The Sakuragaoka High library was a temple of silence, and Kaito Sato was its most devoted worshipper. Or at least, he used to be. Now, sitting across from Hikari Tanaka, the quiet felt different. It wasn't peaceful—it was charged, like the moment before a storm breaks. His side of the table was a monument to order. Hikari's side looked like a small, chaotic art project had exploded.
He took a steadying breath. This was just a project. A procedural task. He could do this.
"I've prepared an outline based on the key themes from chapters seven through nine," Kaito began, sliding a pristine sheet of paper toward her.
"Hold on," Hikari interrupted, not looking up from shading a furious samurai in her margin. She pointed at his outline. "What's with the rainbow?"
Kaito blinked. "It's a color-coded priority system. Yellow for dates, pink for economic causes, green for social effects, blue for political treaties…"
Hikari finally glanced up, her expression flat. "So the past is a rainbow."
"It's for organization," he said, a faint defensive note entering his voice.
"It looks like a confused parrot sat on your notes," she replied, turning back to her drawing. A beat of silence passed, and then Kaito, to his own utter shock, let out a small, quiet snort of laughter. He clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wide.
Hikari's head snapped up. A slow, victorious smirk spread across her face. She had made the perfect statue laugh.
Flustered, Kaito cleared his throat. He carefully produced two identical, perfectly sharpened pencils from his case, offering one to her. "Here. For taking notes."
Hikari stared at the offered pencil as if it were a strange artifact. Then she held up her own—a chewed, stubby thing with a tiny doodle of a frowning cat on its side. "I'm good. Mine has character."
Kaito looked genuinely perplexed. "But… it's significantly shorter. And the eraser is completely gone."
"It's committed," she said solemnly. "No going back. Erasers are for doubters."
Slowly, Kaito put the spare pencil away. He looked down at his own flawless writing instrument with sudden, profound uncertainty.
They attempted to work. Kaito, reading from his meticulous notes, stated, "The Perry Expedition arrived in 1853. You've written here," he pointed to her notebook where she'd scrawled in the margin, 'some American boats showed up and ruined everything.' "That is not academically precise."
Hikari didn't look up from adding a furious squiggle to represent steam from a ship. "Is it wrong?"
"It's… imprecise."
"But is it a lie?" she asked, finally meeting his eyes. It was a genuine question.
Kaito stared. He blinked. "…No. It is not a lie."
Hikari gave a small, satisfied nod, as if she'd won a point. "Then we can make it fancy later. The feeling is right."
The work continued in fits and starts. During a lull, Hikari pulled out a small bag of puffy rice crackers. As she opened it, one rogue cracker escaped, rolling merrily across the table until it came to a stop against Kaito's immaculate timeline.
"Oops," she said, not sounding very sorry.
Kaito looked from the cracker to her. He didn't eat in the library. It was a rule. His rule. After a moment's internal crisis, he reached out and carefully picked it up between his thumb and forefinger.
"You can toss it," Hikari said, popping another in her mouth.
Instead, Kaito set the cracker neatly on a clean corner of a spare notecard. He pushed it back across the table to her side, as if repatriating a precious jewel.
Hikari's lips twitched. "Thanks. I'll make sure it gets home safe to its family." She dropped it back into the bag, the sound absurdly loud in the quiet library.
Later, Kaito was in the flow, explaining the dissolution of the samurai class. "And so, the loss of their stipends and status led to significant social… um…"
He stopped. He'd lost his place. He never lost his place. He flipped a notecard, but it was the wrong one. A hot, unfamiliar flush crept up his neck.
Hikari, who had been quietly sketching a tiny, grumpy-looking steam train, watched the ordeal. Without looking up, she offered, "Led to a lot of very confused guys with swords and no jobs?"
Kaito looked up, the tension dissolving. "Yes. Exactly." He picked up his pencil and, with a slight thrill of rebellion, wrote in the margin of his perfect notes: 'Confused swordsmen.' It made him want to smile.
The simple act seemed to unlock something. As they wrestled with a particularly dense paragraph on land tax reform, both stumped for different reasons, Hikari groaned and let her forehead thump softly against the table. "The words are so small," she moaned, her voice muffled by the wood. "And they hate me."
Kaito, who had been thinking 'The logic of this fiscal policy is poorly structured,' looked at her defeated form. It was so dramatically hopeless. "They… are rather small words," he agreed, his voice gentle.
Hikari turned her head to the side, one cheek pressed to the table, and looked at him. A real, tired smile touched her eyes. "See? You get it."
It was the first time they'd shared a smile over a common enemy. The battlefield was a textbook, and they were oddly aligned.
During a break, Hikari leaned back, studying him with her head tilted. "Can I ask you something?"
Kaito nodded, cautiously.
"Does it ever get boring?"
"Does what get boring?"
"Being right all the time. Knowing the answer before the teacher even finishes the question."
He considered it. It wasn't asked with meanness, just a blunt curiosity he was starting to recognize as uniquely hers. "It's not about being right," he said slowly, choosing his words with more care than he did for any test. "It's about… knowing what's expected. It's safe."
Hikari nodded, as if this confirmed a theory. "Safe. Yeah. My brain doesn't really do 'safe.' It does 'loud' and 'annoying.' Mostly annoying, according to everyone."
Kaito looked directly at her, his gaze steady and honest. "I don't think it's annoying."
The words hung in the quiet air between them. Hikari stopped fiddling with her chewed pencil. She looked at him, really looked, her usual shield of sarcasm nowhere to be found. She didn't reply, but the comfortable silence that followed was answer enough.
They finally had to agree on a title for their presentation.
Kaito consulted his notes. "I propose: 'A Structural Analysis of Pre-Meiji Economic Precursors to–'"
"No," Hikari cut in immediately. "That sounds like a sleeping pill. How about 'The Big Crack-Up'?"
Kaito's nose wrinkled slightly. "…That might be too informal for Mr. Endo."
They were at an impasse. Kaito stared at his notecards, the rainbow of colors suddenly seeming unhelpful. He thought about her phrase—the feeling is right. He thought about confused swordsmen and steam trains that looked grumpy.
"What about…" he ventured, unsure, "'When the World Turned Upside Down'?"
Hikari's head came up. It wasn't a textbook title. It was a feeling. A good one. A slow, real smile—not a smirk—spread across her face. "Okay. Yeah. That's… actually okay."
The warmth that spread through Kaito's chest at her approval was more satisfying than any '100%' marked in red at the top of a test.
When the library's closing bell chimed softly, they began to pack up. In the shuffle, Hikari accidentally swept one of Kaito's prized color-coded pens into her bag.
"Whoops," she said, pulling it out. "Here, you probably need this back. It's the… 'social upheaval' blue, right?"
Kaito was surprised she'd paid that much attention. "Close," he said, taking the pen. His fingers brushed the violin case tucked beside her chair. The touch was brief, accidental, but it sent a silent hum through him, a reminder of a secret connection only he knew. "It's 'foreign policy' blue."
Hikari shook her head, shouldering her bag and lifting the violin case with a practiced ease that made his breath catch for a half-second. A small, effortless smile played on her lips. "Of course it is. See you tomorrow, Kaito."
She said his first name so casually, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"See you tomorrow, Hikari," he replied, the name feeling both strange and right on his tongue.
He walked home alone, as he always did. But the silence inside him was different. The haunting, beautiful echo of the violin was still there, a soft, permanent note in the back of his mind. But the music in his thoughts now was different. It was the rhythm of her blunt questions, the melody of her unexpected laugh, the harmony of a shared, silly struggle over a textbook.
He wasn't just thinking of the girl from the music room. He was thinking of the girl with the chewed pencil, the chaotic notes, and the honest, tired smile. He was thinking of Hikari.
Kaito Sato walked under the streetlights, and for the first time, the two images in his mind—the fierce musician in the sunbeam and the sarcastic, surprising girl at the library table—didn't clash. They began to blend, creating a person more real, and more interesting, than he ever could have imagined. He wasn't following the echo of a song anymore. He was walking beside the person who played it.
(End of chapter 4)