His name was Hideji. Kosuzu had apparently already met him when they had just been children—her mother insisted that they had known each other since way-back-when because the carpenter's wife would occasionally come to the bookstore with her child, and he would play together with Kosuzu. She didn't remember anything like that happening but decided anyway to treat him a little nicer than the rest of the village boys.
She would've treated him nicely regardless.
Kosuzu was in the middle of running an errand for her uncle, who needed something from the potter, who in turn needed something from the weaver. She ran laps under the heat until she bumped into the carpenter's son. He had dark-brown hair that curled at the edges, as if it never set right, and green eyes that looked like they'd be better off staring at the clouds. Her heart might have skipped a beat if she hadn't elbowed his bag of rice open, scattering white grains all across the countryside.
There was a moment where all she could hear were the cicadas laughing at her. Her eyes briefly met the boy's before she bowed shamefully. As she apologized, though, her body suddenly forgot how to function under all the sunlight, and she collapsed onto him.
If her face hadn't already been burnt red from the heat, it certainly was after that.
She expected him to jerk back and look at her with disgust, but instead, he placed a palm to her forehead, steadied her, and took her hand, pulling her gently to her home. She didn't know how he had known where her house was—except she did, because perhaps he had remembered playing together with her as as a child. At least, that's what she hoped for, because then maybe he treated her nicer, too.
It was around the time she reached fourteen when the other village girls began to turn heads. They started getting uncomfortably close to boys while she watched from afar—from the safety of Suzunaan. Her mother thought that Kosuzu would be a late bloomer, but her daughter was not so like-minded. She had more bone structure than curves—especially where men loved to look—and didn't look like she'd grow into a healthier figure any time soon. Her embarrassment aside, she refused to partake in the pubescent merry-go-round that the other girls loved so much. Kosuzu understood books. They had structure, reason, and rules. But men—they were nothing like books.
Except Hideji. She understood him, if only a little. He, like Kosuzu, paid the others no mind and instead opted to spend his youth with his tools, as she did with her books. So she thought, maybe he doesn't understand girls. And maybe he doesn't care like—like me. As much as her thoughts brought her relief, they also brought her a peculiar feeling of frustration.
She didn't understand men, but most of all, she didn't understand herself.