My name is Aiko.
Well… that's what people call me. The real name I sign to myself when no one's looking is different, softer, the one my mother used to whisper before she stopped trying to talk to me at all.

I don't speak.
Not because I can't—I lost my voice in an accident when I was nine—but because the world decided long ago that silence is the same as absence.
So I became small.
Invisible.
A ghost who moves through hallways with her hands folded tight, only letting them dance when she thinks no one will notice.

College was supposed to be the same.
Another four years of nodding, smiling politely, typing apologies into my phone when people got tired of waiting for me to "just say it."
I was fine with that.
I had my sketchbook, my music through one earbud, and the quiet agreement with the universe that I would survive by being convenient.

Then you transferred in.

Second week of spring semester.
You walked into Introduction to Modern Literature fifteen minutes late, hair messy, tie loose like you'd just rolled out of bed and decided class was optional.
The professor sighed.
You grinned like you were in on a joke no one else understood, then dropped into the empty seat two rows behind me.

I didn't think anything of it.
People come and go.
They never stay.

But then came the rainy Thursday.

I was late again—always late, like my body refuses to exist on anyone else's schedule.
I ran across the courtyard, hood up, sketchbook clutched to my chest like armor.
The wind ripped it from my arms anyway.
Pages scattered like frightened birds.
I chased them, soaked, humiliated, until I realized someone else was chasing them too.

You.

You didn't say anything at first.
Just crouched down, gathered the wet sheets one by one, careful not to let the ink bleed more than it already had.
When you handed them back, our fingers brushed.
I bowed quickly—too quickly—and signed the smallest, most automatic thank-you I knew.

I expected the usual: blank stare, awkward laugh, "Uh… sorry, I don't…"
Instead your hands moved.

Slow.
A little clumsy.
But real.

You're welcome.
Then, after a second, you added, Cool sketches, by the way.

My heart slammed so hard I thought it would bruise my ribs.

No one had ever signed back.
Not once.
Not my teachers, not my classmates, not even the counselor who was "trained in accessibility."
They all waited for the phone.
For the text.
For me to become words on a screen.

But you answered with your hands.
Like it was nothing.
Like I was nothing special, and that was the most special thing anyone had ever done.

After that… I started looking for you.

In the cafeteria, I sat closer than I ever sat to anyone.
In the library, I chose the table near the window where you always sprawled with headphones on.
When our professor asked for group work, my hands shook as I signed your name into the air, hoping you'd see.

You did.

Every time.

You never made me feel like I was asking for too much.
You never sighed when I signed too fast or too slow.
You asked questions with your hands—real questions, stupid questions, beautiful questions.
What does this sign mean?
How do you say "annoying professor" without getting caught?
What's your favorite color today?

I answered everything.
Every single thing.
Words I'd kept locked behind my throat for years came pouring out through my fingers, and you caught them like they mattered.

I started dreaming about you.
Not soft, gentle dreams.
Feverish ones.
Ones where your hands weren't just signing—they were touching.
Tracing the lines of my palms.
Sliding up my wrists.
Pulling me close until I could feel your heartbeat against my silence.

I blushed every time you looked at me after that.
I learned the shape of your laugh in sign language—the way your shoulders shake, the quick flash of teeth, the way you tilt your head when something's really funny.
I wanted to keep that laugh.
I wanted to be the reason for it.

I fell so deep it scared me.
Too much.
Too fast.
Too everything.

I told myself it was just gratitude.
Just relief.
But gratitude doesn't make your skin burn when someone brushes past you in the hallway.
Gratitude doesn't make you imagine their mouth on your throat at 3 a.m.
Gratitude doesn't make you want to crawl into their lap during a boring lecture and sign stay against their chest until they understand.

You were the only person who ever heard me.
Really heard me.
So of course I gave you everything I had left to give.

My quiet.
My secrets.
My stupid, aching, overwhelming love.

And then today happened.

I was late again—seventeen minutes, same as always.
I pushed the door open quietly, ready to slip into my usual seat behind you, ready to watch the back of your neck, ready to feel that small warm certainty that you would turn around eventually and smile just for me.

But you didn't turn.

You were already smiling.
Laughing.
Surrounded.

Nakamura-san and her friends had pulled chairs close to yours.
One of them—the one with perfect nails and a laugh like bells—had her hand on your arm.
Casual.
Familiar.
Like she had every right to touch what I'd spent months convincing myself belonged to me, even if I never dared say it.

You didn't pull away.
You just kept talking, kept laughing, kept being bright and easy in a way I could never be.

And something inside me cracked.

Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Just… quiet.
Like glass breaking underwater.

I stood in the doorway, soaked from the drizzle outside, hands useless at my sides, watching the only person who ever understood me talk to people who will never need hands to be heard.

I wanted to sign something.
Anything.

Look at me.
Don't let her touch you.
Am I still the only one?

But the words stayed trapped.
Too raw.
Too needy.
Too late.

So I didn't move.

I just watched.
And felt myself disappear again—
the same way I disappeared every day before you learned my name in sign language.

Only this time…
it hurt worse.
Because now I knew what it felt like to be seen.
And I wasn't sure I could go back to being invisible.