Chapter 4

I mull over the idea of posting stories online as I walk to school. I take off early again, hoping for some time in the library.

Before going to bed last night, I searched around on the internet for some more writing opportunities. Like Mom had said, there are plenty of essay competitions, especially for school students, but the idea of writing essays wasn’t very appealing. I barely finish any for school, let alone come up with one to be judged against hundreds of others.

But then the question of what I would write came into mind. I want to try something new, but I’m sure what that would be. Maybe another fantasy-esque story? Or something else based on a folktale? I don’t know. I hope to look around the library before class, and find something for inspiration.

I get to school and start climbing the stairs to the second floor.

Yuina is playing on the piano again. The song is slower, softer; a classical piece compared to the contemporary song she was playing yesterday. If that song was like drifting along the sea, today’s was wandering through a small European town, like in Italy or France, somewhere out in the countryside.

It has a melancholic tone to it, I wonder if she’s crying again. I’m afraid to look, afraid that if I do she’d stop playing.

I sit down on the floor right outside of the music room and listen. The music takes me to that place.

It’d be a town along the sea, maybe with some canals like the ones I’ve seen in pictures of Venice. There’d be cobblestone streets, and narrow, winding alleyways between the stone block buildings with red tiled roofs. A bell would dong every hour from a bell tower in the center of the town. I wonder how this song would sound on an accordion. It’d fit the setting nicely…

“What are you doing?”

I realize that I was sitting with my eyes shut this whole time. I turn to see Momoka, leaning against the corner of the hall. She has her smirk.

“Shh!” I hiss frantically, forefinger to my lips. I gesture at her to go away, but instead she sits right beside me.

“Is it Koizumi-senpai? Have you tried talking to her? Like a human, and not just sitting here like a scared child?”

“I just got here!” I say. “Besides, I just wanted to listen to her playing.”

“And what are you going to do when she’s done?” Momoka asks. “Scurry away like a mouse?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

The music stops, and a loud, heavy sigh comes from the room. A fumbling of her bag, that tacking of her indoor shoes as she leaves the room.

She spots us at once.

“What’s going on?” she asks. She looks at me, and says, “I remember you, you were here yesterday.”

“Hi!” Momoka says, popping to her feet. “This is Sota. He’s an idiot, and he likes your playing. Please be nice to him.” She bows deep.

“O…kay…” Yuina says. She tightens her grip on the strap to her bag. She begins to walk away.

Something comes over me. I get up, stand next to Momoka. “Yuina Koizumi,” I say. She turns and looks at me, startled. “My name’s Sota Kasano. I think you’re a great piano player! And whatever made you cry yesterday, I hope things are better!” I bowed low.

Blood rushes to my face. Why did I do that? That was stupid!

But Yuina smiles, and she bows back. “Nice to meet you, Sota Kasano,” she says softly, and she walks down the hall, down the stairs to the third grade hall.

I hide my face in my hands. “I’m so embarrassed,” I groan. I just want to bury myself in the ground, become a mummy deep in a dark tomb and hide away forever.

Momoka pats my shoulder. “You did good, kid. It’s like ripping off a bandaid.”

But it didn’t feel good. My face feels like a burning tomato all through class. Mr. Sasaki even asks if I need to go to the nurse, but I tell him I’m fine.

“Make sure you drink water and stay hydrated,” he tells me. “This heat is no joke.”

I can’t focus during class again, and I copy Momoka’s chicken-scratch notes during the ten minute break between periods. When the lunch period comes around, I tell Kaito about it.

“Why’d you listen to Momoka?” he asks. “What does she know about talking to girls?”

“She is one,” I say flatly. “I figure she knows what girls think because she has the experience as a girl.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. Look at me, I’m a boy. Does that mean I’m the master of all boy-things?”

I purse my lips. “When was the last time you tried asking a girl out on a date?”

That shuts him up. He talks a big game, but Kaito is just as awkward around girls as I am. He doesn’t even talk to the girls in his class. He tries to act cool around the other guys, but when Arisa or Minami try to talk to him about some assignment, he freezes up just as bad as me. Momoka, on the other hand, is much more social, chatting with both sexes.

I head to the library after school. It’s on the first floor, right below the music room. It’s not a big library, but it does have a good amount of reference books I use when I write my stories. There are also shelves with entire series of manga like Dragon Ball and One Piece and Kingdom.

My go-to seat was in the south corner by the window, facing the track and the baseball field. It was a cozy corner, and I felt hidden.

It’s also the one place the English teacher, Ms. Yoshioka, can’t see directly from her office desk. She keeps a stern eye out, making sure students are using the library for its “intended purpose,” and not to just goof off and play games on their phones. Once when I was in the library, working on my story submission, she chased out a bunch of first years who brought their Nintendo Switchs during lunch. “You’re still in school,” she told them. “This is a place to learn, not to play games.”

It’s quiet there, and that’s what I like.

Until a group of students come in. There are three that I don’t quite recognize, two girls and a boy, and then there was Yuina. They smile and wave at Ms. Yoshioka, who smiles and nods in return.

They all must be third years, I figure. That’s the only reason why Ms. Yoshioka would be so welcoming to them. They sit at a table and take out books and homework.

“I told you it’s cooler in here than in the classroom,” one girl says.

“I know, right?” says the boy.

“Yui-chan, did you catch what Saito-sensei wrote on the board?” another girl says.

“Yeah, I wrote it down, here,” Yuina says to her.

She hadn’t noticed me, at least as far as I could tell.

Or, maybe she did, but I’m so insignificant to her that she didn’t feel the need to make any sort of acknowledgment. Or, maybe I’m just too much of an embarrassing klutz, it’s embarrassing just to show any sort of association towards me.

That’s okay. I can just focus on my homework. I can review the material I missed out on in class because I was too busy thinking about her. I can scribble some story ideas, maybe write a sentence or two in the story itself. Just as long as I stay focused, it won’t bother me that we’re together in the same room.

I have all my materials set out on the table in my corner and I look through the chapters for each class — math, English, classics, science — checking what I copied from Momoka’s notes and…

Nope. This isn’t working.

I glance up at the group. They’re talking quietly, some with their electric fans close to their faces. The boy with them seems quiet, but gets along with them decently, by the look of things.

A spark of jealousy sprang in me. I wished I could be so casual with her. Instead, here I am, sitting alone in my corner.

Nothing was going to get done now. I could feel my mood sinking, lower and lower.

I gather my materials, stick them into my bag, and leave the library, hoping beyond all hope she doesn’t see me.