.one.
There's a boy in her class that always sits alone.
He has piercing moss-green eyes, and he always catches her eye when she looks back from her seat to get a glimpse. His smile is warm, too warm for barely known acquaintances.
She doesn't even know his name.
He rarely raises his hand in class, but when he does—she finds herself clinging to every word. His voice is soft, but loud enough to be heard, and has just the right amount of firmness. He always has something strange to say.
He smiles at her in the hallway occasionally and Chihiro is always too surprised to smile back before he's turned the corner and is gone. Once, when she looks into his eyes, she sees a dragon. But before she can comprehend it, her friends pull her away and she forgets about it.
It goes on like this for a while, exchanging smiles, fleeting glances before they finally catch each other behind the drying wall of their school.
She learns about him. His name, how he doesn't have parents, how he lives with his grandmother who owns a bathhouse, how he's older than her by almost half a year. She stays for hours after, until it's dark and the street lanterns have started to flicker. Still, she finds herself never wanting to leave.
When it's finally become too late and she hears her parents calling for her, he walks her home. Chihiro waves goodbye, and stays at the door until he's long gone.
The next day, she sits next to him during lunch and smiles at him first in the hallways. She pairs up with him for class projects and introduces him to her friends. She meets him behind the school again and listens to the stories that he tells her. They're always only about lost spirits and river gods and his friends back at home. Even then, she never tires from hearing his voice.
Her new friend is strange in his own way, but somehow, she knows that she has plenty of time to ask her questions, and she has plenty of time to get her answers.
There's a boy in her class that used to sit alone.
His name is Kohaku.