Episode 9 — Your Note

Aimless noise is poison to the ears. Last seat by the window, at the edge of solitude — conversations, emotions, entanglements drift past in all directions, incoherent and unceasing. The classroom on the cusp of after-school hours reproduces this tedium without remorse, every single day.

I hold my own heartbeat close, as if to shield myself from all that interference. My heart, beating fast and high with faint anticipation, draws my attention toward what it’s hoping for. The points layered one over another, etched into my body, become a line — and trace the shape of an after-school spent with Kanzaki-san. That alone seems to ease the ordinary unpleasantness, just a little.

Somewhere outside that inner world, the teacher has arrived at the podium without my noticing, and says the usual words. They reach no one in particular, dissolve into the air and disappear. The teacher, unbothered by this, calls the end of the day along with the chime.

That signal releases the noise, worse than before, and my heart goes on expecting something. Not the undifferentiated sound of the crowd — one particular sound, produced by one particular person. I was standing up from my seat, heart full of that anticipation, when —

A ripple ran through the noise. Whispers reaching my ears.

“Isn’t that Kanzaki-san?”
“Oh wow, she’s so pretty.”
“Who do you think she’s here for?”

Led by those voices, I shifted my gaze — and there was Kanzaki-san, stepping lightly and directly toward something, in a straight line. In a classroom brimming with tedium, she was the only one shining, and the contrast threw my already-loud heartbeat into even sharper relief.

But why was Kanzaki-san here?

I murmured it inside, keeping it hidden among the whispers around me. Surely she hadn’t come to find me. Coming here from the advanced-track classrooms would be doubling back before heading to the old building. And even setting that aside — there was no reason someone like me would be Kanzaki-san’s purpose.

And yet, as if to answer that question, Kanzaki-san’s step didn’t falter — and eventually, at the window, at the very back, at the place that narrowed the field of possible targets down to almost none, she stopped.

And then, in her usual still, calm beauty, she murmured:

“Morning.”
“Morning. Though it isn’t morning.”
“Yeah. Not morning.”
“No…”

I was swept along by Kanzaki-san’s rhythm, nodding blankly. No matter how disconnected the exchange, Kanzaki-san transmutes it — through the shimmer of eyes that reflect light like a mirror, through skin like a painted transparency, through the sway of lustrous hair — into something enigmatic and magnetic.

None of it is anything I can resist. All I can do is receive it, desperately.

Unaware that I’m suffering a sweet kind of anguish, Kanzaki-san continues at her own distinctive tempo.

“You’re coming today, right?”
“Yes. I was planning to.”
“I know.”
“Oh…”
“Shall we go, then.”

The halting exchange passes like flowing water, and after it, Kanzaki-san simply begins to walk. I hurriedly grab my bag and follow.

When the conversation fell away and our footsteps took its place, the familiar voices returned — the same undifferentiated sound as yesterday — and struck my eardrums again.

“What’s the deal with Kanzaki-san and Ogawa-san?”
“No idea.”
“They seem so mismatched, don’t they.”
“Right? Like, is she being blackmailed or something?”

She isn’t. I murmured it inside. I’m just the one who’s had my heart seized, unilaterally.

It’s not as if anything anyone says bothers me anymore — I’ve always been alone, whatever happens, so in that sense I’m untouchable. And yet there’s no denying that having malice pointed directly at you is wearing. I walked just a little faster. Not so fast it looked like fleeing — just a fraction. I let my arm hang loose, deliberately languid, to suggest I was perfectly at ease.

And then — something cool settled against that show of bravado, softly, lightly.

So there is beauty even in touch, I thought.

By the time I understood it was Kanzaki-san’s palm, the classroom had fallen completely silent from the shock of it. In that silence, only our footsteps and my heartbeat rang out, absurdly loud.

Like the scene from yesterday that couldn’t be written — the moment before the train doors closed, the hand that wasn’t taken — now reproduced in mirror image. Hand held, I left the silent classroom behind.

Even once we were in the corridor, that connection didn’t come undone. I hurried to speak to the slender back in front of me:

“Kanzaki-san — what’s come over you?”

Kanzaki-san turned slowly, and answered with perfect composure, as if it were nothing:

“It was noisy. So I quieted them down.”

That sound reached me with astonishing ease, and sweetly, quietly, eroded my heart. I confirmed the fact to myself, inside:

Everything Kanzaki-san releases into the air — it is always, every time, the single sound I want to hear.