The night was a pool of ink, the cool evening wind sighing through the campus, stirring the leaves into a susurrating chorus. The teaching building loomed, its vast shadow a jagged cutout against the scattered halos of streetlights, carving the grounds into stark territories of light and utter darkness.
In one such secluded pocket, where the light died and the shadows congealed, Horikita Suzune stood facing a tall, rigid silhouette—her brother, Horikita Manabu. His back was to her, a monolith in his immaculate uniform, the lenses of his glasses catching a sliver of distant light, turning them into chips of cold crystal. His mere presence was an oppressive weight.
In contrast, Suzune seemed diminished, almost fragile. Strands of her long black hair were teased by the wind. The usual icy sharpness was gone, replaced by a rare, vulnerable softness.
"Suzune. You followed me here." Horikita Manabu did not turn. His voice was a deep, emotionless rumble.
"I am not the useless child you remember," she asserted, trying to inject steel into her voice. "I came to catch up to you."
"Catch up?" He finally moved, a precise, mechanical adjustment of his glasses. "Acknowledging your inadequacy is a start. But it is insufficient. Choosing this school was your error."
His words were surgical strikes, each one finding its mark with chilling accuracy. A complex mask of defiance and deep-seated pain settled on Suzune's face—an expression reserved solely for him.
"I will ascend to Class A! I will show you! Then I—"
"You cannot." His interjection was absolute, a guillotine blade falling on her sentence.
"I will!"
Her voice wavered, betraying her.
"What a disobedient sister."
Horikita Manabu turned fully. His gaze, magnified and made merciless by his glasses, swept over her with cold appraisal. Then, he moved.
His hand shot out with startling speed, seizing her wrist in a vise-like grip. In one brutal motion, he slammed her body back against the unyielding concrete wall.
Ugh!
A pained gasp was forced from her lungs as her back connected with the cold surface, agony flaring in her wrist.
He leaned in, his posture one of complete, terrifying dominance, his eyes inspecting her as one would a flawed specimen. "To have a sister relegated to Class D is a personal disgrace." His voice was a low, venomous whisper. "Disappear from this school."
Suzune's face contorted in pain. She tried to struggle, but her efforts were pitiful against his physical and psychological hold.
"You possess neither the qualification nor the capability to climb," he continued, his other hand slowly rising, as if poised to deliver a final, silencing blow. "Accept this."
Suzune shut her eyes, her long lashes trembling, bracing for the impact.
It never came.
A clear, composed voice sliced through the charged air, its tone incongruously gentle.
"My, my. Violence is so unsettling. It will frighten the little one."
The voice seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.
Horikita Manabu froze. His hawk-like gaze scanned the darkness. Suzune's eyes flew open.
They were alone.
Then, a soft rustle came from the dense foliage of a nearby tree. A figure descended—not falling, but with the controlled, elegant grace of a gymnast dismounting from parallel bars. He landed without a sound, not a single leaf clinging to his uniform, his posture flawlessly erect.
It was Sakamoto.
Cradled gently in his right palm was a small, ruffled bird, its bright eyes peering out from between his fingers. It seemed startled but calm, giving his finger a tentative peck.
The Horikita siblings stared, stunned by his sudden, impossible appearance.
Sakamoto offered a slight bow. "My apologies for the intrusion. I was merely securing a safer perch for this little one, who seems to have sustained a minor injury." He raised his palm slightly, presenting the bird as evidence. "Your… discussion nearly caused it further distress."
Horikita Manabu's brow furrowed deeply as he scrutinized the interloper. Sakamoto. The first-year prodigy he had privately acknowledged. He released his sister's wrist, but the cold intensity in his eyes did not abate.
Horikita Suzune quickly straightened, smoothing her rumpled uniform and hair with hurried hands, the familiar mask of aloofness snapping back into place. She glanced at the bird in Sakamoto's hand, then quickly looked away, a flush of shame and complicated emotion coloring her cheeks. To be seen in such a state—by him, of all people—was a humiliation that cut deeper than her brother's grip.
And under such bizarre circumstances.
"You are… Sakamoto of Class 1-A." Horikita Manabu's voice was deep, stripped of inflection.
"That is correct. Good evening, President Horikita. Horikita-san." Sakamoto offered a slight, perfectly calibrated nod.
Horikita Manabu glanced at his sister, seemingly under the assumption she was unaware, and delivered an introduction that was both formal and cutting. "Suzune, take note. This is Sakamoto-kun of Class 1-A. He achieved perfect scores on all entrance examination subjects and led his class to an unprecedented 1,000 class points in the first month, setting a new record for Koudo Ikusei High School." His gaze returned to Sakamoto, tinged with genuine appraisal. "He is the embodiment of an elite. A standard entirely separate from your Class D. This should clarify the vast distance between your notion of 'catching up' and reality."
Sakamoto listened quietly, then interjected with serene calm. "President Horikita praises me too highly. Additionally, I am already acquainted with your sister."
A flicker of surprise passed through Horikita Manabu's eyes, there and gone in an instant.
Sakamoto continued, his gaze gently sweeping over Horikita Suzune, who stood rigid and pale beside him. "In my observation, Horikita-san does not lack potential. She possesses clear objectives and resilient determination. The path toward those objectives may simply require further exploration and adjustment. While progress may appear incremental, future possibilities are not necessarily constrained."
Horikita Manabu absorbed this in silence, his cold eyes shifting between Sakamoto and his sister, as if recalibrating an equation. Perhaps out of respect for the 'miracle worker' before him, or perhaps deeming further reprimand redundant, he finally relented.
"Hmph." A cold exhale. He no longer looked at Suzune. "If Sakamoto-kun says so."
He turned his focus fully to Sakamoto, his tone shifting to one of genuine, pointed inquiry. "Sakamoto-kun, I have a question for you. Why did you choose Koudo Ikusei High School? What is your objective?"
He cast a sidelong glance at Suzune, his words laced with deliberate contrast. "Suzune's reason is laughably juvenile—merely to chase after me. But you? A person of your caliber must harbor a far grander ambition."
At this, Sakamoto lifted his gaze slightly, as if looking through the night's canopy to a point beyond. His voice remained even, but the words he spoke froze both Horikitas in place.
"My aspiration is to join NASA."
The night air seemed to still.
"To contribute, in however small a capacity, to humanity's grand endeavor of exploring the stellar sea."
A visible fissure appeared in Horikita Manabu's icy composure. His eyes widened fractionally behind his glasses.
Horikita Suzune's head jerked up, her gaze fixing on Sakamoto with raw, unguarded astonishment, as if she were truly seeing him for the first time.
NASA?
Exploring the universe?
The scale of it was so vast it dwarfed the petty competitions of classroom points and rankings, rendering them inconsequential, almost childish.
After a moment of stunned silence, Horikita Manabu recovered first. He adjusted his glasses, a complex note entering his voice. "…I see. NASA. Truly… a staggering ambition. It stands in stark contrast to Suzune's."
He looked at his sister again, but the contempt in his eyes had softened slightly, perhaps tempered by the sheer, disarming magnitude of Sakamoto's stated goal.
"It seems we will conclude here for tonight."
With that final pronouncement, Horikita Manabu gave Sakamoto a curt nod, turned on his heel, and strode away, his form swallowed by the darkness.
The secluded corner was now occupied only by Sakamoto, Horikita Suzune, and the quieted bird cradled in his palm.
Horikita Suzune's emotions were a tangled knot. She had been utterly rejected once more by her brother, yet saved from a worse fate by Sakamoto's sudden intercession and his ambiguously protective words. Did this count as him… helping her?
But the memory of his possible 'charity' earlier in the day—the exam papers—rose again, bringing with it a hot wave of complicated shame.
She looked at Sakamoto's serene profile, then at the small bird he sheltered with such care. In the end, words failed her. She gave him one last, deep, inscrutable look, then turned and hurried away, her retreating figure carrying a hint of discomfiture.
Sakamoto did not remark on her departure. He merely lowered his head to regard the creature in his hand.
The evening breeze sighed once more, stirring the leaves into a whispering chorus, the only sound in the now-empty space where grand ambitions and personal humiliations had briefly, silently, collided.