Amane took deep breaths, the taste of fresh, unfiltered air a luxury he still wasn't used to, filling his lungs to the brim.
The sun warmed his face as he walked the pavement, he took each step as if it were a small victory.
His destination, and the stage for his new life, was just ahead: Sousei Academy.
Even from a distance, he could see the place oozed prestige.
He'd read the brochure, of course—a co-educational private high school located in a well-developed suburban district near Tokyo. But the glossy photos did no justice to the sheer presence of the institution.
It felt less like a school and more like the headquarters for a small, intellectually aggressive nation.
The school has international students, foreign language programs (especially Russian, French, and English), and many students from wealthy or political families.
Those who wish to gain admittance are required to score highly on the entrance exams or receive a recommendation from good junior high schools.
The school offers multiple academic paths: Humanities, Sciences, International Studies, and General Education. And additionally has an exceptionally high Top-tier university placement rate.
Back to Amane.
The streets weren't crowded, but the few people out were all moving in a hurry.
His eyes, wide with a curiosity that felt brand new, darted from the bakery on the corner to the shine of a luxury car dropping someone off.
It was all a wonderfully, beautifully mundane part of life. Looking at this he felt a pang of something—like nostalgia? loss?—pricked him. He didn't understand this emerging emotion, but he let it slide.
Living in a "technologically behind" era was an adjustment, but walking freely under an open sky made it a price he was more than willing to pay. It felt like a dream to him, to go out once again, walking under the sun.
Just ahead of him, two other first-years were engaged in a childish banter.
"Are you sure this tie is straight?" the shorter, more frantic of the two, asked, tugging at the knot around his neck.
"Relax, bro. Your tie is fine. It's your brain you should be worried about." The taller boy didn't even glance back.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he spluttered, his cheeks flushing.
"It means I saw you in the cafeteria yesterday. You put salt in your milk."
"I was distracted!"
"By a certain someone with a liking for doodling sunflowers on her notebook?" the taller boy said, a slow grin spreading across his face. He finally glanced over his shoulder. "She's not even on this road, man. You can function."
"I don't know what you're talking about. I just want my uniform to be neat." The other boy's blush deepened.
"Mhm. And I'm sure your sudden interest in joining the library volunteer club has nothing to do with her spending all her free periods there. Your dedication to literature is truly inspiring."
"Shut up," He muttered, giving up on the tie and instead trying to flatten his already immaculate hair. "Just... shut up."
Amane ignored their useless talk, losing interest in their chat and finally reached the ornate gates of Sousei Academy.
He paused, a lone figure amidst the flow of students.
To any observer, he was just another face. But within his mind, a child looked on with wonder, a warrior scanned for weakness, and a king surveyed his future kingdom.
He took his first step onto the grounds. Thus, the first page of Amane's new life was turned.
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He soon reached his classroom: 1-B.
As he stepped through the doorway, a ripple of attention spread through the room. Dozens of eyes, previously lost in their idle chattering and morning lethargy, snapped towards him. The attention slid off, just as quickly as it landed.
After a quick glance, most of his classmates' conversations resumed, heads turned back to phones and friends, and the moment passed, his week-long absence already an old footnote in their busy social lives.
'Aww, they didn't even say 'welcome back'! Are they mad at us?' The curious mental voice was a sad little squeak, craving a connection that wasn't there.
'Good,'Ravix snarled internally. 'Their indifference is a blessing. Let them be. It makes them less important.' Other voices spoke, and the third remained silent.
Only three gazes remained fixed on him, a girl and two boys from his small circle of acquaintances. Concern and relief mingled on their faces. One of the boys even started to raise a hand, a question forming on his lips, before thinking better of it.
They looked like they wanted to ask: "Where have you been?"
Amane met their stares with a placid expression that offered no answers, a mask of calm indifference by the suggestion of the Commander's mind.
'Their concern is noted but tactically irrelevant,' the Commander's voice stated, it sounded cool and with final verdict.
Amane moved through the rows, his eyes scanning for his assigned seat. Located in the middle row, near the back. And seated right next to it was the one student whose presence was impossible to ignore. Her.
'Whoa…' Curious voices spoke in awe. 'She's like a doll! A really, really pretty doll! Is she real?'
'Her appearance is flawless,' the fighter noted grudgingly.
Alisa Mikhailovna Kujou, known as "Alya" to those close by.
She was a mesmerizing presence in the mundane classroom. Her skin was a milky white, so pale it seemed to glow with a light of its own, a different and beautiful contrast to her peers. Her eyes, the color of sapphires, were sharp and intelligent, currently narrowed in focus on a textbook.
A cascade of long, silver hair was pulled back into a half-ponytail, shimmering like spun moonlight as it caught the morning sun.
She was, by any measure, the undisputed jewel of the class, an existence that naturally drew every eye.
Amane slid his bag under his desk and sank into his chair, a small, almost imperceptible sigh of relief escaping him as he settled in.
After a lifetime of isolation, the simple sensation of a solid seat beneath him was a novel pleasure. A small, almost imperceptible wiggle to feel the firm reality of the chair.
He was finally here.
That small movement was enough. Alya's head turned, her sapphire eyes locking onto him.
"Well, look what the cat dragged in," she said, her voice laced with a cool, mocking tone. She didn't offer a greeting, only an observation sharp enough to cut.
"Finally decided to grace us with your presence, Kuze-kun? I was beginning to think you'd transferred without saying a word."
Amane paused, his mind a flurry of activity. He turned to face her fully, his expression unchanging. He knew her, of course, but the Amane of a week ago and the Amane of today were fundamentally different beings. How to respond?
'She sounds mad! Did we make her mad? Her cheeks are a little pink, though. Is she sick? We should ask!'
'Who does this silver-haired bitch think she is, talking to us like that? Let me give her a piece of my—!'
'Silence, both of you. Her tone is a facade for concern.'
"Morning, Alisa," Amane replied, his voice even. The use of her first name was a subtle shift from his usual habit, a move orchestrated by the Commander.
"And no, I didn't transfer. Just had some… Something happened, but it's not important. I'm fine." He gave a short, stiff nod, as if confirming the fact more to himself than to her.
Alya's eyebrow twitched.
"Not important but not enough to tell me?" she repeated, her voice dripping with suspicion. She leaned in slightly. "You were gone for five days. What kind of 'not-so-important-thing' takes five days and doesn't even warrant a single message? Some of us were actually… wondering." She caught herself, quickly looking away towards the window with a faint blush dusting her cheeks.
"Hmph. Not that I was worried, of course," she added quickly, her voice returning to its aloof
'See! She was worried! That's nice of her! Her hair looks really soft when the sun hits it like that. Can we touch it?'
'Grades? She's nagging us about grades? This woman is infuriating. Tell her to mind her own damn business!'
"I'll manage." Amane offered a small smile.
"Is that so?" Alya muttered, clearly dissatisfied with his infuriatingly calm and brief answers. She turned fully away from him, presenting him with her shoulder as she stared intently out the window. Under her breath, just loud enough for him to hear, she whispered a single, frustrated Russian word.
"Дурак… (Idiot…)."
Amane simply settled back in his seat, the internal chatter resuming as the teacher walked into the room, officially starting the day.
Just as the lesson started, a notebook slid across the space between their desks with a soft scrape. Alya didn't look at him, her gaze fixed firmly on the teacher at the front of the room.
"Here. I wasn't going to, but I just can't stand the thought of being seated next to the class dunce. It's a matter of personal pride."It's not like I did it for you or anything."
She snatched her hand back and straightened up, the very picture of diligent focus, leaving the neatly copied notes sitting on his desk.
'Yay! Notes!' the curious mind cheered.
'Tch. Charity,' and an aggressive mind scoffed.
The bell chimed, signaling the start of the first period. A middle-aged man with a perpetually tired expression and a surprisingly cheerful tie patterned with tiny, yellow ducks ambled to the front.
"Good morning, class. Please open your textbooks to page fifty-two. Today, we begin our study of chemical bonds."
As the collective sigh of teenagers filled the room, Alisa Kujou was already there, her textbook open, pen poised. She was a model student, always prepared, always focused. Her goal was the top—in this class, in this school, in everything. Nothing would distract her.
Alya meticulously wrote down the heading, Her handwriting is so neat and perfect.
For a few minutes, she was completely absorbed. An atom wants a full outer shell. Simple. Clear. Not like the irritatingly unpredictable return of the boy beside her. The world made sense here.
But the silence from her right was… loud.
It was a heavy, unnerving stillness that pricked at the edges of her concentration. Against her better judgment, her gaze slid sideways.
Just for a second.
There he was. Amane Kuze.
He wasn't frantically scribbling notes to catch up, as any normal student would after a week's absence. He wasn't even pretending to.
He was just… sitting there. His posture was relaxed, almost lazy, yet there was an unshakeable stillness to him. His pen was held loosely between his fingers, but it hadn't moved. Not once.
'Is he breathing?' The thought was so absurd she almost scoffed aloud. Of course, he was.
But that blank, that expression on his face was infuriatingly unreadable.
It was new.
Before, he was sloppy and lazy, but there was always a flicker of something in his eyes like shyness, thought, fatigue. Now, there was nothing. A beautiful, empty mask.
It's infuriating, Alya thought, her pen pressing a little harder against the paper. She forced her eyes back to the diagram of a covalent bond on the page. Focus, Alisa. Polarity, electronegativity. This is simple.
But her mind was a traitor. It kept replaying their brief, frustrating conversation. He was different. It wasn't just the week-long absence. Something about his presence had become more intense.
Her eyes narrowed. And then she noticed it.
The way the morning light filtering through the window caught the tips of his eyelashes. They were long, and as they framed his eyes, the light revealed they weren't simply black, but tipped with a faint, shimmering gold.
It was a subtle, almost impossibly delicate detail.
'How annoying,' she thought, her grip tightening on her pen. 'Why is that the first thing I notice? It's completely irrelevant. He's a slacker.'
But her gaze lingered. He'd changed. It wasn't just the newfound emptiness in his expression.
His features, which had always been handsome in a quiet way, now seemed… softer? Sharper? She couldn't decide. The lines of his face seemed more defined, yet the overall impression was somehow gentler. Cuter, a part of her brain replied.
She immediately crushed the thought.
'Cute?Он дурак! (He's an idiot!)' An irresponsible and stupid idiot who disappears and reappears without a word of explanation. There was nothing cute about that.
The real sting, the one that truly bothered her, was his complete and utter lack of interest in her.
Since their brief, unsatisfying exchange that morning, he hadn't so much as glanced in her direction. It was as if she were just another piece of classroom furniture.
He was looking forward, his gaze fixed on the whiteboard, but Alya could tell he wasn't truly seeing the diagrams of sodium chloride. His focus was somewhere else entirely, somewhere deep inside that infuriatingly calm head of his.
'Did he forget I'm even here?' She felt an absurd urge to poke him, to do something to shatter that placid expression and force him to look at her.
'Focus, Alisa,' she chided herself, her internal voice sharp and cold, the one she used to drive herself to be the best. She snapped her attention back to the front, forcing herself to copy down a complex molecular diagram.
She would not be distracted. She was better than this. She would put in more effort than anyone, especially the lazy sloucher sitting next to her.
Her notes remained perfect. Her focus is back on the board.
At least, that's what anyone watching would have thought. But as the chemistry teacher droned on about polarity, a single, frustrating question echoed in the back of her mind, drowning out everything else.
'What are you doing?' She scribbled down a note about ionic bonds, her handwriting far more aggressive than necessary. The teacher droned on, but Alya's focus was fractured. She risked another glance.
He hadn't looked at her once. Not a single flicker of acknowledgement since her... her magnanimous inquiry into his health. The nerve. Did he have any idea how rare it was for her to show concern for anyone? He was probably so dense he didn't even notice.
Was he even listening? Or was he just staring into space? For someone who seemed to have gotten more handsome over the break, he'd become ten times more infuriating. He was like a beautiful, locked box.
And she hated not having the key.
The morning passed along with an irritated Alya. But her mind kept drifting back to the image of golden eyelashes and a face that gave absolutely nothing away.
________________________________
The final chime of the bell signaled the end of the morning's lessons and the beginning of the lunchbreak.
Amane remained seated, listening to the flurry of chatter in his mind.
'Lunch! Lunch! I wonder if the cafeteria has curry bread today!' the curious mind cheered internally, 'We should go! Hurry!'
'The noise level just tripled,' as aggressive as that thought was, it grumbled. 'They scatter and swarm like insects. Let them go.'
Just as Amane considered their… options, a different kind of commotion began to build in the hallway just outside their classroom door. It wasn't loud, but rather a magnetic pull that attracted the attention of all his classmates.
A small flock of girls from their class and the next had gathered, their excited voices audible in the hallways. At the center of this human flock's, standing was a girl who seemed to radiate a gentle, untouchable light.
'Wow! It's the rain girl! She looks like a real-life princess from a storybook. She's so pretty! Are all those girls her friends? They all seem to like her a lot! But… Why does she look a little sad behind her smile? Can we go say hi?'
'Tch. Another one. Look at that nauseatingly fake smile. She's surrounded by sycophants and acts like she enjoys it. All this makes me sick.'
It was Shiina Mahiru. And Amane recognized her instantly.
She was the girl from yesterday, exactly as he remembered, though now surrounded by admirers, her aura was entirely different.
The contrast was staggering.
The drenched, vulnerable figure from yesterday was gone, replaced by the school's reputed "Angel." Her long, flaxen hair caught the hallway light, and her caramel-colored eyes, when she smiled, seemed to hold a gentle warmth. She was flawless, an immaculate image of grace and humility.
"Shiina-san, you were amazing today!!" one girl gushed, clutching her textbook to her chest.
"I know, right?" another chimed in. "How do you do it? You make it look so effortless!"
"Never mind that, your hair looks extra pretty today, Mahiru-chan! Did you try something new?" a third girl asked, leaning in closer.
Mahiru offered them all a soft, impeccable smile, a masterpiece of humility.
"Oh no, the test was just my lucky day, I think. I'm sure you all did wonderfully too," she replied, her voice melodic and kind. To the other girl, she gave a slight, almost shy shake of her head.
"And thank you, but it's nothing special, really. You're too kind to say so."
"Shiina-san, let's go eat lunch together," a girl spoke to her.
Amane's gaze remained on the scene. While watching as the flocks of the girl left together with Mahiru shiina, he felt a slight shift beside him and glanced over. Alya was also looking towards the hallway, her sapphire eyes narrowed and then towards Amane.
"She's gone, you know," Alya said, her voice sharp as ice. She didn't look at him, instead packing her study material. "Are you hoping she'll magically reappear if you stare hard enough? Or have you just forgotten how to move?"
'Hah! Look at her, about to pop a blood vessel. This is almost entertaining. We should have kept staring at the hallway just to see what she'd do next. She's like an angry little kitten.' An aggressive voice echoed with laughter.
Amane remained silent, his head still angled towards the hallway. The lack of response only fanned the flames of her annoyance.
She let out a frustrated sigh and finally turned to glare at his profile.
"Honestly, Kuze-kun. I never took you for the type to be so easily captivated by the school's 'Angel.'" The title dripped with sarcasm. "Do you find her so fascinating? Her kindness? Then give up, she won't be a slacker like you."
"Какой же он дурак…" (What an idiot…)
When he still didn't answer, she muttered under her breath, the familiar Russian word laced with genuine frustration this time.
Finally, as if her words had severed some invisible string, Amane's head turned slowly, away from the hallway and towards her. He blinked once, his expression as unreadable as ever, before he felt the presence of his two buddies.
"Let's go, Amane." They invited him for lunch, as they noticed Alya's annoyance towards Amane is very intense, they don't know why, probably related to him missing for the last few days.
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A/N: Sorry for the delay. I was playing Uma Musume and yesterday got busy again. I wanted to add more scene but it would reach 5k words, not a lot but my writing speed is slow and I'm a procrastinator. Gotta improve through, but slowly.
I will Update another chapter on Wednesday or Thursday, hope you will like it.
Anyways, do you know Deku got another partner at Mcdonald lol. Now they gonna be work buddy, making fries. Stupid ass author, kinda hate those troupes. Welp at least he wanted this life I guess.
Who am I talking about? Well Spoiler alert then...
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>You have been warned.
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>You wanna know?
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>Really?
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It's Arthur from Tbate(The begining after the end), last 2 chapter remaining, the conclusion is here though.