Rain drummed against the library windows in a steady rhythm that made the afternoon feel smaller, more intimate. Haruki had claimed his usual spot on the third floor—a table tucked between the literature stacks and a window that looked out over the campus quad—and spread his books across the surface like a territorial claim.
*Modern Japanese Literature* had been exactly as predictable as he'd expected. Professor Tanaka had assigned Soseki's *Kokoro*, which Haruki had read twice before, and spent forty minutes explaining themes that seemed obvious to anyone who'd ever felt the weight of unspoken guilt. Safe. Comfortable. The kind of class where you could take notes and nod at appropriate intervals without risking any actual self-examination.
So why did he keep thinking about Professor Akizuki's question?
*What are you afraid to say?*
Haruki opened his notebook to a fresh page and wrote the date in careful characters, then sat staring at the blank space below. Outside, students hurried between buildings under umbrellas and pulled-up hoods, their laughter muffled by the rain and glass.
He'd been sitting there for maybe twenty minutes when someone dropped into the chair across from him.
"You're in my seat," Noa said without preamble, shaking raindrops from her hair.
Haruki looked up from his notebook. "Your seat?"
"Third floor, literature section, window table with the good light and the view of the quad." She set down a coffee cup and a stack of psychology textbooks that looked heavy enough to cause structural damage. "I've been sitting here every Tuesday and Thursday for two years."
"I've been sitting here every day for a week," Haruki replied, though he was already gathering his things. "I didn't know it was reserved."
"It's not reserved. It's just mine." Noa pulled out the chair and sat down anyway, apparently unbothered by his continued presence. "But I suppose we could share. If you don't mind company."
Haruki paused, his copy of *Kokoro* halfway into his bag. "Don't you have somewhere else to be?"
"My next class was cancelled. Professor got food poisoning." She opened one of her textbooks—something dense and academic about cognitive behavioral patterns—and glanced at his notebook. "Working on anything interesting?"
The page was still blank except for the date. Haruki closed it quickly. "Just... notes."
"Uh-huh." Noa's tone suggested she wasn't buying it, but she didn't press. Instead, she pulled out her own notebook and began writing in neat, precise handwriting that somehow managed to look both organized and slightly aggressive.
They sat in silence for a while, the rain providing a steady backdrop to the soft sounds of library life—pages turning, keyboards clicking, the occasional whispered conversation from the stacks. It should have been awkward, sharing space with someone who was essentially a stranger. Instead, Haruki found it oddly comfortable, like having a study partner without the pressure of actual partnership.
"Can I ask you something?" Noa said eventually, not looking up from her textbook.
"Sure."
"Why did you transfer?"
The question hit him like cold water. Haruki's pen stopped moving across the page where he'd been taking notes on absolutely nothing. "Why do you want to know?"
"Curiosity. And because you have the look of someone running from something." She finally glanced up, those sharp eyes studying his face. "I'm good at recognizing the signs."
"What signs?"
"The way you sit with your back to the room. How you check your phone but never seem to actually text anyone. The fact that you've been eating lunch alone every day since you got here." Noa ticked off observations on her fingers like she was presenting evidence. "Plus, you transferred in the middle of your second year, which is unusual unless something went wrong at your previous school."
Haruki felt exposed, like she'd been taking notes on his life without his permission. "Maybe I just like being alone."
"Maybe. Or maybe you're afraid of getting close to people again because the last time you tried, it didn't work out the way you hoped."
The accuracy of her assessment was unsettling. Haruki closed his notebook entirely and leaned back in his chair. "Are you psychoanalyzing me for your thesis?"
"Should I be?"
"I'd prefer if you didn't."
Noa smiled—that same small, crooked expression from earlier. "Fair enough. But you still haven't answered my question."
Outside, the rain was picking up, turning the window into a watercolor blur of gray and green. Students ran between buildings now instead of walking, their umbrellas turned inside-out by the wind.
"I needed a change of scenery," Haruki said finally.
"That's not an answer. That's what you tell people when you don't want to give an answer."
"Maybe that's because I don't want to give an answer."
"And maybe that's exactly why you should."
They stared at each other across the table, and Haruki had the distinct feeling he was being challenged again—not aggressively, but with the kind of quiet persistence that suggested Noa was used to getting the information she wanted eventually.
"Why does it matter to you?" he asked.
"Because," Noa said, closing her textbook and giving him her full attention, "you walked into the wrong classroom this morning and stayed anyway. You could have left when I told you where your actual class was, but you didn't. That suggests someone who's tired of playing it safe, even if he doesn't want to admit it."
"Or someone who just got lost."
"Nobody gets that lost by accident."
---
A crash of thunder made them both look toward the window, where the rain had intensified into a proper storm. The library felt even more intimate now, like a ship riding out rough weather.
"I had a friend," Haruki said quietly, surprising himself. "Back at my old school. We were... close. And I thought maybe we could be more than friends, so I told her how I felt."
Noa waited, patient as a therapist.
"It didn't go well," he continued. "Not just the rejection—I could have handled that. But it changed everything. Our whole friend group fell apart. People took sides. I became the guy who ruined a perfectly good friendship by wanting too much."
"So you transferred rather than deal with the aftermath."
"I transferred because staying meant watching my best friend pretend I didn't exist every day." The words came out sharper than he'd intended. "Because sitting in classes where everyone knew what happened and walking past places where we used to hang out became unbearable."
Noa nodded slowly. "And now you're here, keeping everyone at a distance so it can't happen again."
"It's working so far."
"Is it? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like you're just carrying the same hurt around with you, except now you're doing it alone."
Haruki felt something flare in his chest—anger, maybe, or just the discomfort of being seen too clearly. "What about you? You seem pretty comfortable keeping people at arm's length yourself."
"Touché." Noa picked up her coffee cup, realized it was empty, and set it down again. "But we're not talking about me."
"Why not? You want to analyze my attachment patterns, but what about yours? What are you running from?"
For the first time since he'd met her, Noa looked genuinely caught off guard. She opened her mouth, closed it, then laughed—but it sounded forced.
"I'm not running from anything. I'm just... selective about who I let close."
"That's not an answer. That's what you tell people when you don't want to give an answer."
Noa's eyes narrowed, but there was something like approval in her expression. "Using my own words against me. That's either very clever or very annoying."
"Can't it be both?"
"Probably." She gathered her books and stood up. "I should go. This storm doesn't look like it's stopping anytime soon, and I want to get back to my dorm before it gets worse."
Haruki glanced outside, where the rain was now coming down in sheets. "You'll get soaked."
"I'll survive. I'm tougher than I look."
She was already shouldering her bag, but something made her pause. "Haruki?"
"Yeah?"
"That friend of yours—the one you told your feelings to. Did you ever consider that maybe the friendship falling apart wasn't entirely your fault?"
Before he could ask what she meant, Noa was walking away, her footsteps echoing in the quiet library. Haruki watched her disappear into the stacks, then turned back to the window where rain continued to streak down the glass like tears.
His notebook lay open on the table, still blank except for the date. But now, instead of staring at empty space, he found himself thinking about Professor Akizuki's assignment.
*Pay attention to the words you don't say.*
He'd just told Noa more about his past than he'd told anyone since transferring, and the world hadn't ended. The library hadn't collapsed. She hadn't looked at him with pity or judgment—just understanding, and maybe a little recognition.
*What are you afraid to say?*
Haruki picked up his pen and began to write.
*I'm afraid to say that I miss her. Not just Mirei, but all of them. I'm afraid to say that maybe I transferred not because I was brave enough to start over, but because I was too cowardly to fight for what mattered. I'm afraid to say that sitting alone feels safer than risking connection, but it also feels like dying slowly.*
*I'm afraid to say that I don't know how to be close to people without wanting too much from them.*
*I'm afraid to say that I'm lonely.*
The words looked strange on the page—too honest, too raw. But they also looked true in a way that surprised him.
Outside, lightning flickered across the sky, illuminating the campus in brief, stark detail before fading back to gray. The storm was getting worse, but Haruki found he didn't mind being trapped in the library with his thoughts and his too-honest words.
For the first time in months, the silence didn't feel like hiding.
It felt like the space before speaking.
---
By the time the rain finally stopped, the library was nearly empty. Haruki had filled three pages with observations about the words he didn't say—to his parents when they called, to classmates who tried to make conversation, to himself when he looked in the mirror each morning.
He was packing his things when he noticed something on the table where Noa had been sitting: a small piece of paper, folded once, with his name written on it in her precise handwriting.
Inside, in the same neat script: *Some friendships fall apart because they were built on assumptions instead of honesty. Maybe the problem wasn't that you said too much—maybe it was that you waited too long to say it. - N*
*P.S. You can have the window table on Tuesdays. I'll take Thursdays.*
Haruki read the note twice, then carefully folded it and slipped it into his notebook beside his own too-honest words.
Outside, the campus sparkled with rainwater and reflected light, washed clean and somehow more beautiful than before. Students emerged from buildings like flowers after a storm, their voices bright with the particular joy that comes after weather breaks.
Haruki walked back to his dorm through puddles that reflected the clearing sky, Noa's words echoing in his mind alongside Professor Akizuki's question.
*Maybe the problem wasn't that you said too much—maybe it was that you waited too long to say it.*
In his pocket, his phone buzzed with a text from his mother: *How are your classes going? Making any friends?*
For once, instead of deflecting with a generic response, Haruki found himself typing: *I think I might be. It's complicated, but... maybe that's okay.*
He sent the message before he could second-guess himself, then looked up at the sky where stars were beginning to appear between the breaking clouds.
Tomorrow was Thursday. Professor Akizuki's class. The window table that was apparently his on Tuesdays and Noa's on Thursdays, like they were sharing custody of the good light and the view of the quad.
Tomorrow, he might have something interesting to say about the space between words and meaning.
---
*End of Chapter 2*