I like you, Ayumi said.
Her voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. Those three words were enough to stop the wind for a moment, enough to make Haruki's heart feel like it skipped and then started again too fast. He didn't look at her right away. His eyes stayed on the quiet park ahead, the slow movement of the leaves, as if the trees could answer for him.
"How?" he asked softly.
"I don't even think anyone likes me. There's nothing in me, just a boring guy. Average in everything. Nothing special. You could find better than me. You should have."
Ayumi didn't argue. She didn't rush to convince him. She just looked at him, eyes calm, like she was holding something fragile inside her.
"You don't have to be special for me to like you," she finally said.
Then silence. Not the kind that pushes people away, but the kind that sits between them, making both hearts beat a little louder. Ayumi stood up.
"I'll be here in the park, on this same bench, every day waiting for your answer. Till then, we just have to spend time with each other."
Haruki's fingers tightened on the bench.
"You already know my answer," he said quietly.
"I'll be here too. But don't, don't let that feeling grow in your heart. You're only thinking wrongly."
She didn't reply. She just smiled faintly and walked away, her steps slow but certain.
The days that followed felt slow, almost stubborn, as if time itself had decided to move carefully around them. Every afternoon, just as the sun began leaning toward the horizon, Ayumi came to the park. She would find Haruki on the same bench, sitting like a shadow that the bench had grown used to carrying. Her steps were never hurried. She walked as though she knew she wouldn't be turned away, even if her presence was met with little more than a nod.
"Good afternoon," she would say softly,
almost like she didn't want to disturb the air around them. And Haruki, without looking up from his notebook or the ground, would answer with a quiet,
"Hm."
Sometimes she talked about the weather how the clouds looked softer that day, or how the wind smelled faintly of rain. Other times she mentioned a book she had read, or how she had discovered a cafe that served the best matcha cake she'd ever tasted. She never asked questions that demanded answers. She just spoke, as if to keep the air from falling too silent. Haruki listened. He heard every word. He even remembered them later. But his replies were short a single sentence, a small comment, sometimes just a nod.
It wasn't that he didn't care. It was that he didn't trust himself to step further into her world. Because if he did, he feared the walls would close in around him and he had no strength left to break walls anymore.
Still, Ayumi didn't seem to mind his quiet. She didn't push him to speak. She didn't ask why his answers were so few. Maybe she understood. Maybe she didn't. But either way, she stayed.
The afternoons became a strange ritual she would talk, he would listen, and they would watch the sun dip lower. They were not lovers. They were not strangers. They were two people sharing the same bench, holding their silences differently.
Sometimes Haruki caught himself glancing at her not to admire her face, but to read the way she sat, the way her fingers traced patterns on the bench's wooden edge, the way her gaze followed the wind as if it carried something only she could see.
And in those small moments, he felt something he didn't want to name.
The next afternoon, Haruki came to the park at the usual time. The bench was waiting for him empty, patient, as if
expecting both of them. He sat down, placing his notebook beside him like always. The wind was light, carrying the smell of warm grass and faraway food stalls. A couple of children ran past, laughing, their shadows stretching across the path. Somewhere, a dog barked and then grew quiet again. He kept his eyes on the entrance to the park, half expecting to see her figure appear the steady, unhurried steps, the way her hair moved when the wind caught it. But the minutes stretched, and the entrance stayed empty.
He told himself she was probably late. Maybe the bus had taken longer. Maybe she had stopped at that café she liked. Maybe she was just on the other side of the park, looking at the lake. Maybe. The sun slid lower, and the shadows grew longer.
Still, no Ayumi.
The bench suddenly felt wider, colder. The space beside him looked almost too visible, like it was shouting her absence to him. He didn't realize how much her voice had filled the air until the silence began pressing down on him. It wasn't the kind of quiet that heals. It was the kind that sits on your chest, heavy and uninvited. He opened his notebook but couldn't write a word. The pages looked too white, too clean like they were also waiting for something that wouldn't come.
He tapped the pen against the paper, hoping maybe a sentence would form, but all that came to his mind was her voice from yesterday. And the way she had looked at him. Somewhere deep inside,
he knew this silence wasn't just about her not being here today. It was about the fear that she might not be here tomorrow.
By the time he stood up to leave, the park lights had begun to flicker on. He walked away slowly, almost unwilling to turn his back to the empty bench, as if looking away would confirm she had truly not been there. The sound of his footsteps on the gravel felt louder than it should have.
The next day, Haruki came again. This time, he didn't even pretend to expect her. He sat with his back slightly hunched, his hands in his pockets, watching the slow sway of the trees instead of the park entrance.
He told himself it was easier this way not to wait, not to hope. But the truth was, some part of him still listened for her footsteps. That light, unhurried sound that always reached him before she did. He was staring at the ground when he heard it. The faint crunch of shoes on gravel. At first, he thought it was just someone passing by. But then that voice.
"You look like you're thinking about something you'll never say."
Haruki looked up. Ayumi was standing there, holding a book in her hands, her hair slightly messy from the wind. She wasn't smiling exactly, but her eyes had that quiet brightness the kind that made it hard to believe she had ever been gone.
He felt something inside him loosen, as if his chest had been tied for hours and someone had just cut the rope.
"You weren't here yesterday," he said,
the words coming out softer than he meant.
"I know," she replied,
sitting beside him. "I was somewhere else. But I wanted to be here."
For a moment, they didn't speak. The silence between them felt different from yesterday's warmer, almost like a blanket instead of a stone. She placed the book on his lap.
"You write in your notebook. I read in mine. Maybe we can just do that together."
Haruki opened his mouth to say
something maybe to tell her how much her absence had weighed on him but he stopped. Instead, he simply nodded, and they sat there, each with their own pages, sharing the same air.
It was strange, he thought, how sometimes the presence of one person could make the whole world feel less empty.
The wind had settled, and the late afternoon light painted the park in a shade of gold that made everything look softer than it really was. Ayumi had gone home an hour ago, but Haruki still sat on the bench. His notebook lay open now, pages filled with words no one had read. He stared at them for a long time, then wrote slowly, as if each letter weighed something :
"I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself."
Somewhere in the distance, a child laughed. Someone else was calling for their dog. Life was moving, as it always did, and Haruki felt both part of it and far away from it.
Closing the notebook, Haruki looked up at the sky not because he was searching for anything, but because it was the only thing that didn't need to understand him.
People say time heals, but sometimes it only teaches you how to hide the wound better. And some feelings are not meant to be explained they are meant to be carried.
And as Haruki sat there, he wondered if the weight he carried was hers, or his own.
The park felt the same without he, but he didn't. And that scared him more than anything.