Chapter 1 - Silent arrival
Beyond the Shinkansen window, the landscape dissolved into blurred smears of green and grey. Suzu Hina nearly rested her forehead against the glass, watching the rice paddies give way to small towns, and the small towns give way to an endless sprawl of concrete. Her hands lay folded and motionless in her lap, beside her on the floor sat a plain black sports bag, which she had already adjusted for the tenth time, even though no one had bumped it and nothing gave her reason to think it wasn’t sitting exactly where it should.
Her long, straight, jet-black hair fell loose over her shoulders now, half-hiding her face - the only wall she’d been able to bring with her from home. Her reflection showed faintly in the window glass: porcelain-pale skin, large, dark brown eyes that gave away no more than they did when she was calm. Only someone looking very closely would have noticed that her fingers were laced together a fraction too tightly, or that her shoulders sat a hair higher than they did when she was actually at rest.
The conductor made his way through the car, checking tickets, murmuring a greeting to each passenger. When he reached Suzu, she simply held up her ticket without a word. He nodded and moved on, and the silence settled back into place beside her like an old, familiar companion.
Back home, she always ran alone on the dirt road behind their house in the countryside. In the early mornings, when the mist still sat over the rice fields, when the neighbor’s dog barked at the exact same hour every day, when no one expected her to explain why she was quiet. Just the rhythm of her own footsteps, her own breathing, and a landscape that never asked anything back. Sometimes her mother would stand on the porch and wave when she returned - she never said anything, just nodded, as if she understood that her daughter’s morning silence was something sacred, not to be disturbed.
Now, as the train carried her further and further from that life, Suzu tried to imagine what it would be like to run on a university team. Among people. Among people who surely talked to each other before and after practice, who joked around, who asked questions.
Just let me run… and not have to talk much. Maybe here they’ll let me stay quiet - she thought, as the train tilted slightly around a curve and sunlight swept briefly across her lap.
She knew it was foolish. On a university athletics team, where you had to compete as part of a group, where coaches watched your every step, where there would be teammates, roommates, training camps - silence was a luxury she probably couldn’t afford. But she hoped anyway. She hoped that maybe here, in this new city, where no one knew her story, it would be enough just to run. That her legs would speak for her, the way she’d never had to explain anything in words before.
Tucked in the side pocket of the bag on her lap was a folded letter - the official scholarship notice, which she had already read so many times that the creases were starting to wear thin. Beside it, an old, worn photograph: herself at fourteen, in her school track team’s uniform, surrounded by smiling faces whose names she could barely remember anymore. In that photo, someone beside her was laughing loudly, an arm slung over her shoulder. Suzu didn’t look at the photo for long - she slid it back into the depths of the pocket before the memories could creep too close to the surface.
That morning, when her mother walked her to the station, she hadn’t said much. Only this, as Suzu boarded the train: “Run the way you’ve always loved to.” She hadn’t told her to be braver, to talk more, to open up to people - she knew that wasn’t hers to decide for her daughter. Suzu was grateful for that, even if she never said so out loud.
The announcement system called out the next stop, a woman’s voice repeating the city’s name twice, polite and mechanical. Suzu took a deep breath and reached for the handle of her bag. Her palm was slightly damp, even though the car was cool from the air conditioning.
***
At the station exit, the instructions from her scholarship letter were waiting for her: she needed to board a bus that would take her straight to the university’s athletics campus. The bus was crowded - students, an elderly couple, someone talking loudly on the phone - and Suzu pressed herself against the window, hugging her bag tightly in her lap like some kind of armor.
When she got off, she paused for a moment at the gate and looked up.
Kaien University’s athletics center was more impressive than anything she’d been able to picture from the photos. The huge, blue all-weather track gleamed in the morning sun like a freshly polished gem, ringed by tall stands, the glass wall of a modern training facility mirroring the sky. In the distance, a few runners were already out - small figures whose steps carried over as a steady, distant drumming, like a heartbeat the whole campus had made its own.
Suzu adjusted the strap of her bag and started toward the entrance. Her stomach tightened. Not because of the unfamiliar place - the place itself was silent in its own way, the track, the grass, the sky, none of that troubled her. It was the people she was about to meet, the people she’d have to share a room, a table, a track with for the next several years.
She passed a few students who glanced at her curiously, then went on about their business. No one spoke to her. That eased something in her, a little.
The campus was full of life - tennis courts stretched out beside the track, balls bouncing in sharp, rhythmic beats, and further off a swimming pool’s blue water shimmered, a swim coach’s shouting drifting over from there too. The whole place felt like its own small city, everyone living inside their own sport, moving to their own rhythm. Suzu breathed deeply and tried to push away the feeling that all of this was too big for her, too loud, too much compared to everyone else - she who had only ever run alone beside a rice field in the countryside.
The coaches’ office was in a smaller building right next to the track, its walls hung with medals, old team photos, and framed newspaper clippings from past competitions. She knocked, and at a quiet “come in,” stepped inside.
Behind the desk sat a middle-aged man who looked up from his papers. Kobayashi Hiroshi’s square, strong-boned face, his short hair greying at the temples, and his upright posture made it immediately clear he was the one mentioned in her letter. His eyes were dark brown, sharp, as if a single glance could take the measure not just of someone’s build, but of their whole history. A thermos sat on the desk, giving off a faint scent of green tea.
- You’re Suzu Hina? - he asked, his voice deep, firm, but not unkind. - The new scholarship runner. Show me your results so far.
Suzu stepped closer and, with a trembling hand, held out the folder containing her competition results, her medical papers, and her school’s letter of recommendation.
- Yes… here - she said quietly, barely audible, then fell silent. She added nothing more.
Kobayashi-sensei took the papers and looked through them slowly. All the while - Suzu noticed this too, though she pretended not to - his eyes would occasionally lift from the page to look at her, then drop back down. Not at her face. At her posture. At her shoulders, held straight even as her hands trembled. At her feet, the way she distributed her weight, like someone who’d known for years how to stand perfectly still without ever tiring from it.
- At the regional championship back home, you ran your best time in the rain, on a poor track - he said finally, more to himself than to her, his eyes still on the paper. - Not bad at all. Most runners slow down in bad conditions. You were faster than you’d have been on a dry track.
Suzu didn’t know how to answer that, so she only gave a small nod.
- Did you have a coach before this? - he asked, looking up.
- My teacher at school worked with me… sometimes - Suzu answered, her voice barely audible. - Mostly I trained alone.
- Alone - Kobayashi-sensei repeated, as though tasting the word. - That explains why your form is this clean. No one ruined it with bad advice. But it also means you’ve never had to adjust to anyone else during training. Here, that will be different.
Suzu nodded, though she wasn’t sure exactly what the coach meant. She only understood that, for some reason, this sentence carried more weight than it seemed at first.
Kobayashi-sensei fell silent for a moment, as if filing this piece of information away somewhere in his head, into some invisible folder he kept on every new runner.
- All right - he said at last, closing the folder. - The locker room is at the end of the hall. Everyone will be out on the track in ten minutes for the morning warm-up. Join them, and watch - don’t say anything, just follow what they do.
Suzu bowed and turned to leave. At the door she glanced back once more - the coach was no longer looking at her, his eyes on the track through the window, where the first runners were already circling - but something at the back of her brain told her that Kobayashi-sensei had seen more of her in those few minutes than she had ever wanted to show anyone.
***
The locker room was full of noise. Bags clattering shut, zippers buzzing, laughter, someone’s phone playing music quietly, a hair dryer roaring from a corner somewhere. The air smelled faintly of shampoo and sweat. Suzu paused for a moment at the door, her heart beating harder than a situation this simple should have called for, then made her way to the farthest corner, where an empty locker waited.
She began changing in silence. She didn’t look up, didn’t seek anyone’s eyes. She’d brought the team uniform - a navy-and-white jersey, shorts - in her bag already, and now unpacked it, pulling it on with quick practiced movements. A few girls nearby were talking among themselves, murmuring as they passed her, but no one spoke to her.
- Heeey! You’re the new girl, right?
The voice rang out so suddenly and so close that Suzu flinched, nearly dropping her shoe. When she looked up, a girl stood in front of her - chestnut hair tied into a high ponytail, a few stray strands framing her face, large brown eyes practically sparkling with curiosity. Her face was round and friendly, wearing a smile that barely seemed to fit on a face that size.
- Suzu Hina! What a pretty name! - the girl went on, before Suzu could say anything. - I’m Takahashi Aoi, but everyone calls me Ao-chan. Where are you from? How fast are you? Have you run in any big competitions? Wow, your hair is so soft, how do you do that at night, is it hair oil or what? And how old are you? I’m guessing we’re the same age, but you might look younger, I honestly can’t tell!
The questions poured out like a summer downpour - fast, unrelenting, and yet never quite pushy. Suzu blinked, trying to keep track of which question to answer first, then realized she probably didn’t need to answer any of them, because Aoi was already on to the next sentence, somehow answering a few of her own questions along the way.
- …The countryside,” she said at last, softly, almost in a whisper, when she finally managed to wedge a word into the stream of questions. - Yoroshiku onegaishimasu. - It’s a pleasure to meet you. .
Aoi’s eyes lit up, as if those few words counted as an entire conversation.
- Oh, you really do have a country accent! Cute! - she laughed, then turned back to her own locker and kept changing, chattering on about what training camp was like, about how Kobayashi-sensei was strict but fair, about how there were always hot sandwiches in the cafeteria on Tuesdays, and about how she really hoped Suzu liked takoyaki, because there was a great stand on the nearby street where the old lady running it always gave extra sauce if she was in a good mood.
Suzu didn’t respond to most of it. But somewhere deep in her stomach, where until now only tension had lived, a strange, unfamiliar feeling stirred - not discomfort. More like startled, cautious interest. No one had ever talked to her like this before: not expecting an answer, not offended by her silence, simply - letting her be there, while filling the pauses with her own words.
From the other end of the locker room, a tall, black-haired girl cast a quick glance their way, then murmured something to the smaller, round-faced girl standing beside her.
- Aoi’s giving another one of her monologues to someone new - she remarked, half bored, half amused.
- At least we don’t have to talk to the new girl ourselves - the other one replied, her eyes lingering on Suzu for a moment before turning back to her own bag.
***
The track nearly glowed in the morning light, dew still glistening on the grass infield, the air cool but carrying the promise that it would turn warm within a few hours. The team gathered slowly near the starting line, stretching, talking quietly, some sipping sports drinks, others adjusting their shoelaces for the third time already.
Kobayashi-sensei stood at the edge of the track with a stopwatch in hand, a younger assistant coach beside him with a notebook, jotting something down now and then whenever the coach gestured toward a runner.
- Easy day today - the coach announced, his voice carrying across the group without needing to be raised. - Stretching, then twenty minutes of easy jogging. Get to know each other if you see a new face. - His gaze settled on Suzu for a moment, then moved on.
During the stretching, Suzu felt a few glances land on her. Not hostile ones, more curious - but one girl, tall, black-haired, powerfully built, made no effort to hide that she was sizing her up. It was the same girl who’d made the remark about Aoi back in the locker room.
- So you’re the new scholarship girl - the girl said, arms crossed, her voice half curious, half challenging. This was Yamada Rina, though Suzu didn’t know her name yet. - You’re pretty strange. Why don’t you talk?
Suzu just looked at her, then gave a faint shake of her head - not a denial, more as if to say she had no good answer to give. Rina snorted and walked off before Suzu could say anything else, throwing one last measuring glance back over her shoulder.
Aoi, stretching nearby, laughed and murmured to her:
- Don’t mind her, she’s always like that with new people. Rina greets everyone like that at first, and then either gets used to them or starts respecting them. The only question is which one it’ll be with you.
When the jog began, Suzu finally stepped onto ground where she didn’t need to search for words. The team ran at an easy pace around the track, the morning air still cool, the grass infield damp with dew, the track surface giving gently under their feet with every stride.
Aoi ran beside her, full of energy, arms swinging, calling out to others across the track, laughing, joking - her movement like a ball that never stopped bouncing, not even while running.
Suzu, by contrast, moved almost soundlessly. Her strides were short and quick, her upper body barely moving, her arms swinging economically forward and back. She wasn’t sweating yet, her breathing stayed even, as if her body had been built for exactly this kind of movement - as if she weren’t running at all, but gliding just above the surface of the track, barely touching it.
A few steps away, two girls - one shorter, round-faced, the other taller, with silvery hair - spoke quietly while watching her.
- Look at her stride - said the shorter one, Sato Mika, her eyes narrowing in concentration. - Barely touches the ground, and still fast. Her rhythm’s too even to be an accident.
- We’ll see what she’s worth in a real race - replied the other, Fujiwara Haruka, her voice cool and detached, her long, silvery-platinum hair streaming out behind her as she ran, though her gaze lingered on Suzu a beat longer than true indifference would explain. - It’s easy to look good at the edge of the track. Everything gets decided at the starting line.
Kobayashi-sensei stood on the inside of the track, stopwatch in hand, but his eyes weren’t on the watch. He followed Suzu’s stride step by step, and the corner of his mouth took on a barely visible, thoughtful curve - the expression a coach only wears when he’s seeing something worth having gotten up early for. He watched for a few minutes, then leaned over to his assistant and said something quietly; the assistant jotted a note, and the two of them kept watching the run as if nothing unusual were happening at all.
The twenty minutes passed quickly. When the team slowed and came to a stop near the starting line, some were gasping for air, others barely sweating at all - Suzu was among the latter, her chest rising only slightly faster than it did at rest.
***
After the jog, the team walked back to the edge of the track, where water bottles and towels waited on a small table. The girls broke into groups, talking, laughing, some stretching out on the grass to relax before the mid-morning technical session began.
Suzu sat down alone at the edge of the track, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them. She hadn’t sweated much - maybe just a faint sheen on her forehead - but her heart was still beating faster than she let on, and not only from the running.
- Here!
Aoi appeared beside her, holding two bottles of sports drink. She dropped one into Suzu’s lap without any hesitation, then sat down next to her on the grass, close enough that it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.
- You barely sweat at all. That’s not fair! - she laughed, wiping her own forehead with the back of her hand, where small beads of sweat glistened. - At least drink something, or I’ll start thinking you’re actually a ghost just pretending to run.
The corner of Suzu’s mouth twitched for a moment - not quite a smile, but close.
- …Thank you - she said quietly, and carefully took the drink, closing her palm around the cool bottle.
For a few minutes they sat in silence, which was clearly unusual for Aoi - her leg kept fidgeting, her fingers playing with blades of grass, as if staying quiet cost her something - but she didn’t force conversation. She just watched the track, the other runners, the morning sun now climbing higher in the sky, painting the track surface gold.
- You know - Aoi finally said, quieter than she had been all morning - it’s fine if you don’t talk much. Just... if you ever want to, I’m here.
Suzu looked at her in surprise. This was the first time all day that someone hadn’t waited for an answer, but simply offered something she could decide, on her own time, whether and how to use it.
That’s when Kobayashi-sensei walked over to them. He stopped in front of Suzu, hands clasped behind his back, his face serious but not unkind.
- You have talent - he said plainly, without preamble. - But running isn’t only about the legs. Sometimes the voice matters too.
Suzu looked up at him, not quite understanding what exactly he meant, but something in her stomach trembled at the weight of the sentence. The coach didn’t wait for a response - he gave a single nod and moved on to the next group to check their stretching, his voice already carrying instructions from a distance.
Aoi turned to Suzu, eyebrows raised.
- Well, that sounded pretty mysterious - she said, half joking, half curious. - But I think he’s right. Though if you ask me, you already “say” plenty just not with words. The way you run, the way you stand, the way you look at someone sometimes that’s speech too, just a different kind.
Suzu didn’t answer, but her gaze stayed on Aoi for a long moment before she turned her head back toward the track. It was a strange feeling, having someone see through her this quickly, this easily - without forcing it, without demanding anything.
- By the way - Aoi went on, her tone lighter now, as if she sensed she shouldn’t linger too long on a moment that deep - we’re getting put in the same room. The coaching office just told me this morning. Hope you don’t mind living with me. I’m a little loud in the evenings, but I promise, after ten I only talk to myself in whispers.
This was the first time all day that the corner of Suzu’s mouth curved upward unmistakably, not just for the space of a small twitch.
- …That’s fine - she said, and the short phrase came out of her more easily now than any of her earlier sentences that day.
Aoi nodded, satisfied, as if this were the biggest news of the day, then pushed herself up off the grass and brushed the blades off her pants.
- Come on, we’ve still got a little time to shower before lunch. And fair warning, the hot water’s limited, so if you’re slow, you’re getting a cold one!
With that she dashed off toward the locker room without looking back to see whether Suzu was following. Suzu sat for another moment, turning the bottle over in her hands, then slowly stood up and went after her.
***
After lunch, the team gathered back on the track for the afternoon technical session. By then the air had warmed, the sun stood high, and the track surface seemed to shimmer with the heat. Kobayashi-sensei introduced the stride-technique drills - short, focused runs where speed didn’t matter, only the placement of the feet, the movement of the hips, the posture of the upper body.
- Watch each other - the coach said, walking along the line. - The fastest runner isn’t always the best teacher, but there’s always something you can learn from someone.
When it was Suzu’s turn, a few girls stopped their own drills without meaning to, just to watch. Her movement was so different from everyone else’s - nothing wasted, nothing that spent energy without purpose. When she got back to the end of the line, Kobayashi-sensei stepped over and, speaking only to her, quietly noted:
- Your arm closes a little early at the elbow. Try holding the drive a bit longer before you pull it back.
Suzu nodded and tried on the next run. The coach gave a satisfied nod, then moved on down the line to correct others. Mika, standing nearby, murmured to Haruka:
- She got a correction first, on her very first day. Sensei doesn’t usually bother this quickly with someone who just arrived.
- Maybe there’s something in her worth fixing early, before it turns into a bad habit - Haruka replied, though her voice held less indifference now than it had that morning.
A few rows down, Rina had heard the remark too, though she pretended to be absorbed in her own stretching. Still, her eyes flicked toward Suzu for a brief moment, her brow creasing slightly - not anger, more something that hadn’t yet decided where to place a rival she couldn’t quite dismiss, and couldn’t quite take seriously either, not yet.
As the afternoon wore on, the drills grew harder, the sun climbed higher, and by the time they finished everyone was tired, even Aoi’s energy flagging a little - though for her that still meant loudly complaining about being tired while laughing the whole time.
Dinner took place in the dormitory dining hall, at long tables, trays in hand. Suzu sat next to Aoi, because Aoi simply pulled the chair over beside her own before Suzu could say anything about it. At the other end of the table, Rina, Mika, and Haruka sat talking more quietly, glancing over at them now and then.
- So - Aoi began, stirring her rice - how was your first day? Be honest, no need to hold back.
Suzu was quiet for a moment, turning her chopsticks over above her plate.
- …Tiring - she said finally. - But not bad.
Aoi broke into a wide smile, as if even that short answer counted as a great victory.
- See! That was almost a whole sentence! Maybe by tomorrow I’ll get two.
Rina, sitting within earshot, gave a quiet snort but said nothing - she just kept eating, her eyes flicking toward Suzu now and then, as if still trying to decide what to make of her.
Toward evening, once the rest of the team had gone in to shower and eat, Suzu stayed out a little longer at the edge of the track. The sun was setting, the horizon turning orange and pale violet, the light casting long shadows across the track surface, the air cooling, the smell of food drifting over from somewhere at the other end of campus.
She stood at the edge of the track, the breeze catching and stirring her long black hair. Her bag pulled at her shoulder, her legs tired from the first day of training, but somewhere deep down, in a place she hadn’t felt in a long time, a kind of calm was starting to take root. It hadn’t been a perfect day - there had been glances she didn’t like, questions she hadn’t known how to answer - but it hadn’t been bad, either. Maybe this was what she could expect: no more, no less, just a beginning.
From far off, near the locker room entrance, she heard Aoi’s voice:
- Suzu! Come on, or the hot water will run out!
Aoi waved at her, the gesture so enthusiastic it bordered on ridiculous - and yet some warmth radiated from it that Suzu didn’t know how to name.
She gave a faint nod to show she was coming, then took one last look back at the track, which now lay empty and quiet before her, only her own shadow stretching across it in the fading light.
This was only the first day - she thought, as she started toward Aoi. I had no idea yet that this silence would soon make far more noise than I ever could have imagined.
The track fell silent behind her, only the wind whispering across it, as if waiting for Suzu Hina’s steps to return - and for those steps, one day, to become far louder than anyone would ever believe of her.
On her way to the locker room she passed through the shadow of the stands, where the day’s heat still lingered in the concrete. She paused for a moment, looking back at the track, now almost fully swallowed by the evening dark, only the safety lights flickering faintly at its edges. The past few hours had rushed past her like the landscape beyond the train window - fast, and yet so sharp that every detail had etched itself into her.
She thought of Kobayashi-sensei’s words: the voice matters too. She thought of Aoi’s flood of questions, which had seemed pushy at first but now felt more like warmth. She thought of Rina’s cold stare, Mika’s watchful eyes, Haruka’s cool indifference - each of them a small piece of this new world she now had a place in, whether she wanted it or not.
When she stepped into the locker room, Aoi’s voice already carried from across the room, telling someone about something funny that had happened to her in the shower. Suzu paused for a moment in the doorway and watched her, hands waving as she talked, wet hair clinging to her shoulders, laughter filling the whole room.
Then she stepped inside, and, quietly - but no longer alone - made her way to her own locker.
