The cherry blossoms continued to fall, but their gentle dance felt different after a few days. Less like a welcome, more like a silent, indifferent audience to my struggles. The initial ripple of curiosity my arrival had caused in Class 1-B had smoothed over, leaving behind a surface of polite, and sometimes not-so-polite, disinterest.
My notebook was rapidly filling with sentences I'd carefully constructed, questions for teachers, and hesitant attempts at connection. "Could you please explain that last point about elemental affinities?" I'd write, holding my notebook open on my desk, hoping Ms. Sato would see it. She usually did, her kind eyes crinkling as she'd pause to elaborate, often writing a key phrase on the board for me. But this also meant I was always a beat behind, the flow of the lesson momentarily dammed by my silence.
With classmates, it was harder. During breaks, the chatter would swell, a physical presence in the room that vibrated through my desk. I'd see a group laughing, their heads bent together, and a pang of longing, sharp and familiar, would pierce through me. Sometimes, I'd try. I'd sketch a little drawing in my notebook – a funny caricature of a cloud that looked like Ms. Sato's hair, or a detailed rendering of a beetle I'd seen on the windowsill – and offer a tentative smile to the person next to me.
More often than not, they'd glance at it, offer a quick, tight-lipped smile that didn't reach their eyes, and turn back to their talking friends. The message was clear, even without words: You're not part of this. Each polite dismissal was a tiny papercut, unseen but stinging.
The girl with the bright orange pigtails, whose name I learned was Emi, seemed to find my presence particularly amusing. She and her friend, a taller girl named Rika with perpetually narrowed eyes, would often whisper when I passed, their hands flying to their mouths in exaggerated secrecy.
Once, as I was writing a question for Ms. Sato, Emi leaned over from the desk behind me, her voice a stage whisper that I could feel more than hear, the vibrations tickling my ear. "Still writing love letters, Transfer?" Rika snorted. My cheeks burned. I hunched further over my notebook, the simple question about spectral harmonics suddenly feeling shameful.
It's okay, I signed quickly to myself under the desk, a small, tight movement. Just smile. Don't make them angry. But the smile felt brittle, like a poorly glued teacup.
Haru, the boy with the sky-blue hair, remained an enigma. He sat by the window, often looking out, much like myself. During lessons, he seemed attentive, occasionally asking sharp, insightful questions that Ms. Sato would praise. He never stared at me, not like some of the others whose curiosity felt invasive. If our eyes happened to meet – a rare occurrence, as I usually kept my gaze down – he would offer that same small, neutral nod from the first day before looking away.
It wasn't friendly, not exactly, but it wasn't unkind either. It was…acknowledgment. In a world that was increasingly making me feel invisible, that tiny gesture felt disproportionately significant. I found myself cataloging these moments, replaying them in my mind, trying to decipher their meaning. Was he just being polite? Or did he, perhaps, understand a fraction of what it felt like to be on the periphery?
One afternoon, during a particularly chaotic class change, my bag slipped from my shoulder. Textbooks, my precious notebook, and a cascade of pencils scattered across the floor. A wave of panic washed over me as students hurried past, some stepping around the mess, others straight through it. I knelt, scrambling to gather my things, my face hot with embarrassment.
Suddenly, a hand reached down and picked up my notebook, which had skidded near the door. It was Haru. He didn't say anything, just looked at me for a moment, his blue eyes unreadable. Then, he simply placed the notebook back on top of the textbooks I'd managed to retrieve and walked on to his next class. No smile, no frown. Just a quiet act.
My fingers trembled slightly as I clutched the notebook. He helped. It was such a small thing, yet it felt monumental. I wanted to thank him, to write a quick "thank you" in my notebook, but he was already gone, swallowed by the stream of students. The moment replayed in my head: his hand, his eyes, the fleeting connection. Maybe… But I quickly shut down the thought. Hope was a dangerous thing.
The 'magic' of Meisei Magic Academy continued to be a subtle undercurrent in my daily life. It wasn't about grand spells or fantastical creatures, not that I'd seen anyway. It was in the way the air in certain corridors felt oddly warmer or cooler, despite the lack of vents. It was in the unnaturally vibrant colors of the moss growing on the old stones in the quietest corner of the school garden, a place I'd found myself retreating to during lunch breaks.
Once, while sitting there, sketching the intricate patterns of the moss, I'd felt a distinct, gentle pulse from the earth beneath me, like a slow heartbeat. When I'd looked up, the sunlight filtering through the leaves seemed to shimmer with colours I couldn't name, just for a second, before resolving back to normal.
Was I imagining it? Was this part of why this school was special? Or was my silence simply making me notice things others were too busy talking to perceive? I had no way of asking, no way of knowing if anyone else felt these subtle shifts and whispers in the environment. My notebook felt inadequate for such questions. "Excuse me, does the dirt ever hum for you?" I imagined writing, and a humorless smile touched my lips.
As the first week drew to a close, the initial loneliness began to settle into a dull, persistent ache. The few students who had made an effort to include me in the first day or two, inviting me with gestures to sit with them at lunch, had stopped. My inability to keep up with their rapid-fire conversations, the constant need for me to pull out my notebook, had clearly become too much effort. I understood. I was a burden. It was easier to just leave me be.
On Friday afternoon, as I walked home, the scent of rain was heavy in the air. The cherry blossoms, now past their peak, were falling in thicker, sadder clumps. I clutched my bag, the weight of my notebook a familiar pressure against my hip. Inside, tucked between the pages of my math notes, was a new sketch. It was of a boy with sky-blue hair, looking out a window, a single, perfectly formed cherry blossom petal resting on the sill beside him.
I didn't know why I'd drawn it. It wasn't for anyone to see. It was just a whisper, captured in graphite, in the quiet solitude of my own world. And as the first drops of rain began to fall, I wondered if silence, too, had a texture. Mine, I decided, felt like the rough bark of an old tree, weathered and a little bit broken, but still, somehow, standing.