The wind was slower that morning. The kind of slow that made the leaves sway like they were listening to an old song. Haruki sat on the same bench the one that had grown used to his quiet weight his notebook closed beside him. He hadn't written a word today, not because the pages had nothing to offer him, but because the silence felt like something worth listening to. He leaned back, eyes half-closed, not in sleep but in thought.
That note Not yet. Two words.
Yet they weighed more than all his poems. Not because of what they meant. But because someone had answered. For the first time in years, his loneliness felt like it wasn't only his. A soft sound of footsteps passed behind him. He didn't turn, but a shadow fell across the ground in front of him, long and delicate. When he finally looked, she was there Ayumi sitting a few benches away, reading a book with her legs crossed neatly, her face calm, like she was guarding her own silence.
They didn't speak.
They didn't even smile.
Only a small exchange of eyes, a quiet nod as if acknowledging the other's existence was enough. The wind carried on, slow and unhurried. Two strangers, tied not by words, but by the comfort of not needing them.
The second time they met in the park, Haruki had his notebook open, pen tapping against the paper, yet he hadn't written a single line. Ayumi was already there when he arrived, sitting with a book in her lap. She looked up briefly, her eyes carrying that same unshaken calm.
"Writer's block?" she asked,
closing her book without a bookmark as if she had already memorized the page number.
Haruki smirked faintly. "No… just letting the paper breathe."
A small laugh escaped her.
"You talk like a poet even when you're not trying."
It was the first time their conversation lingered past a greeting. They spoke about poetry, but not in the way most people did. Not about rhymes or famous poets. But about how words could hold emotions without ever saying them directly. About how a sentence could be a shelter. About how sometimes, the silence between two lines meant more than the lines themselves. Haruki realized something talking to her didn't feel like talking.
It felt like exchanging pages from different books and finding the same sentence written in both. When she finally stood to leave, she placed her book gently on the bench between them.
"Borrow it," she said.
"But don't return it too quickly. Good books need to stay with you for a while."
He nodded, fingers brushing the cover after she left, the warmth of her presence lingering like a faint underline on an otherwise blank page.
It was late afternoon when they found themselves sharing the same bench again. The wind carried the faint scent of rain, though the sky held its patience.
Haruki was halfway through the book she had lent him. Ayumi noticed the folded corner of a page.
"That part?" she asked.
He nodded. "The sentence felt like it was written for me."
For a while, they sat in an easy quiet, speaking only to exchange lines from books and thoughts that didn't need full explanations. But then, without any prompt, Ayumi closed her book and stared at the pond ahead.
"My life," she began,
"looks simple from the outside. Maybe even perfect."
Her tone wasn't dramatic it was steady, like she had said this before, but never to him.
"I've always had everything I needed. A good home. Parents who listen. No big tragedies."
She smiled faintly, though her eyes didn't follow.
"But still… I've always felt like an observer in my own life. Like I'm watching other people live while I just.stand in the corner of the room."
Haruki didn't respond right away. He knew some truths deserved silence more than sympathy.
"I read," she continued,
"because books let me feel without having to be seen. And poetry, poetry feels like a safe place to think dangerous thoughts."
Her words hung in the air, soft yet unshakable. For the first time, Haruki felt that her stillness wasn't emptiness it was a weight she carried quietly, the kind that didn't show until you were close enough to notice. When she finally looked at him, it wasn't for reassurance. It was as if she wanted to make sure he'd heard her.
He had.
Days passed in their gentle rhythm short conversations in the park, a shared poem here, a quiet agreement on a line there.
Nothing too close, nothing too far.
And yet, Haruki began to notice something.
It wasn't dramatic no arguments, no misunderstandings. Just a faint change in the way his mornings felt. The park bench didn't feel the same when he sat alone now. The silence once his most loyal companion seemed heavier, as if it missed something it had never needed before.
It unsettled him. He caught himself waiting for her to appear, even when he told himself he didn't care.
And when she did appear, he felt a strange restlessness not discomfort, but not peace either. One evening, after she left, he sat staring at his closed notebook.
Is this peace?
The question returned, sharper this time.
He remembered the quiet before she arrived in his life simple, untouched, unchanging.
Now something had shifted. Something he couldn't name. And for someone who lived for silence, that shift felt dangerous. The next day, he didn't go to the park. And the day after that, he sat on the far end, pretending not to notice her.
Ayumi had noticed.
She wasn't the type to chase, but she wasn't blind either. Haruki's greetings had grown shorter, his gaze slipping past her like a shadow avoiding light.
The conversations that once stretched like slow rivers now ended before they began.
After the unit test, she found him outside, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets. He looked up only when her footsteps stopped in front of him.
"What's wrong with you lately?" she asked,
her voice calm but threaded with something sharper.
"Nothing."
"Don't lie. You're different."
He sighed, glancing away.
"See we're not friends. Not anything else. We're just like coffee mates with a book in the library. And I've realized something. this small socializing even this is disturbing my peace."
She didn't move. Didn't blink.
"I don't even know what peace is,"
he continued,
"but I know this is… affecting me. Making me feel strange. And I don't want that."
Silence.
A slow breath. Then, quietly, as if testing the air,
she said,
"I like you."
The words struck harder than they sounded.
Haruki froze.
Her eyes searched his for something anything but he didn't move, didn't speak.