Juanita sat quietly with a small circle of friends in a small bookstore as evening settled over the room. The previous poem had just been read aloud, and its author had returned to his seat on the opposite side of the hall. Fortunately, he was far enough away that Juanita and her friends could speak their minds without whispering.

After sipping some dark red wine, she dragged her fingers through her hair with a puzzled expression. A deep furrow etched itself between her brows. "Can what we just heard be called poetry?" she asked, voice low and clipped. "To me it sounded like static—grinding, grating, going nowhere."

Ella, slouched across from her, let out a snort that was neither a sigh nor a sneer. Shrugging listlessly, she ran her long fingertips lightly over the table, casting a cool, unbothered gaze down at Juanita. "To some people, it might sound like sublime poetry," he said, savoring the phrase though it tasted bitter. "To others, it was nothing but noise and dissonance…" He took a sip of dark, bitter coffee and turned toward the window, where twilight was slowly spreading across the sky.

Jack broke the silence with a dry cough. "Either way, the forest of literature is already far too full. Every book planted in it is just another tree bound for the shade—for the slow, certain dark of being forgotten. Obscurity always wins in the end." He gave a small, self-mocking croak. "Aren't we all just small saplings sitting under literary giants today?"

Shu, cradling his cup and watching the steam curl and vanish, spoke next. "We all carry that weight of our own smallness and not-knowingness. I get lost in the forest of literature myself. It's too vast, too tangled, to walk through in one lifetime." He traced the rim of his cup slowly, thoughtfully, before going on. "Maybe it's not about walking further. Maybe it's better to sit with a few trees—really sit, really look—and let their roots grow slowly into us, instead of rushing past a hundred more."

Shu looked up at his friends, something quiet and certain in his eyes. "Depth over distance. That's how I want to spend what remains of my short life."