Komi Komi Literature Club!

Chapter 36: The Winter Poems

The end of another week had come: time to share poems yet again.

Usually this made Komi anxious because she would have to hear more poems from the others without having one to contribute herself. However, this time she was even more anxious because she did have a poem to share this time.

It wasn't particularly lengthy but she did feel good about this one – good enough to attempt to share it. She wanted to try and push herself to read it out loud this time, but the mere thought of that was making her tremble.

Watching the clock, time was passing by so agonizingly slow. She tried not to look at it so much but it didn't seem to have any effect. Her nerves seemed to be slowing down time itself with no way to speed it up. She just wanted to get this over with.

Finally, the day came to an end. The bell rang and everyone started to get out of their seats, grabbing their things and proceeding to either leave the room or start to talking with their friends. Komi swallowed and stood up slowly, grabbing her bag.

"Hey, Komi," Tadano looked up at her. "Is everything okay? You've seemed really tense all day." He noted.

"Mm!" Komi flinched. She shifted awkwardly, unsure of how to explain what she was dealing with. She grabbed her notebook that was on top of her desk. She tapped her pencil against it a few times as she tried to find the right words to summarize her anxious feelings.

"She's hesitating more than usual. It must be something more serious." Tadano thought to himself.

"I'm going to be sharing a poem at the literature club meeting today. I'm far less experienced than the others. I'm worried that they won't like it." Komi did her best to write a succinct explanation. Tadano nodded in understanding.

"Ah I see. I'm sure they'll understand. I don't think they would be mean to you about that." Tadano reasoned with a little chuckle, standing up from his desk now.

"I know. I'm just still nervous." Komi added.

"Ah...umm...do you mind if I read it?" Tadano requested.

"Hmm?!" Komi's eyes widened at this suggestion, which quickly caused Tadano to try and backtrack.

"Um, I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to! I don't want to make you uncomfortable or anything," Tadano waved his hand and laughed awkwardly. "But you know, I can try to give you an idea of how they might react." He explained his thought process.

Komi took a moment to consider this. Of course, she had no reason to assume that the other girls in the literature club would be critical of her poem; they hadn't been with her first poem. But still, she was having second thoughts, so getting a second opinion might help alleviate her concerns.

"Mm...mmm...mhmm..." After some hesitation, Komi finally agreed to let Tadano read her poem. She flipped through her notebook to the page where she had it written down. She could feel her face getting hot as she held it out to Tadano.

"Okay, let's see here," He cleared his throat and took a moment to read the poem. It wasn't a very long poem, so it only about 20-30 seconds for him to read it through. Then he read it again. And after thinking on it for a moment, he started to smile.

"Heheh, I think it's really nice, Komi...uh, are you okay?" He asked, looking up at her and noticing that her face was hot with embarrassment as she stared down at the ground.

Rather than respond in any way, she just managed a shy nod and held up a quick thumbs up – unusual behavior, even for her. Tadano handed the notebook back to her, and she quickly closed it and put it back into her schoolbag.