“Hey, Torano-san?” Yashiro-kun suddenly said.
“Hm?”
We were both reading at the circulation desk as usual. I glanced up from my book and gave him a puzzled look.
“Would you rather I not talk to you in the classroom? You’re always reading with earphones in and you give off these ‘don’t talk to me!’ vibes, so that’s why I never talk to you when we’re there.”
I knew that already. And it was true; I didn’t really want anyone to talk to me. His seat was right in front of me in class, so there wasn’t much of a difference in terms of proximity to how we were sitting now.
“Yeah.” I said after a pause.
“Okay.” He immediately accepted my answer and we returned to our books. He could usually tell when I didn’t want to talk about something and then dropped it. I guess he was trying to be considerate of me. I appreciated it, but at the same time it made me feel bad, like I was too reliant on him. It was confusing.
“It takes me a long time to respond.” And since I felt bad, I decided to put myself out there a little bit.
He looked surprised, as if he hadn’t expected me to answer. “Huh?”
“I’m sure you’ve figured it out by now, but...there’s too much going on in my head and I’m not great at expressing myself. I can’t react to things either.”
“Yeah, I kinda figured that.”
“So if you talk to me and I can’t respond right away, it’ll look weird. Plus, I’m just not confident that I can talk to anyone else but you.” I didn’t want someone to say, “If you can talk to Yashiro-kun, why can’t you talk to me?” And there was no guarantee that anyone else would be as patient with me. So that was why it was just easier if I was alone in the classroom.
“Wow, I feel pretty great getting this special treatme— Ow!”
I got embarrassed so I kicked him in the shin. Well, more like I just bumped him a bit. There was no way it hurt that much. “Idiot.” But he was smirking at me as I turned away in a huff, so I kicked him again for good measure. Seriously, he was such an idiot.
◊◊◊
Some time had passed since then—midterms for first semester had just ended. I was walking down the hallway and saw the test results posted. There were more than two hundred students in each grade at this school, but they only posted the top one hundred scores. I wasn’t interested in looking at the results, so I was about to walk right past it. But then I noticed Yashiro-kun among the group of students looking at it. His eyes were wide with surprise.
I wondered what was going on, but I didn’t have the courage to talk to him in front of people, so I walked past. But then later that day, the first thing he did after we sat down at the circulation desk was say, “I’m shocked, Torano-san. I had no idea you were such a good student.”
“Huh?” I stared blankly at him.
He gave me an equally puzzled look. “You’re third in our grade. That’s amazing.”
“...Oh.” The reason he was surprised was because he had been looking at my ranking. “I’m third?”
“Why didn’t you know that?”
“Because I never really cared about rankings,” I answered. Obviously I always looked at my grades on tests when they were returned to me, but you only knew class rankings if you looked at the posted numbers. And honestly I had no interest in rankings or the desire to push my way through the crowd to look at them either. All I cared about was not flunking.
He let out an exasperated sigh. “I really thought I’d beat you...”
“What number were you?”
“Tenth.”
“That’s still pretty good.”
“Not as good as you.” He propped his cheek on his hand as he complained. “Since I spend so much time alone, all I do is study. People leave you alone if you get good grades, you know?”
I definitely did know. It’s uncomfortable to approach someone who’s studying with their nose in a book and earphones in. I actually thought that was how I’d fostered my good academic skills. But why is he so concerned about beating me? I wondered as I stared at him.
He looked defeated and said, “If I got better grades than you, I’d have an excuse to study with you. Then I thought maybe you would want to let me pay more attention to you.”
“...Your grammar is horrible.”
“Sounds right to me.”
I wondered if this was a roundabout way of him saying he wanted to spend more time with me? It was certainly a weird way of going about it, but... I suddenly felt a little shy and hid my face in my book.
He leaned back against his chair and stretched. “Nngh... I know I definitely can’t beat you in Japanese history, though.”
“Are you bad at it?”
“Yep. Everyone’s names sound alike. Like, how many Ashikagas can there be?”
Yeah, I knew what he meant. But in my case, I was interested in people’s stories, so it was easy for me to remember. But if you just tried to memorize names and events it could get boring. Yashiro-kun seemed to like books, so maybe he could enjoy history by reading more about it.
“Well then...”
“Hm?”
“Wanna use my notes?” I blurted it out without even thinking about it first. “I have lots of facts written down that make it easy to remember.”
“Huh? Are you sure?”
“Yeah, if you want.”
“That’d be really nice...” He scratched his head as if he were thinking about something.
“Sorry, am I being too pushy?”
“No, no, that’s not it! I really appreciate it, but I just feel bad that I can’t give you anything in return.”
He didn’t have to worry about that. He was such a good person.
“Oh, I know,” he said. “Are there any subjects you aren’t great at?”
“Science, I guess.”
“I’ll take notes for science then, and we can swap.”
“Are you sure?”
“I feel like taking notes—knowing someone else is going to read them—will help me learn things better too.”
I didn’t say anything. He had a point, but exchanging notes felt like we were keeping an exchange diary or something. It made my heart pound. I’m sure couples don’t actually keep exchange diaries anymore; they probably just text each other. But as an avid reader of old romance novels, that was the first thing that came to mind.
“Are you really sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, then.”
And so I started taking notes on Japanese history for Yashiro-kun, and he took notes on science for me. His handwriting was masculine and heavy-handed and also a bit sloppy, but he took a bit more care to make it easier for me to read. You could tell a lot about someone from their handwriting, and he had the exact kind of handwriting I’d expect from someone as considerate as he was.
“Do you think you can tell a lot about someone’s personality by their handwriting?” he asked all of a sudden while looking at my notes. “At first glance, your handwriting seems a little hard and wispy, but when you look closer, it’s actually pretty cute.”
I was so embarrassed I couldn’t say a word.
We kept exchanging notes like that every day. Even though he sat right in front of me, we never talked in class. We shared our lunch breaks together at the library, only saying a few things to each other here and there. It felt very intimate to me, but...I wondered how Yashiro-kun felt about it.
I wondered if it bothered him to spend his lunch breaks with someone who couldn’t hold a conversation. I’d been holding those doubts inside of me a lot lately. Maybe I was the only one who felt relaxed spending time with him like this. And if that were the case, wouldn’t that make me a horrible person? What was I giving back to him?
“This was really interesting,” he said all of a sudden. He held out a book to me over the circulation desk. It was Samarcande by Amin Maalouf, one of my favorite books. Since Yashiro-kun loved reading, I’d wanted to share it with him, so I’d finally mustered up the courage to lend it to him. I took the book back and hugged it to my chest.
“What did you think?”
“I really liked it. I loved the way he described the scenery in the first half. I’ve never been there or seen the place before, but I could picture it perfectly.”
“Yeah...” I knew exactly what he meant. That was part of the reason why I loved books so much. There were no pictures, but the rich descriptions of scenery made it come alive in your mind. The first half was really wonderful, but... I really like the second half too. I loved the nineteenth-century romance. Especially the part where—
“Oh, and there was a scene in the second half that I really liked,” he said suddenly.
“What?”
“You know that scene where the main character’s parents are coincidentally reading the same book about Omar Khayyám’s Rubáiyát, and that’s how they end up getting together? When I read that scene, the intro from that song ‘Sudden Love Story’ went through my head.”
I suddenly heard the strains of an electric guitar pop into my head. Hey, Yashiro-kun. I don’t think you know this, but the same thing happened to us... The first day of school, you and I were reading the same book. If you’d noticed, then maybe we’d...
Huh? Maybe we’d what? What am I getting my hopes up about?
Suddenly I realized what I was feeling inside. It was a little faint and hazy, but it had heat and substance. I can’t believe I’m...with Yashiro-kun...
“Hm? What’s up, Torano-san?”
I quickly whirled around, hoping he wouldn’t see my face.
◊◊◊
Even after I realized how I was feeling, not much changed between us. I didn’t have the means to express those feelings, after all, but the time I spent with Yashiro-kun in the library was irreplaceable to me. I needed that part of my day at school, and I didn’t want to lose it. And one day, I wanted to thank Yashiro-kun for it. I wasn’t sure how yet, though.
“Hey,” Yashiro-kun said, looking up from his book.
“Hm?”
“Do you usually study at home? Or do you use a study room at a library?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t go to the library except to borrow books. The study rooms were always filled with students studying for entrance exams or old people, so I had no desire to stay there for too long anyway. There was somewhere else I often studied, though. “Sometimes...I study at karaoke places.”
“What? Karaoke?” His eyes widened, clearly not expecting that answer.