The library was almost entirely quiet except for a few rustling pages and the quiet scrapes of chairs. The luster of afternoon-darkness fell across wide windows and spilled into the wooden surfaces of tables, producing a sleepy atmosphere. There was a faint smell of old books and burnt parchment in the air.
Ren was sitting in his usual corner tracing lazily on the cover of a closed chess book with his fingers while letting his thoughts drift elsewhere. The chess competition was looming, but he was thinking of something else: more like someone, very far from him across the library.
Aoi.
There she sat at the tip of a bookshelf with her head low, looking engrossed in work--the pencil deftly swayed by her fingers, only to stop during the smudging of the lines with the side of her hand. Every stroke was deliberate, every pause filled with careful thought.
She didn't notice him watching.
Ren couldn't even find an explanation for his lurking gaze. Perhaps she was different now: so focused, even at peace. He recalled the first time he'd seen her at the train station, hurrying and flustered. This was a completely different creature; suspended almost, ethereal, like she belonged to a separate world from theirs.
Ren shifted his eyes towards her drawing book. What on earth was she sketching?
Aoi abruptly stopped.
She had her fingers raised as if trying to sense something. Slowly, she lifted her gaze and then met his eyes.
Ren stared back at Aoi.
For a fleeting moment, silence enveloped them both. Then all the sounds of the library just faded away.
Aoi blinked, mouth slightly aghast, and a head tilt and then she spoke.
"Did you just... stare at me?"
It was quiet, and in it was a hint of curiosity, possibly amusement.
Ren hesitated for the briefest second; after all, he wasn't trying to stare at Aoi; he just did.
"No reason." His voice sounded even and a little cryptic, which all seemed too awful, really.
Aoi studied him as if probing for something behind his words. After a moment, she gave a resigned sigh and looked back at her sketchbook.
"That much for now, then," she murmured as if she was opening it. Still, she had that glimmer of curiosity in her eye.
Aoi was tapping her pencil lightly against the edge of her sketchbook as if she were thinking twice about whether to say more. Across from her, seated on the other side of the library, Ren had turned his gaze back to the closed chess book on the table but couldn't keep it fixed there.
The air suspended between them settled into a quiet lull, neither uncomfortable nor completely familiar.
Aoi shifted in her seat slightly, her fingers brushing over her page. Then, after a pause, she resumed drawing, her strokes slower and a little less sure, as if some part of her was still aware of him.
Then Ren's eyes flickered back toward her direction.
She had begun sketching again but with one catch. The confidence in her strokes was now overshadowed with some trace of hesitation.
He wondered, if only fleetingly, what had changed.
For a time, neither of them spoke; the only sounds between them were the soft scratching of a pencil against paper and pages turning from some distant students.
Then, Aoi said, almost absent-minded and in the quietest voice, "You don't talk much, do you?"
Ren lifted his gaze to meet hers but was expressionless. He thought of something to say, but silence stretched between them.
Aoi apparently took little notice of this. She gave the faintest of smiles before returning to her drawing, having apparently anticipated that answer.
The two stayed there, waiting on unspoken words hanging in the air, until the afternoon slowly moved into a position to stretch their shadows across the stout wooden table.