School - Meeting Komi After

She was there.

I didn't reach for her shoe. That would be too much. Too forward. Instead, I reached into my school bag and pulled out a small, battered tin. I opened it, revealing a tiny block of beeswax I used for the slide of my trombone.

It was full.

Komi Shouko was crying in earnest now. Silent, beautiful, horrible tears. Her shoulders shook. Meeting Komi After School

Komi Shouko looked down at her now-buckled shoe. Then she looked up at me. The mask didn't crack. It didn't shatter. It simply… softened. At the corners of her eyes, in the slight curve of her lips, was something I had never seen on her face before.

A tiny, genuine smile.

Komi Shouko. The goddess. The untouchable. The girl whose beauty silenced rooms and whose very presence seemed to be painted in a higher resolution than the rest of us. She was there

She stared at me, frozen.

She shook her head violently. Then, with the slow, deliberate motion of someone pushing a boulder uphill, she reached into her own bag and pulled out a small, leather-bound notebook. She flipped it open to a fresh page, her hand shaking as she uncapped a pen.

"There," I said, looking up.

She didn't nod. She didn't shake her head. She just slowly, hesitantly, extended her foot.

I was the last one out of the classroom, as usual. The hallway was a long, echoing tunnel of fading sunlight. As I turned the corner toward the shoe lockers, I stopped.

We didn't speak. We didn't need to. The silence between us, for the first time, wasn't empty. Too forward

I knelt down in front of her. Not to worship. Just to see.

"Twenty minutes is a long time," I said. "Next time, just ask. I'm not very good at much, but I'm excellent at buckles."