At this moment I only needed to change my mood.
Today there was no parcel, so I skipped the step of going to the locker to pick up a delivery and walked straight toward the bus stop.
It had rained all night.
In the early morning a thin white mist filled the streets, and the weather had turned thoroughly cold.
The smell of spices from the breakfast shop, the smell of fried food, and the smell of noodles and rice noodles drifted freely through the fog.
With a screech—, the bus stopped in front of me.
Monday morning.
There were many students going to school and parents sending children off, which was also why I almost never went out on Mondays.
The crowded bus made it so I could not even stand steady.
After swiping my bus card I could only stand by the door holding the handrail.
Every time the door opened I had to step down to let the people behind get off, then come back.
After passing several stops near schools the bus suddenly emptied, and I found a seat toward the back and sat down.
The fog outside the window blurred the trees on both sides of the road into a stretch of white haze.
Before long the library’s distinctive sloped roof drifted as if through a sea of clouds, faintly emerging from the white mist.
Clearly when I left home the fog had not felt that thick, yet when the bus reached here the mist had grown markedly denser, making everything before my eyes seem immersed in a dream.
Had she come?
The instant I stepped off the bus, that was the only question in my head.
This road I had walked so many times I could no longer count.
This door I had pushed open so many times I had long forgotten.
Behind the counter in the hall was that librarian.
When she saw me there was a little surprise, then she greeted me.
“You really came.”
“Mm… yeah.”
I always felt that explaining to her directly that I was a bit interested in the person she had mentioned yesterday and had come to see who it was would seem strange.
But she did not ask anything more, only watched me walk straight toward that fixed seat.
One step, two steps, three steps…
My gaze rounded the bookshelf blocking the path.
In that corner, beside this window.
The cool wind outside still rolled the curtains.
Beside the curtains sat a girl in a white coat wearing a white Western-style hat.
Her hat was very wide, covering her face.
On the hat was a blue fake flower, and beneath the flower a black bow was tied.
Wearing a hat indoors truly made people look at her twice.
I stopped in front of her.
My heart beat thump-thump.
The excitement made my breathing feel hurried.
The tightness in my chest, the feeling of being unable to catch my breath, the sour ache in my nose—all of it blurred my eyes as the girl lifted her head.
Then I froze.
“Oh my, this adorable little sister, is there something I can do for you?”
Little sister?
Don’t look at me like this. I’m already an adult, you know.
The girl’s voice was mature and full of intellect, with a trace of nasality.
Her long silver hair almost hung beneath the chair, blending with her snow-white coat and the thick skirt showing from inside it.
A pair of very pale eyes, seeming blue, and also seeming purple.
Eh?
Who was this?
Not Lingyin…
I suddenly froze.
For a moment I did not even know how to describe my own mood.
This feeling was as if in an instant I had been struck from the mountaintop into the valley floor.
Although she showed me a gentle smile, looking at her I could not speak for a long time, and only stepped back twice.
The girl looking up at me gently placed a hand beside her cheek and continued smiling.
“Did I take your seat? Or are you waiting for someone here?”
“Wait a moment. I’ll give it to you right away…”
“Nnh… n-no need.”
But as I said that, the girl’s hand reached behind the curtain and then took out two silver objects from inside.
A pair of crutches…
“Um, are your legs inconvenient? It’s fine. I’m not waiting for anyone. I’ll be leaving soon. You sit.”
That was true…
You could not blame Miss Administrator for not explaining clearly.
After all you could not, when describing someone’s features, just say the other person had a disability or something.
That would be far too rude.
Yet watching her struggle to stand, I almost reached out to support her.
I felt that ever since meeting Lingyin, whenever I saw people with physical defects I would have the thought of wanting to do something for them.
But before I could touch her she sat down on her own, set the crutches aside, and smiled at me again.
“Thank you. How gentle. But I’m not as frail as you think.”
“Ah… I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Pfft, just kidding.” As she spoke she pfft laughed as well.
It was rather incredible.
Although she looked completely different from Lingyin, I felt a familiar atmosphere on her.
This feeling, this situation, was exactly the same as the first time I struck up a conversation with Lingyin.
I was just as flustered, just as… at a loss, just as full of shyness.
A girl as beautiful as a fairy of the snow country had appeared like this on a day of rustling cold wind.
I looked at her.
She looked at me.
Then she pointed at the table in front of her and said, “Why not sit and talk?”
Eh?…
But talk about what?
She took the white hat off her head.
When the bright lights in the library shone on her long hair, beautiful as snow, she reached up to smooth the straight-cut bangs at her forehead and said in that soft, charming voice, “My name is Luna. And you?”
“I…”
So she really is a foreigner.
But just like her name, “moon,” that head of beautiful silver hair was simply like moonlight.
“My name is Lin Yulin. Yulin is fine.”
“Ah—Yulin. What a good name.”
As she spoke Luna put both hands on the table and rested her chin on them, chatting with me in a very open, casual way.
“I heard from Miss Administrator that there’s someone who also likes sitting in this seat to read and study. Is that you?”
“Mm… y-yes, I suppose.”
“Wonderful. I’ve always wanted to meet you. Aren’t you curious? Who would choose the same seat as yourself and keep sitting here?
“What purpose does that person have, and with what kind of feelings do they sit here?”
“This…”
I always felt this scene was familiar, although the girl before my eyes was completely different from you.
If we were talking curiosity, I could probably be counted as curious too, although I had only learned of this person’s existence yesterday.
Luna only kept looking at me.
In her gaze there was not the slightest fear or inferiority, only confidence, looking at me very confidently, chatting with me just like that in her voice full of intellect.
I did not know how to chat with her, nor how to respond to her.
I only felt that without realizing it I seemed to be following her questions and continuing the topic. “N-nothing much…
“Just habit, that’s all.”
“I see.” After saying that Luna paused, then continued, “Habit. Yes, habit.”
“Because the times we two are used to coming here don’t overlap, for a long time we didn’t even know the other existed.”
“But look. Today you changed your own habit, and the two of us met just like this, didn’t we?”
“Nnh.”
Her words seemed to point at something, and once again left me not knowing how to answer.
But before I could answer she continued, “So you must have a reason besides habit. That makes you, every week, every week, at the same time, in the same place, sit in the same seat.
“Today you came specially to see me, for that reason that makes this seat so special to you.”
I still did not speak, because I felt a bit… that there was nothing to say.
Seeing I did not speak, Luna paused a little, then said, “So I think you’re here waiting for someone. This is the place you two promised. Even if the other person hasn’t appeared for a long time, you’re still willing to wait for her. That person is a girl who resembles me a little, so you’re willing to sit here and listen to me talk. You…
“must have hopelessly fallen in love with her.”
An incredible feeling.
What was incredible was not that her deductions hit, sentence by sentence, those thoughts I had quietly hidden in my heart, but that even after being speculated about like this by someone I felt not the slightest aversion.
Was it because of her voice?
Or because of her appearance?
Perhaps it really was just as she said, only because she resembled Lingyin a little, bringing me a similar feeling.