The Weight of Distance
Rumane had made a decision the moment she walked out of class that day: she would avoid Akio Hukitaske.
It wasn't that he frightened her. Nor that she disliked him. Quite the opposite—something in his presence had rattled her in a way she couldn't control, and Rumane did not trust things she couldn't control.
For years she had lived in silence, a creature of absence and shadows. Speaking to him—confessing about Renji, even a fragment of the truth—had cracked that silence wide open. She had lain awake that night, staring at the ceiling, her brother's face flooding her mind with unbearable clarity. His voice. His laughter. His hand reaching out and never quite reaching her.
Talking had brought him back. And it had torn her open.
She couldn't let that happen again.
So the next day, when Akio caught her eye in the hallway, she turned sharply, her hair turning. At lunch she sat farther from the center, pressed against the window with her bento unopened. When he passed by her desk after class, his mouth half-opening as if to speak, she buried herself in her bag, pulling notebooks out with shaking hands.
Avoidance became her armor.
But deep inside, Rumane knew this armor was brittle. It wasn't hate that drove her away. It wasn't disgust. It was fear—the terror that if she let someone step too close, they might see the rotting grief festering inside her, the grief she had polished into silence for years.
And perhaps, worse than that, she feared that letting him in would loosen her grip on her brother's memory. That talking, smiling, connecting would be a betrayal of Renji, as if every step toward life was a step away from the dead.
The Library
The rain began midweek. Heavy autumn rain that made the streets gleam like rivers of black glass. Students rushed through puddles under umbrellas, their voices carrying in sharp laughter that seemed foreign to Rumane's ears.
She retreated to the library after classes. The smell of old paper and damp coats hung in the air. She slipped into her usual corner—third row, back wall, where the shelves of medical reference books stood mostly untouched. There she opened a thick manual, the kind Renji once poured over, and let the printed words blur before her eyes.
Her stomach hurt. The letters swam.
"Pharmacy again?"
Her body stiffened. The voice was soft but steady. She looked up, and there he was—Akio, standing in the narrow aisle with a book tucked under his arm.
Rumane's throat tightened. She snapped the manual shut. "What do you want?"
"Nothing," he said, almost casually. "Just saw you here." He lifted the book in his hand, showing the title—another pharmaceutical text. "Guess we've got the same hiding place."
She clenched her jaw. "I'm not hiding."
Akio tilted his head. "Then what are you doing?"
"I don't need to explain myself." Her voice came sharper than she intended, but he didn't flinch.
He leaned against the shelf, careful to leave space between them. His eyes weren't pitying, not curious either—they carried something heavier, something Rumane couldn't name.
"You know," he said quietly, "sometimes reading doesn't make the hurt smaller. It just makes the silence louder."
Her heart lurched. She wanted to tell him to shut up, to leave her alone. But the words tangled in her throat. Instead, she pushed her chair back and stood abruptly, the screech of metal legs cutting through the hush of the library. Without a glance, she walked out, the sound of her footsteps echoing like stones thrown into water.
Akio didn't follow. That, somehow, made it worse.
Gym Class
The rain had not stopped by the time Friday came. The schoolyard was slick with water, the basketball courts flooded. Gym class was moved inside to the echoing cavern of the gymnasium.
Rumane stood at the edge of the room, arms crossed, The other team members laughed as they grouped into teams, their voices bouncing against the high ceiling. The smell of sweat and polished wood pressed heavy in the air.
She had no team. She had no will. She sat on the bench, her eyes fixed on the droplets sliding down the high windows.
"Skipping again?"
Her stomach knotted. She didn't need to look to know who it was.
Akio stood a few feet away, already dressed in his gym clothes, a basketball under one arm. Hikata and Riki were on the far end of the court, calling for him to hurry up, but he lingered.
"I'm not skipping," Rumane muttered. "I'm waiting."
"For what?"
She bit her lip, refusing to answer.
Akio dribbled the ball once, letting it bounce lazily on the wooden floor. "You keep running away. But... you don't seem like someone who hates people."
Her head snapped toward him, anger flaring hot in her heart. "What do you know about me?"
"Nothing," he admitted. "But I've seen people who hate the world. They look different. They burn differently. You don't burn like that."
Rumane's fists clenched. His words scraped against the raw edges of her grief. She wanted to scream at him, to tell him to stop prying, to let her rot in peace. But his voice was calm, not accusing, and that calmness carved into her.
"You're wrong," she whispered.
"Am I?"
Her vision blurred. She looked down, unable to meet his gaze. Her brother's face rose unbidden in her mind—Renji smiling, Renji falling, Renji gone.
"I don't... I don't hate people," she admitted, her voice trembling. "I just... I can't... I can't..."
The words fractured. She pressed her nails into her palms, fighting the tears that threatened to spill.
Akio didn't move closer. He didn't reach out. He simply stood there, the basketball silent in his hands, waiting.
Rumane shook her head violently, forcing the flood back inside. "Stop trying. Just stop. You don't know what you're doing."
And she turned away, her hair swinging to hide her face.
The Game Continues
The whistle blew, and the game resumed. Rumane sat rigid on the bench, her heart hammering against her ribs. Across the court, Akio played, his movements efficient but not flashy, his face unreadable.
Every so often, his eyes flicked toward her. Not demanding, not insistent—just there. Watching.
Rumane pressed her fists against her knees. She hated him for it. She hated herself more for wishing he wouldn't stop.
The rain pounded harder against the windows, drowning the world outside. Inside the gym, the echoes of the game blurred into a rhythm that sounded like a heartbeat she thought she had lost.
TO BE CONTINUED...