I read it in the bathroom.
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Not my finest moment. But the literature clubroom had windows, the library had security cameras, and my bedroom had a sister who asked too many questions. The boys' bathroom on the second floor had a broken lock and no one who cared.
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Entry Two, written three days after the first:
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He didn't show up to the club meeting today. I sat alone for an hour, pretending to work on my essay. The rain sounded like applause for someone who had left the stage.
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I told myself I was relieved. No annoying commentary. No one correcting my semicolons. No one looking at me like I was a puzzle they were determined to solve.
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I stayed until six o'clock anyway.
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The thing I can't write anywhere else: I think he sees me. Not the essays. Not the awards. Not the teachers reading my work aloud like I'm some kind of saint. He sees the parts I keep hidden, and he doesn't look away.
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That terrifies me.
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I don't know what I'll do if he stops looking.
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I closed the notebook. The bathroom was silent except for the drip of a leaking faucet and the distant sound of a basketball bouncing in the gym.
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She'd stayed until six. I remembered that day—I'd had a dentist appointment, something I'd complained about to Mika but not mentioned to Hana because we weren't friends, we weren't anything, we were just two people who wrote in the same room and competed for the same prizes.
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She'd stayed until six.
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I washed my hands. I looked at myself in the mirror—untidy hair, ink-stained fingers, the kind of face that could be forgotten in a crowd.
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Hana Mizuki had noticed me. Hana Mizuki had stayed.
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I had absolutely no idea what to do with that information.
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Thursday arrived with a heat wave that made the clubroom feel like a sauna. Hana had commandeered the one functioning fan and positioned it so the breeze hit exactly no one else.
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"You're monopolizing the air."
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"I'm optimizing my creative process."
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"You're hogging the fan."
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"I prefer 'strategically managing thermal resources.'"
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I sat down across from her and dropped the pink notebook on the table between us.
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"Returned."
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Hana looked at it, then at me. Her expression was carefully neutral, the same mask she wore during award ceremonies.
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"Did you read it?"
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"Would you believe me if I said no?"
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"No."
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"Then yes."
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She exhaled slowly, something between a sigh and a surrender. "How much?"
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"Enough."
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"That's not an answer."
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"Enough to know you stayed until six."
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Hana's hand moved toward the notebook, then stopped. Her fingers hovered over the cover like she was afraid to touch it.
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"I didn't want to go home," she said quietly. "That's not romantic. It's just true."
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"Why didn't you want to go home?"
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She looked at me then, really looked, and I saw something I'd never seen before. Not the queen of writing competitions. Not the girl who won everything. Just someone exhausted and trying not to show it.
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"That's a different story," she said. "You haven't earned that one yet."
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"Then let's earn it."
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"What?"
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"Your swimming story. You said you didn't know the ending. Let's figure it out."
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Hana stared at me for a long moment. Then she pulled out her folder and set it on the table.
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"Fine," she said. "But you're writing the next scene with me."
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"I don't write with people."
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"Neither do I. That's why this will be interesting."
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We wrote together.
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Not literally—she had her pages, I had mine—but for two hours, we passed manuscripts back and forth, marking passages, arguing over word choices, occasionally descending into silence while one of us worked through a particularly stubborn paragraph.
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Hana's story evolved. The girl at the pool learned that her coach had once been an Olympic hopeful who'd been sidelined by an injury he never talked about. The championship wasn't the point. The point was learning that everyone who pushes you is also running from something.
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My story evolved too. The sinking city gained a character—a civil servant whose job was to process relocation claims while his own apartment flooded. He wasn't a hero. He wasn't a villain. He was just someone trying to do his job while everything he loved disappeared beneath the water.
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When I looked up, the sun had set and Hana's face was illuminated by the faint glow of the streetlights outside.
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"Read me yours," she said.
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"Read me yours first."
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"Together?"
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"Together."
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We read aloud at the same time, voices overlapping, each of us hearing our own words through the other's rhythm. It was chaotic and confusing and the strangest form of communication I'd ever attempted.
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But when we finished, Hana was smiling. Not her competition smile. Not the polite mask she wore in public.
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A real one. Small. Fleeting. But real.
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"That ending works," she said.
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"Which one?"
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"Both of them."
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---
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A-Note:
This is the chapter where the walls start to come down. That moment when they read their work aloud at the same time is one of my favorites—it's messy and chaotic, but it's the first time they're truly on the same page. Hana's real smile is the payoff. What did you think of Entry Two? Do you think it's easier to be vulnerable on paper than in person? Let me know in the comments!16Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeyMooVlOaj
and then Add to home screen.