We attend the same class. My seat offers a perfect view of his, and vice versa. He knows when I don’t want to answer the teacher, and I notice when he finally laughs at a common joke. However, it’s all the same as if we sat in different classrooms. Last night I ran into him at the cafeteria. “What a pleasant surprise”, he exclaimed with a wide smile. We ate together and talked with delight, as if the distance between us were soon to become, once again, kilometric.
Today, for the first time, I saw a young shaven-headed Japanese man. I couldn’t help staring.