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.
I looked at her. Really looked. Not at the legend, but at the girl. A girl with a knot in her throat and a storm in her heart.
But today, the air felt different. Charged. Like the second before a summer thunderstorm.
We didn't speak. We didn't need to. The silence between us, for the first time, wasn't empty. Meeting Komi After School
She wasn't surrounded by her usual awestruck crowd. She was alone, kneeling by the shoe lockers. Her pristine white socks were off, and she was fumbling with the strap of her left loafer. Her face, usually a serene, porcelain mask, was pinched with frustration.
The final bell of the day was a ghost. It rang, but no one seemed to hear it except me. The classroom erupted into the usual symphony of scraping chairs, laughing cliques, and the thunder of sneakers toward the door.
"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." Komi Shouko looked down at her now-buckled shoe
I read the words. Then I read them again.
A tiny, genuine smile.
I almost walked away. That was the Average thing to do. Don't get involved. Don't draw attention. Let the untouchable goddess deal with her own divine shoelace. It didn't shatter
She took her pen and wrote one final line in her notebook, then turned it toward me.
I, Hitohito Tadano, was average. Perfectly, blissfully average. My plan was the same as always: pack my bag with robotic precision, put my headphones on (no music playing, just for the illusion of solitude), and walk the unremarkable fifteen minutes home.