The orange glow of the summer sunset filled the hushed library with a soft warmth. Tables and shelves cast long shadows over Aya’s hunched figure as she scribbled furiously in her notebook. Her wiry black hair, which she always tried to tame, fell into her eyes. Across the table, Yuki sat, one knee drawn up to his chest. A tangled mop of hair crowned his head, and his lips were twisted into a half-smile that could either be amusement or pity—it was often hard to tell.

“You know, Aya,” Yuki said, his voice low but cutting through the silence, “if you keep obsessing over that essay, you’ll miss the last train home.”

Aya didn’t look up. Her fingers tightened around her pen. “Just one more paragraph,” she muttered, frustration lacing her tone. “This might be my only chance to win the scholarship.”

Yuki picked at the frayed hem of his jacket. “Do you ever stop trying to be perfect? You’re not even listening.”

Aya froze, her pen hovering mid-air. Then, with mild annoyance, she looked up. There were dark circles beneath her sharp, intelligent eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He let out a quiet chuckle and reached into his pocket. “You’re so wrapped up in your now that you never notice the little things.” Slowly, he placed two small objects on the table. Earplugs. Ordinary, yellow foam earplugs. He nudged them toward her with one finger.

“What… what are those for?” Aya arched an eyebrow.

“For the noise you don’t hear.” Yuki’s voice softened, his usual sarcastic edge vanishing. “The kind that’s inside you.”

Aya blinked. “Stop trying to sound cryptic. It just makes you look silly.”

But there was something about the way Yuki held her gaze that made her uneasy. Finally, she snatched up the earplugs and shoved them into her bag without another word.

Outside the library, cicadas screeched their incessant summer song, while the city’s distant hum served as a backdrop. Aya and Yuki walked side by side under a canopy of cherry tree branches. Aya carried her resolve like armor, her lips pressed into a thin line, while Yuki whistled tunelessly, fists in his pockets.

“Do you ever wonder how other people see us?” Yuki broke the silence suddenly. “Like strangers on the train, teachers at school, even that grumpy cashier at the convenience store. What do they think we’re like?”

Aya frowned. “Why does it matter? They don’t know us.”

Yuki stopped walking, his sneakers scuffing against the pavement. “Don’t they, though?” He tilted his head, watching her reaction. “Maybe they don’t have it all wrong. Maybe they notice things about us that we don’t see ourselves.”

“You overthink everything,” Aya muttered, her voice stiff. She turned away, but Yuki’s words stuck like thorns.

That night, as she lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, she fished Yuki’s earplugs out of her bag. With a hesitant hand, she inserted them into her ears. The world dulled immediately—the clock’s ticking, the faint sounds of traffic, even her own breath felt distant. But in the stillness, Aya sensed something else: a heavy quiet she’d been carrying for far too long.

Weeks passed, the scholarship deadline closing in. Yuki had stopped meeting her at the library, though he still sent texts: cryptic jokes, questions with no answers. Aya buried herself in her essays, telling herself Yuki had probably only been a distraction.

Then, one sweltering Thursday afternoon, Yuki’s mother called her. Aya nearly dropped her phone at the news. Yuki had left the city—without telling her, without even saying goodbye. She’d been so consumed with her future that she hadn’t noticed him preparing to vanish from her present.

When Aya returned to the same library a few days later, the eeriness of his absence made her stomach twist. It wasn’t until she saw it—a folded piece of notebook paper tucked between the spines of two books she’d once recommended to him—that she felt whatever invisible wall inside her splinter.

The page held just one line in Yuki’s scrawling handwriting: “You’re safe in your silence, Aya, but don’t mistake it for living.”

It hit her then: Yuki’s familiar smirk, his evasive questions, the “silly” earplugs—he’d been warning her that she was losing her youth to her relentless pursuit of perfection. Her chest tightened with a mix of anger and grief; he had left her with nothing but this fragmentary echo of his voice.

But, as tears welled in her eyes, Aya smiled faintly. For the first time in years, she felt alive—even if it was through the ache of his absence. And perhaps that, in its own quiet way, was Yuki’s final gift.

The sound of cicadas filled the air outside, louder and more vivid than ever before.