The library in the early afternoon.
A girl stood quietly in the shadow of a bookshelf.
Long black hair. Intelligent-looking glasses. A small badge on the chest of her uniform that read Literature Club.
—Shion Makabe.
She was silently watching Takuma Kunimi.
He sat alone by the window, reading a book. On the cover was the title of a paperback on sports psychology.
(...That look in his eyes. The quiet way he carries himself. Calm and collected, yet somehow hiding a fierce passion underneath...)
Shion narrowed her eyes.
(I knew it... He's just like "him" in my story...!)
She quietly approached him.
"...Kunimi."
"Hm? Oh, Makabe. What's up?"
"Sorry to ask you this out of nowhere, but... would you mind being my model for a little while?"
Takuma closed his book and stared at her blankly.
"...Huh? A model for what?"
"My novel. I'm in the Literature Club, and I'm working on a new story. There's a 'quiet transfer student' in it."
"Huh."
"And he's the kind of person who... doesn't realize his own feelings and casually brushes off everyone else's affection. He's dense, in a way..."
"..."
"And I thought... he kind of reminds me of you."
Takuma thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded.
"I see. So he's like me?"
"Yes. Almost frighteningly so."
"But I'm not a transfer student."
Shion's eyes narrowed.
—That's not the point.
"Well, that's just part of the setting... Anyway, would you mind talking with me for the next few days? Think of it as research."
"Sure, but I don't think I'll have anything interesting to say."
"...That's fine. I'll make it interesting on my own."
With that, she quietly sat down beside him.
She held a paperback in one hand, but her eyes were fixed firmly on Takuma's profile.
—This wasn't research for a story.
This was close-quarters combat.
Takuma, of course, noticed absolutely none of it.
"This book's kind of difficult, but... actually, you'd probably understand it, Makabe. Want to borrow it?"
"...Huh?"
"I mean, you like books, right? You'd probably finish it faster than I would."
"Oh... th-thanks..."
—Somehow, his misunderstanding had gone in a direction she hadn't even known was possible.
A few days later, Shion wrote the following passage in the Literature Club's magazine:
He passes through life without ever knowing the feeling called love, innocently letting the affection of those around him slip away.
Completely defenseless, he was crueler than anyone else.
She never wrote who it was about.