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Kanade's heels click-clacked against the stone pathway as she walked through the dorm's front yard. Brown leaves rustled across the ground in the autumn breeze. Instead of walking directly to the front door, she made a detour along the building's side to an outdoor table and chairs. She sat down, placed her bag on the neighboring chair and fetched her pack of cigarettes. She put one in her mouth and lit it. On the first drag she let the smoke linger in her lungs for a moment, then exhaled. The dry feeling against her lips was both unpleasant and welcome.
The smoke drifted through the air before dispersing towards the blue sky. The air was otherwise clear, last night's rain having washed away all the dust and haze that was left over from summer. It had made the change of seasons more noticeable. No matter how nice the weather, it would not get as warm as one would like it to be for a while. Warmth will have to come from other places, not that Kanade was someone who would forget to take this into consideration. She was well aware how cold she ran all the time. Uncomfortably so even.
From inside the building the faint sounds of music and voices could be heard. The song she wouldn't have recognized even if it wasn't muffled by the brick and stone. The voices belonged to Akane and Yaeka talking in the common area of the dorm. She couldn't make out the content of their conversation, though it felt like something she wouldn't want to intrude on anyway. Instead she focused her attention upwards again. The bright blue of the empty sky burned in her eyes the longer she starred at it, still she couldn't bear to part her gaze from it.
She was on the last few drags of her cigarette, but didn't want to get up and enter the dorm just yet. On the last, drawn out exhale she finally closed her pained eyes, not witnessing where the breeze blew the puff of smoke off to. In the dark her mind busied itself with meaningless thoughts until the sound of the front door pulled her back to reality. She should get going too. Only when she put her lighter and cigarette case away did she notice how cold her hands had become. She must have sat like that for awhile.
She walked into the common room past Akane's now silent record player. The vinyl sleeve was placed next to it on a small stand. It looked old. Both in the sense of being well loved and having been recorded decades ago. Its fading art somehow reminded her of a certain movie she had watched a few weeks ago. It had no action, little dialogue, no catharsis. She hadn't stopped thinking about that film since, stewing in its emotions every time something put her in a certain mood. The billowing of curtains. An abandoned cigarette in an ashtray. A green dress.
Putting her own emotions into words was difficult, yet there were directors out there who seemingly read them like an open book. Actors who didn't need words to convey them. Stories which stirred them up into an intense storm inside her so vivid, yet still so indescribable. She thought about those feelings a lot, yet could find no words to express them with. There were 'in other words'. References. Borrowed words from those more capable than her, but some things others couldn't say for you. It being her was the whole point, no matter how amateurish the results may be.
Between that day in early autumn and the end of the year, Kanade said a lot of words. Many with superficial eloquence. None with much emotional skill. A few more honest than she would have chosen on that autumn day. Little by little she tried to learn this skill she lacked and hone her craft. But even with her best efforts, she still had a long way to go compared to the masters she admired so much. In the mean time it was both comforting and frightening to know that even her most amateur efforts could find a dedicated audience.