A meaningful ten-minute quiet walk can be more restorative than a loud, chaotic two-hour group hangout.

“Yes,” I said, breathless from relief. “I wanted to ask if you were coming to the library. I thought—maybe we could walk together?”

As her few friends—like the ever-anxious Hitohito Tadano—linger, waiting for her to finish, the air changes. The formal student-teacher dynamic dissolves. The rigid lines of the desks become a living room.