The morning of the new school year dawned with the same pale, indifferent light as any other. Kaito Sato stood before his mirror, adjusting the collar of his second-year uniform with mechanical precision. There was no excitement thrumming in his veins, no nervous anticipation, no particular interest in the day ahead. It was a procedural transition—a new classroom number, a marginally more advanced curriculum, another year of predictable, solitary excellence. He felt nothing.
He walked to Sakuragaoka High with a familiar, measured pace, his face a flawless mask of polite disinterest. The spring cherry blossoms were a muted blur of pink at the edge of his vision, irrelevant to his trajectory.
He found his new classroom: 2-B. He slid the door open and entered. The air smelled of fresh wax and new paper. His eyes scanned the room automatically, identifying the most efficient path to what would likely be his assigned seat at the front. The new configuration of desks, the unfamiliar placement of the teacher's podium—it was all just new data to process.
Then his gaze, sweeping past the middle rows, snagged.
There, two seats from the back, by the window, was a head of messy dark hair, already pillowed on folded arms on the desk.
Hikari Tanaka.
A jolt, sharp and electric, shot through his carefully maintained nothingness. It wasn't a logical surprise; statistically, being placed in the same class again was possible. But logic had nothing to do with the visceral reaction that stole his breath for a half-second. His heart, that traitorous organ, gave a single, hard knock against his ribs.
He mastered it instantly. His expression didn't flicker. His step didn't falter. He simply processed the new, critical variable and continued to the front of the room, where a seat was indeed reserved for him. He sat, placed his bag neatly, and did not look back. But the sterile emptiness of the morning was gone, replaced by a sudden, acute awareness of her presence in the space behind him.
Hikari, sensing the shift in the room's energy, cracked one eye open. She saw the back of a familiar, perfectly straight head of dark hair at the front of the class. A faint, internal sigh—of relief, of annoyance, she wasn't sure—passed through her. Him. Again. She closed her eye, burying her face deeper into her arms. She offered no wave, no smile, no acknowledgment. It was their language. Nothing was the safest way to say everything was still the same.
The classroom filled. There were many new faces—transfers from other classes or other schools. A few glanced curiously at the infamous "Ice Prince" at the front, his aura of untouchable perfection already a palpable force. Others noticed the girl asleep in the back, her disheveled uniform and closed-off posture the very definition of careless rebellion. To these newcomers, the social hierarchy of 2-B seemed instantly clear: a king at the helm and a ghost in the corner.
The door slid open with a decisive sound, and their new homeroom teacher entered. She was a young woman, Ms. Kobayashi, with sharp, intelligent eyes and a no-nonsense air.
"Good morning, Class 2-B," she began, her voice clear and carrying. "I am Ms. Kobayashi, and I will be your homeroom teacher this year. Let's start fresh and make it a productive one."
She placed her attendance book on the podium and looked out at them. "First order of business. Let's break the ice. I'd like everyone to stand, give their name, and share one thing they're looking forward to this year. We'll go in order."
A soft groan rippled through the class. Kaito's posture remained impassive. A pointless, inefficient exercise in forced socialization. Hikari didn't even bother lifting her head, a silent protest against the very concept.
The introductions began. New students stammered about club activities or making friends. Returning students gave bland answers about studying harder.
As the line of speakers crept forward, an unseen thread of anticipation pulled taut between the front row and the window seat. Two solitary stars, now sharing the same orbit once more, were about to be forced to speak into the quiet space they had spent a year building between them. The unseen beginning was underway, and it held all the terrifying, quiet potential of a first, familiar note played in a new, silent room.
(End of Chapter 31)