It's strange how fast things can become routine.
By the third meeting, no one even hesitated about where to sit. It's like this was now their second home.
I walked into the multipurpose room, and the same plastic chairs were there, in the same uneven arc around the table.
Nakashima was already sitting in what had unintentionally become her usual spot—diagonally across from me.
She gave me a quick nod as I entered. I nodded back.
We didn't talk much, but we didn't need to.
The meetings started the same way each day.
Our teachers handed out progress checklists, and our groups spread out around the room to work.
Set design had started to take shape. Nakashima brought in magazine clippings and color printouts, and I started sketching sample backdrops based on the city-at-night theme.
We had a mock-up of a brick wall, a streetlamp made from cardboard tubes, and outlines for shop signs that we planned to hang with string.
"I was thinking," she said, flipping through one of her folders, "we could hang little string lights through the windows in the backdrop. Like a silhouette of light behind the cutouts."
"That could work," I said. "As long as we keep it safe. Those lights get warm."
She grinned.
"I knew you'd say that."
The way she said it caught me off guard.
Familiar. Casual.
Like she knew me.
I blinked and went back to shading the outline of a fake building.
There was something about her energy.
She was light, but not shallow.
Bright, but not blinding.
People naturally listened to her.
She wasn't loud, but her presence made the room feel less stiff.
I caught myself glancing at her notebook again.
Her notes were always chaotic, but she somehow made sense of them.
It was the opposite of mine—neat, spaced, calculated. I wondered if she noticed.
"Do you always write so perfectly?" she asked suddenly, peeking over at my notebook.
I looked up, surprised.
"I guess."
"Looks like a textbook."
"It helps me think."
"Mine looks like a bird flew through an ink bottle and landed on paper."
"At least your bird has good ideas."
She laughed. The others kept working, but her laugh stuck with me longer than it should have.
By the time the bell rang to dismiss the meeting, I had more than a sketch in my notebook.
I had fragments of a conversation that wouldn't leave my head.
I packed my bag slowly.
Sometimes I wondered what she thought of me. If she thought about me at all when we weren't working. Or if I was just another classmate.
I didn't have the nerve to ask. Probably never would.
But maybe I didn't need to know right away.
Sometimes, being nearby was enough.
Sometimes, that was more than I expected to get.