I looked at her. Really looked. Not at the legend, but at the girl. A girl with a knot in her throat and a storm in her heart.
A tiny, genuine smile.
She flinched. Her head snapped up, and her wide, dark eyes met mine. They were pools of pure panic. She looked like a deer that had just realized the hunter was not only there, but had been watching for hours. Her lips parted, but no sound came. Just a small, breathy gasp. Meeting Komi After School
Her handwriting was impossibly neat, like a printed font.
I panicked. "Oh no—I'm sorry! Did I hurt you? Was that weird? I'm so sorry, I'll just—" I looked at her
She stared at me, frozen.
She didn't nod. She didn't shake her head. She just slowly, hesitantly, extended her foot. A girl with a knot in her throat and a storm in her heart
We didn't speak. We didn't need to. The silence between us, for the first time, wasn't empty.
She took her pen and wrote one final line in her notebook, then turned it toward me.