in a film of grey oozing into darkness as night approached, giving us a taste of the looming, heavy clouds that would smother us for the foreseeable future. 
Shut up in that tiny room, a wide-angled view of the now slowly drifting raindrops carried across the wind like snow, it felt like I was back home, reading some cheap crime novel with a woolen sweater and coffee keeping me heated. Somehow, no matter how much circumstances change, a person's idiosyncrasies will always keep them comfortable and help them acclimate to a new sense of 'home'.
Genmi, although she had for a while now had the funds to move out of this cramped spot above a cafe and between rows of apartments and stores, still remained in that room, only slightly larger than mine, across the hallway, and often we would meet up for meals or to talk each other to sleep.
Of course, it's not like I was here entirely out of Genmi's altruistic nature, putting aside its existence at all, but even if it wasn't the case that I owed Genmi something in the way of payment, working at the cafe she had kept running for close to a decade supplied me with some kind of purpose and, importantly, some extra money to while away the time before the semester began.
The first few days, before the sticky summer rain had really started hammering down on our heads, I was dressed in a deep emerald apron and trailed behind Genmi and the other employees, learning the right consistency to grind coffee beans, how much milk to pour for each type of coffee, and which customers were regulars, their tastes and whether they were prone to conversation or not; really, the whole repertoire of managing a cafe and, additionally, managing the personalities that frequented this slat-panelled, pot-plant overrun cafe, was imbued in me over those days of backbreaking work.
Eventually, I had retained enough to work through the day on my own, without a guiding hand, and soon the rhythm of work began to resemble the rhythm of study I had left behind, and everything fell comfortably into place.
My only other coworker for now, a tall, languid woman with consistent circles under her eyes that drew attention to the splatters of scarlet in those large ovals, kept mostly silent, which worked fine for me, since I mostly kept myself too intently concentrated to even notice the slow thrum of the clock hands.
That is to say, for the most part, my days passed by unremarkably, though not listlessly or uselessly; it was simply the kind of time-passing that usually happened on summer breaks.

One day, only a handful of them before the pre-semester scramble really kicked into gear - around the time when your heel is right on the edge of the winch, right before you push your weight downwards - I was stopped by that same coworker, rather, it was a quiet day of loose rainfall that you could barely make out against the cloudy horizon, and I had the fresh smell and smudge of coffee beans on my fingertips, when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
"Hm? Oh, do we need more ground beans or something?"
With a slow shake of her head, her short black bangs jostling against the scarf she had wrapped around her, the lady replied with a smooth voice that reminded me of Genmi, only less purposeful, a sound like each syllable was loosely falling off her tongue. It was a strange way of speaking that really suited the kind of mysterious coworker vibe she had been emanating recently.
'Things really do work out the way they do in novels' - was all I could really think about.
Art imitates life, or at least it used to, but now, for the most part, it was difficult to tell which side of the fulcrum was heaviest.
"I saw you reading Yumeno. Do you like his books?"
"Hm? Oh, well, it's a little embarrassing, but yeah, I'm a pretty big fan."
"Why are you reading them in English?"
"Well, I wanted to keep improving my English even when I'm not technically studying, so I figured I would read some of my favourite books in English to help. Actually, it's surprisingly hard to find anything of his translated, besides some shoddy online versions and a French edition. For better or worse I've had to settle on a version with illustrations, which is actually not all that bad."
"That's cool. Do you want to come shopping with me?"
"Eh, ah, well, of course, we need to close up shop before we do that, right?"
"Yes, of course."
And so, with a swift turn that left her emerald apron lingering in the air between us, she set of on a concise course of action that saw the cafe close for the day within a matter of minutes.
That was how, unaware of how heavily the regurgitated ocean currents would plaster us with rain, we set off towards the western edge of town in search of a book.