Renka's breath caught, a soft, sharp intake that the phone's microphone picked up perfectly, she didn't move. The playful curiosity in her pink eyes melted away, replaced by confusion and shocked expression.
Her free hand floated up to her mouth, fingers resting against her lips.
Urano watched her, his own breath held. The courage that had carried him through was gone, replaced by a familiar, cold anxiety.
'Why did I say that!? Why now!? Why to her!?' The thoughts raced.
Renka noticed his expression then.
Slowly, she lowered the hand from her mouth and did something unexpected. She angled the phone down, turning the camera away from her face and toward her room. She panned slowly, showing him the fairy lights tracing her desk, the corkboard with its careful sketches, the soft, rumpled blankets of her bed.
It was an offering from her, this is her safe place she's showing it to him in return of his secret.
Then she lifted the phone again. Her eyes were slightly shiny. Her expression was solemn, gentle. She raised her hands.
"Thank you," she signed.
For the trust.
Urano felt the tight knot in his chest loosen, just a fraction. He gave a single, small nod, unable to speak past the sudden thickness in his throat.
Then her hands moved again, a little hesitant.
"Can I ask one more thing about it?" she signed.
Urano blinked and replied. "Okay."
"What was the best food they served there?"
The question was so simple, so disarming, it nearly undid him. He had to think about it.
"...Wednesday curry," he said finally, his voice rough.
"The cook, Mrs. Aike, she'd make it extra spicy for the older kids. She said it would put hair on our chests."
"We all pretended to hate it, but... we'd finish the whole pot."
Renka was smiling now, warm and encouraging. She nodded.
"Spicy curry sounds good," she signed.
"Better than school lunch."
A quiet, breathy sound escaped Urano it was almost a laugh.
"Yeah."
After that they talked about the orphanage for a while.
When a yawn finally escaped Renka, she looked sheepish. She signed.
"I should sleep. Big practice tomorrow."
"Right." Urano replied in a small voice.
She hesitated, then signed, "Goodnight, Urano."
His name. She'd never used it before. It sounded different in the silent language.
"Goodnight....Renka," he replied, and her smile in the seconds before the call ended was bright and soft.
The screen went black, reflecting his own face back at him. The silence rushed back in, but it felt altered.
He lay back down, the events of the day replaying behind his eyes. Usually, when he thought about the orphanage, his mind would snag on the hard edges, the feeling of being part of a crowd yet utterly alone. But tonight, his mind drifted to Mrs. Aike's laugh, to the worn couch in the common room where he'd read manga, to the stubborn sapling he'd tried to plant in the tiny courtyard that never quite took root.
For the first time in years, the memory didn't end with the word "unwanted." It just ended with a feeling of then, separate from now.
He fell asleep more easily.
The next day at school, Urano moved through the halls with his usual practiced invisibility.
He saw her halfway through the morning, turning a corner near the literature wing. Renka was walking with Kehea, her head tilted as she listened to something she was saying, a soft smile on her face. she glanced up.
Their eyes met across the crowded corridor.
A jolt, quiet but electric, passed through him.
But Renka didn't look away. She didn't offer a large, conspicuous wave. She simply held his gaze for one beat, two. Then, the smallest, most definite nod. Her smile widened then she secretly signed.
"I see you. Our secret is safe."
Then she acted like she zipped her mouth using her hand and making a funny face like she was in pain.
Then she turned back to Kehea, seamlessly rejoining the conversation.
Urano stood still for a moment, letting the student traffic flow around him. The feeling was strange, not terror but a thrilling terrifying warmth. He was not a nobody to her anymore.
The rooftop that afternoon felt like a different world.
The wind was there, the same concrete underfoot, the same vast sky. But the space between them had transformed. When Renka arrived She just walked to their spot, set her bag down, and looked at him.
He joined her.
"Where did we leave off?" He said in a small voice.
She gestured to a sequence near the middle, the part where the isolated figure first notices the other presence.
They began. Renka signed the loneliness, the reaching into empty space. Urano stepped in, his signs representing the noticing presence. But today, his movements weren't just technically correct. They were slow. They were careful. When he signed "see," his hand didn't just gesture toward her, it seemed to truly look.
During a break, sitting against the wall with their melon sodas which she brought one for him too, Renka picked up her notebook. She flipped to a new page and began to sketch, not looking at him. After a minute, she turned it around.
It was a simple drawing of two figures on a rooftop, stylized and sweet. One figure had messy brown curls, the other wavy green hair. Between them, she'd drawn a series of small, floating shapes, not words, but symbols.
A music note, a heart, a house, a tree. The things that pass between people when they're not speaking.
Underneath, she'd written in her neat handwriting: "The noise we make."
Urano stared at it. He took the notebook and pencil she offered. After a long moment of hesitation, he drew a single, small addition. He added a third, faint figure in the background of the sketch, a small, simplified shape of a child.
He handed it back. Renka looked at his addition, her eyes growing soft. She placed her hand flat on the page over the drawing, right where the three figures were, and left it there for a second then she picked her pencil and wrote:
"The End"
Then she closed the notebook.
As they packed up to leave, the sun painting long dark shadows, Urano realized something with a clarity that startled him.
For years, his past was a shadow he carried alone, a weight that bent his spine and colored every interaction. He thought sharing it would double the burden, would make him weaker in someone else's eyes.
But as he watched Renka carefully zip her bag, her profile serene in the evening light, he understood the truth wasn't a weight you transferred.
It was a weight you could finally set down, knowing someone else was there to help you hold it or simply to sit beside you while you rested.
As they walked to the gate.
Kenzo Urano didn't find the noise of another person's presence overwhelming.
He found it peaceful.