Chapter 2 – Words That Were Never Spoken
Days passed quietly after the kitten incident—at least from the outside. But for two students who sat side by side in the second row of Class 2-B, the silence between them had changed. It wasn't cold or awkward anymore. It was calm, comfortable in its own rhythm.
Airi remained the same—quiet, observant, always writing in her notebook. But occasionally, she glanced sideways. She noticed that Akira wrote with clean strokes, rarely erased anything, and listened to the teacher with silent focus. She noticed how he never once tapped his pen or slouched in his seat. Precision, like clockwork.
Akira, on the other hand, began noticing things he never cared about before. The way Airi always kept one earbud in during breaks. The way her eyes moved quickly when reading, scanning lines like she was absorbing them, not just reading for fun. She always carried a blue mechanical pencil. Always the same one.
Sometimes, during free periods, Akira would sneak a peek at her notebook. Her handwriting wasn't neat, but it was expressive—filled with snippets on the edges. Dialogues. Scene notes. Thoughts. It was like looking into someone's dreams while pretending not to understand them.
One rainy afternoon, club activities were canceled. Students left early, umbrellas blooming like flowers along the front gates. Akira didn't go home. He took a detour to the town library in Aokashi, a quiet place where the scent of old pages clung to the air like memory.
The place was nearly empty. Rain tapped gently against the windows, and in the far corner of the fiction section, he spotted someone familiar.
Airi.
She sat on the floor, back to a tall shelf, her legs tucked to the side, eyes focused on an aging tablet. Her fingers moved slowly over the screen. She was reading, or maybe writing.
Akira wasn't trying to spy. But as he passed behind the bookshelf, he caught her voice—barely a whisper.
> "New comment… 'Chapter 8 made me cry. The male lead reminds me of someone I know.'"
She smiled faintly and typed,
"Thank you for reading. I never thought my story would reach anyone's heart."
She sighed, not out of sadness, but something gentler. The username she typed under was Stillness_at_Sunset.
That night, back home, curiosity tugged at Akira. He sat at his desk, the rain still whispering against his window, and opened his laptop. He searched the username. Sure enough, a story appeared: "I Was Never the Main Character."
He clicked.
The first line gripped him.
> "He never looked at me, but I always looked at him. That was enough—for a long time."
He kept reading. The second paragraph, the third. The whole first chapter.
The protagonist was a quiet girl who sat in the back of her class. She loved books. She fell silently in love with a boy who didn't know her name. She never confessed, never tried to stand out. She simply wrote him into stories no one would ever know came from her.
> "When I sit beside him, the world doesn't feel so loud anymore. Even if I never say a word."
Akira stared at the screen long after the last sentence.
He didn't know how long he sat there.
The next morning, the sky was clear, but the air was heavy with the scent of wet sakura leaves. Akira entered the classroom earlier than usual. Airi wasn't there yet. He opened his bag and pulled out a brown paper bag, placing it gently on her desk.
When Airi arrived, she looked at it, confused.
Akira didn't look at her, but he spoke.
"It's for you."
Inside the bag was a new notebook. Blue hardcover. Blank pages.
Airi held it carefully. "Why?"
"Because I know you write."
Airi froze, clutching the edge of the notebook. "You—read it?"
"I won't tell anyone."
A long silence. Then, softly, "You read the story?"
Akira nodded, his gaze still on the window. "Yeah."
"And?"
He looked at her, just a little. "It felt like someone knew how to say the things I couldn't."
She didn't reply right away.
"The male lead," he asked, "was it me?"
Airi's eyes widened. She didn't answer. Not directly. But she whispered, "A little."
Akira leaned back, closing his eyes for a second.
Outside, the wind carried petals across the school yard. Spring wasn't loud this year. It was soft. Lingering.
That day, they didn't talk much, but something invisible between them had shifted.
---
The next few weeks followed the same pattern. Calm. Balanced. Whenever Airi uploaded a new chapter, Akira would read it silently. He never commented. He never needed to.
Sometimes, they would stay after school, quietly organizing books in the library or helping teachers. No one told them to. They just didn't want to go home yet.
One day, Airi forgot her umbrella. Akira handed her his without saying anything. He walked beside her in the rain, letting half of his shoulder get soaked.
"You didn't have to," she murmured.
"I wanted to."
---
Then came the writing assignment. Their teacher, Mr. Hirota, asked everyone to write an essay:
"Someone who changed the way I see the world."
Most students wrote about their parents, friends, or teachers. Akira submitted his essay last.
That afternoon, Mr. Hirota sat quietly in the teacher's lounge, reading it slowly.
> "I never liked spring. It was noisy. Chaotic. Fake.
But then I sat beside someone who never needed to speak to be heard.
She never asked me anything, but I felt like she knew more than most people who tried.
She didn't try to change me. She didn't care about my grades or my name.
Somehow, because of that, I started noticing the little colors in the world.
Colors that don't shout. That don't shine.
The kind that stays.
Like her."
—A.H.
---
On Saturday evening, Airi sat in her room, sipping tea and reviewing her next chapter draft. A new notification blinked.
> Comment from: Reader_With_No_Name
"I'm not good with words. But thank you for putting into writing what I never knew I needed to hear."
Airi stared at it for a long time. Then smiled, just faintly. She didn't need to guess who it was.
---
Later that weekend, the two of them ended up walking home from the library. Not planned. Just... natural.
They didn't talk. But their steps matched.
As they neared the train station, Akira spoke.
"Spring doesn't feel fake anymore."
Airi glanced at him, surprised.
"Why?"
He looked ahead. "Because now... it feels quiet."
She smiled, eyes soft. "Quiet isn't a bad thing."
He nodded. "No. It isn't."
And as the wind passed through the cherry blossoms, the petals swirled gently around their feet—silent, soft, and unforgettable.
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