And this is how we are now.

After that happened our lives changed drastically.

For starters we made a kind of routine to ask the other person one question per day, so we had four dialogues in total during the day, first our greet, then when we asked a question, when we answered and finally when we said goodbye. It might still sound like nothing, but considering neither of us had any friends, that was enough human interaction to make us feel that we made a lot of progress. At the beginning they were all silly questions, like asking for the other person’s favorite color, or favorite food, or stuff like that. As time progressed we faced more complicated conversations, they weren’t complicated at all, it was always small chat, but since we weren’t used to talking it felt weird for us to speak for more than a minute.

So, how did she get to know exactly what I'm thinking?

I don’t know.

I never said anything weird, or even shared my life plan with her, so I simply can’t understand how she got to read me that well. But it started just a few months prior to the end of the school year, it caught me so off guard that someone actually knew what I was thinking that my face turned bright red. And I guess she liked that so much because after that she hasn’t let go of any opportunity to make me feel embarrassed.

Even now I’m scared of what she might be planning. I look at her and I can only imagine what evil thoughts are crossing through her mind, she is probably waiting for the opportunity to make me feel stupid, I just know it-

“Oh? Are you done?” She asked me once she realized I was looking at her.

“W-w-what? Done with what?” I nervously asked. See I knew she was planning on doing something like this.

“Well, you looked so lost in your thoughts that you didn’t notice that everyone else had already left.”

I looked up into the library and it was indeed empty, it was already empty before, but now the windows gave away that it was getting late.

“It’s almost time to go, right?” I asked her.

“It’s 6:30 already.” She answered.

“ALREADY!?” I couldn’t believe what she was saying, so I took my phone and checked the time.

Indeed, it was 6:32 p.m. We normally leave at 6:00, so it meant that I was so immersed thinking about our past that I basically lost track of time.

“Where is Ogawa-san?” I asked. Ogawa-san is the librarian.

“She already left, about half an hour ago.” Replied Tanaka-san.

“Why didn’t she call me out when it was time to go?”

“I told her not to do it.” She said with a supreme calm, as if what she just said was not relevant at all.

“You told her not to- WHAT? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?”

“Well, you were really into your thoughts, so I assumed you were explaining the background of the characters in your story, so I couldn't interrupt it, otherwise it would have been hard to keep track of it. And since you took two hours staring into the void doing so then I guess it was the right thing to do.”

I guess there is no point in explaining how embarrassed I was. My face turned into a tomato, a boiled one since all my body heat concentrated on my face. I buried my face in my palms and I wish I could be a magician and just completely disappear from this situation.

I didn’t even dare to look at Tanaka-san’s face, I knew she was grinning from ear to ear, and the only thing that stopped her from laughing out loud at my misery was her compassion.

She got me once more, and she got me right how she likes it. Not only she knew what I was doing, no, she let me finish it, she didn’t allow anyone to interrupt me just so she could set me up and make me suffer.

“Well, everything's in its place already, so let’s just close the library and hand over the key to the janitor before we go home.” She said, I could hear a little jiggle before she started talking just to confirm that she was enjoying this situation to the fullest.

“Okay.” I answered, but the sound of my voice was muffled by my hands, after all, I still had my face buried in them.

We left the library and delivered the keys to the janitor as she mentioned and then we got out of the school, it was clear by that moment that nobody was left there but the security guards and the janitors, so, once it was clear that no one could hear us, I asked her a question that was burning in my mind after we left the library.

“Tanaka-san. Did you tell Ogawa-san what I was doing?”

I knew that if I asked that in front of anyone else it could be misunderstood, however, explaining exactly what I was doing would have been more embarrassing. But since it is Tanaka-san the person who I am talking to right now, it was clear that she wasn’t going to let go of an opportunity to make me feel embarrassed, for little this would be.

“Eh?” She asked me, smirking. “What were you doing Masuda-kun?”

“You know… the thing you said about the character's background…”

“So you WERE doing that, uh?”

“Please just tell me if you told her that!” I desperately asked. It was already embarrassing that she knew it, if she told her that to Ogawa-san it would have been the end of my life.

But not even in this moment of desperation she help me to get out of misery. She burst into laughter, which made me feel even worse than before, because I thought that she definitely told her about it.

“I didn’t!” She finally said, once she finished laughing. “She wasn’t around when you were lost in your thoughts.”

The feeling of relief took over my body and I finally got rid of that heavy load I was carrying in my mind.

“But don’t worry.” She continued. “Even if she was around I would have come up with an idea to explain why you were so concentrated in your thoughts.”

Her words made my heart skip a beat. I felt that rush of blood to the head that you always feel when something unexpected is about to happen.

“Why?” I simply asked.

“Because I don’t want anybody but me to enjoy seeing how silly you actually are.”

My heart started rushing crazily. It could be seen as if she was actually making fun of me, but the fact that she said only she could see that side of me felt like somewhat of a love confession to me.

“So don’t worry.” She continued. Then she lifted her index finger and put it in front of her mouth. “That is a secret between me and you.”

And there it is.

I wasn’t lying when I said that she doesn’t have a remarkable feature, and she isn’t particularly pretty either.

But whenever she unintentionally acts mature or reassures me that I can trust in her, I swear to the heavens there is not a single woman in this world more beautiful than her.