The second line of dialogue is from the same source as the first, just so you know. As is the title, though the latter is of far less consequence.
but words are words
It has been weeks since he saw her, but Koutarou still visits the library after school. Just in case, he thinks, the first few times. The next few times he doesn't bother pretending that there is any reason greater than growing habit. It's as good a place as any to burn his days. When he is not watching sunlight struggle through the windows, he likes roaming through the shelves and finding books with the vaguest suggestion of dust on their pages -- he slots those back just slightly out of place and wonders how long it will take for a librarian to notice.
One Friday he is replacing some translated Victorian poet in the midst of the drama section when the glass doors slide open and someone walks in. This would be unremarkable, except for how even students are a rarity on Friday afternoons. Koutarou looks up by reflex, squinting; the visitor is silhouetted by the thick warm light of sunset, his hair a fiery shade of blond. And then he steps inside and into the shadows, and Koutarou realises that he had mistaken sun-touched silver for gold.
More importantly, the man looks like a cosplayer who has got lost on the way to an event. His decidedly strange outfit is the only reason Koutarou continues to stare, at first -- but then the stranger looks at him with narrowed eyes, and there's something in that gaze that Koutarou feels that he should recognise. That unnamed would-be-familiar something bothers him, which is why he cannot look away; none of this is any of his business, which is why he simply watches instead of actually going up to the man. By Koutarou's standards, this counts as restraint.
The stranger walks towards him. No, towards the shelves in question -- Koutarou steps back obligingly, wondering if the misplaced collection of sonnets will be spotted, and watches as slim fingers brush the spines of a dozen volumes of Shakespeare. They linger on a leather-bound edition of Othello.
Koutarou knows from experience that quoting Shakespeare at people doesn't tend to invite the best responses. He does so anyway, and uses the memory of her as an excuse. ( As before, it is not nearly an explanation. ) The line he chooses is apropos of nothing, but he figures that it's the most recognisable quote from the play:
O beware, my lord, of jealousy...?
The fingers tense, then tremble, then relax. The stranger stares at him. Koutarou cannot tell if he is surprised or simply unsure how to respond; the eyes are hard enough to meet, veiled as they are behind silver hair.
I know my price, he says finally. The words are recognition of a sort, but the voice is unexpectedly hollow, a pale shadow of what Koutarou had expected it to sound like. He thinks of her and is not sure if he wants to keep drawing the parallel. Unlike her, he thinks, this man will walk away without any cryptic parting words; like her, Koutarou will never see him again.
He is not sure why that should matter. The visitor turns to leave. Koutarou is unsurprised, and knows there would be no point in calling out. He follows that black-and-silver figure with his gaze, instead, past the neglected shelves and through the glass doors, watching as the dying sunlight wraps around him and swallows his silhouette.
Later he takes the Othello volume off the shelf and finds a space for it in the astronomy section, where he can hide it between two glossy coffee-table books. It feels oddly right, and then completely wrong, but he leaves it there. Next Monday he will head straight home after school.