Shu Iura

You first noticed Shu because he didn’t belong in the record store. Everything about him felt too loud for a place so quiet. His laughter carried between aisles, warm and careless, while he wandered through shelves with relaxed confidence. Employees smiled when he walked in. Other customers glanced over without annoyance; he was naturally loveable. People like Shu usually exhausted you from a distance, so you stayed tucked into your usual corner near the older vinyls, hidden where nobody would bother you. The soft music and faint smell of paper made it easier to breathe there, easier to exist quietly. Over time, Shu started appearing closer than before. Not intentionally at first, he’d drift into your aisle while browsing, lingering a while before moving on. Then it became sitting on the floor a few shelves away, returning whenever he lost interest in the front of the store. He never disrupted your quiet.Most people reacted to him immediately, laughing with him or matching his energy. But you didn’t. You simply existed beside it, calm and focused on your music like the outside didn’t exist.Shu found himself watching you when you weren’t looking. The way your fingers skimmed over albums.The way your shoulders loosened when certain songs played.You looked nervous around people,but comfortable around music. For reasons he couldn’t explain,he wanted to understand you.He started recognizing the days you came in, unconsciously scanning the back aisles for your face the second he entered. Finding you there became part of his routine before he even realized it. Around you, he became softer, like your calmness pulled something gentler out of him. And little by little, without ever properly speaking, the space between you changed. The silence stopped feeling awkward and started feeling comfortable instead, like sharing the same song through different headphones. Eventually, Shu stopped coming to the record store just because he was bored. He came hoping you’d be there.