“It's thundering like crazy outside,” I said.

I wanted to go home but I couldn't go home, so I had no choice but to say something to Haru; I'd unthinkingly made the mistake of speaking. But she responded in a surprisingly ordinary tone.

“I wish it would stop. I hate thunder.”

She drew her eyebrows together. It was an extremely erotic, sorrowful expression, and every time I saw it I felt charmed—if only for an instant.

“Fumi! Help me, I'm scared!”

There'd been a bright flash of lightning, and then almost immediately a growl of thunder so fierce it was like getting hit on the head. It was the first time Haru had ever said anything like that to me, and so I looked over at her, stunned, and found that she was sitting facing me, grinning like a little girl. Suddenly I understood. Haru knows too. This love affair is moving through its final stage, and after that the two of us will never see each other again. She knows it as well as I do.

“It's pretty close,” I said.

“I really wish it'd stop,” Haru repeated.

She moved away from the window and circled around behind my back, pretending that she was trying to hide.

No doubt the coming of the storm had made her feel lonely.

“Don't give me that. You're not scared,” I said, my voice incredulous. I turned around to look at her.

“Actually, I am a little scared.”

Haru laughed. I smiled back.

And then her face filled with surprise.

“Hey, aren't we kind of getting along? Just a bit?”

I nodded. “You know, I think maybe we are.”

The room was shut off from the rest of the world, and the thunder kept crashing over us, again and again, coming from ever so far away. The air that filled the room had turned thick and hard, and it felt as if even our silenced breathing was disturbing that small perfection. Nothing but a certain sense of preciousness glittered there, steeped in stillness and quiet. Soon it would all be over. All of this would wither away, it would all disappear. We'd go our separate ways. Again and again this conviction crashed over us.

“I wonder how he's doing in all this.”

Haru's profile looked small and beautiful in the flashes of light.

“It certainly is stormy out.”

I wanted us to be still now. Together, quiet and still.

“Do you think he's got an umbrella?”

“It wouldn't help in this weather. You'd get hit by lightning.”

“It'd suit him, wouldn't it? A death like that.”

“I wish he'd hurry up and come home.”

“Yeah.”

We sat alongside each other, leaning up against the wall, hugging our knees and talking. This was the only time I ever spoke with Haru like that—it had never happened before and it would never happen again. The flowing roar of the rain never stopped getting in the way of our thoughts. It felt like the whole time we'd been in this room we'd been friends, as close to each other as we were right now. Like all along we'd just been pretending not to like each other.