Rainy Tuesday

The Weight of Small Things

Scene: Tuesday Afternoon – Kiyosato High School, Library

The rain starts during the fifth period. Not a dramatic downpour, just the kind that makes windows blur and pencils feel heavier in your hand. Rin watches the drops race down the glass like they’re trying to win something.

Naomi is absent.

Rin notices — though she tells herself she’s not watching for her. She tries to focus on the blackboard, the teacher's voice, the way her pencil smudges on the cheap notebook paper. None of it sticks.

After class, Rin goes to the library. Not for books. Just for the quiet. She sits on the floor between the shelves in the far back, tracing her fingers along the spines. Some of them haven’t been touched in years. She likes that. Forgotten things feel honest.

From her pocket, she pulls out a folded receipt — yesterday’s milk carton from the vending machine. She smooths it out flat, then creases it into a tiny triangle, origami-style. She doesn’t know why. Just something to do with her hands.

Footsteps. Then a whisper.

“Rin?”

It’s Naomi.

Rin looks up. Naomi’s hair is wet, strands sticking to her cheek. She’s holding a book — not open, just clutched like a shield.

“I came late,” Naomi says. “Didn’t feel like sitting through math.”

Rin nods. “I didn’t know if you were coming back.”

Naomi slides down the shelf beside her. “Yeah. I wasn’t sure either.”

Silence again. The soft hum of the fluorescent lights above. The occasional distant cough from a librarian.

Then Naomi says:

“Do you ever feel like everything’s... too loud? Even when no one’s talking?”

Rin’s triangle is nearly perfect now. She hands it to Naomi.

“I like quiet,” she says. “But sometimes even that’s noisy.”

Naomi turns the triangle over in her hand, smiles faintly.

“I used to sit in the music room during lunch,” she says. “Not to play anything. Just… the instruments were always out of tune. I liked that.”

They sit together until the rain lets up.

On the way out, Naomi pauses by the door and says, “Your corner’s still yours, you know. I can move.”

Rin shakes her head.

“It’s okay. We can share.”

Naomi looks at her for a moment — really looks — then nods. “Okay".

AT CAFETERIA

The cafeteria is too loud.

Rin doesn’t even try to enter. She turns down the hallway with the broken light, toward the old music room—barely used now except for after-school club practice and storage. The kind of place people forget exists.

Naomi’s already there.

She’s sitting on the piano bench with her back to the keys, swinging one leg slowly, lazily. There’s a half-eaten sandwich on the lid of the piano, wrapped in wax paper.

Rin pauses in the doorway.

Naomi sees her, lifts one hand in a small wave. “Figured you’d find me.”

“You always hide here?”

“Only when I don’t feel like pretending I’m fine.”

Rin walks in without asking. She sits cross-legged on the floor beside the piano, back against the wooden paneling.

Naomi turns back around and lightly presses a few keys. The notes are off — slightly out of tune, a little flat.

“I thought I’d play something,” Naomi says, “but I don’t know any songs. So I just made things up.”

“You could learn,” Rin offers again.

Naomi shakes her head. “I don’t want to play anything that sounds perfect. Perfect things feel... fake.”

They sit for a moment in the almost-music. Then Naomi says, “Do you always eat alone?”

Rin shrugs. “Sometimes I forget to eat.”

“Me too,” Naomi says, passing the other half of her sandwich over. “My mom made too much.”

Rin takes it without protest. It tastes like egg salad and something vaguely sweet—honey, maybe. She doesn’t say thank you. Naomi doesn’t expect her to.

After a quiet minute, Naomi speaks again, softly:

“You ever feel like you don’t really fit anywhere, but you also don’t fit? Like you’re just… floating between places?”

Rin looks up. “Like a piece of dust in a sunbeam.”

Naomi blinks, surprised. “Yeah. Exactly like that.”

Rin pulls out another receipt from her pocket and starts folding it. Her fingers know the rhythm now — triangle, crease, repeat.

Naomi watches, quiet. “Why triangles?”

“They don’t fall apart.”

Naomi presses a few more keys. This time it sounds a little like a lullaby. Not a real one. Just… something soft.

When the bell rings, they both don’t move for a second.

Then Naomi says, “Come here tomorrow too?”

Rin folds the triangle one last time and hands

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