She blinked once. Then her hands moved—slow, deliberate, almost ceremonial.
Her head tilted. A micro-expression—almost a smile, almost a question. meeting komi after school
I took the long way out, the path that curves behind the gymnasium where the cherry trees drop their petals into blue plastic buckets. That’s where I saw her. She blinked once
Komi Shouko.
She reached into her bag and pulled out a small notebook. Not the neat, pristine one for homework. This one had a bent corner and a doodle of a cat on the cover. She flipped to a page, wrote something quickly, and held it up. A micro-expression—almost a smile, almost a question
I read it twice. Looked at her face. She wasn’t blushing—Komi doesn’t blush like normal people. Instead, the tips of her ears turned the faintest shade of pink, and her gaze dropped to the space between my shoes.
“Me too.”