Morning slid into the classroom like a soft ribbon—sunlight in tidy squares, the hum of conversation, the quiet thump of bags landing beside desks. Ryuzí came in with Suki half-draped over his shoulder like an accessory he'd accidentally purchased and couldn't return.
"I've decided," Suki announced, "to become a scholar."
Kenji, already seated, snorted. "You can't just decide that."
"I decided yesterday to like celery and it worked," Suki said.
Ryuzí set Suki's bag on his chair so it wouldn't crash to the floor. "It didn't. You fed it to the class turtle."
"Higher education comes in many forms," Suki replied, serene.
Miyako took her seat with her usual calm, glancing at the whiteboard to note the day's plan. Aoi slid in a moment later, the click of her pen a small, precise sound. Near the windows, Haruto moved quietly through the light, lowering himself into his chair as if not to disturb the air.
He didn't notice the three boys who watched him from the row behind—Shaun with his too-loud laugh, Daichi with his permanent smirk, and Riku, who never spoke until he did, and then it left marks.
Homeroom began. Their teacher wrote a quick warm-up on the board: Compare two poems: theme + tone. Hands rose. Suki's did not. He was busy whispering to Ryuzí, "If I quote the poem dramatically, does that count as analysis?" Ryuzí took his pen away without comment.
"Aoi?" the teacher called.
"Shared longing, differing acceptance," she answered. "The first poem surrenders; the second resists."
"Concise," sensei said. "Kisaragi?"
Haruto's pencil paused halfway down the margin of his notebook. He lifted his head. "They diverge at the last image," he said, voice quiet but steady. "The first uses fog—uncertainty. The second uses horizon—distance, but clear direction. The tones are resignation versus resolve."
"Mhm." The teacher nodded, pleased. "Well observed."
A faint stir of appreciation—some impressed murmurs, the small ripple that follows a good answer. Haruto ducked his head, scribbled fog vs horizon in the margin, and tried not to smile.
Behind him, Shaun leaned forward just enough for his breath to brush Haruto's collar. "Teacher's pet," he crooned softly.
Daichi let out a soft snicker. Riku tapped his pen twice on his desk, a tiny metronome. "Must be nice," he whispered, "getting praise for whispering."
Haruto stared at his notebook. Ignore it, he told himself. He aligned the edges of his papers, a small ritual of order. The square of sunlight on his desk looked like a safe place. He placed his hand in it.
On the other side of the room, Suki leaned forward and stage-whispered, "See? Scholars. We're surrounded."
"You're surrounded," Ryuzí corrected, sliding Suki's pilfered pen back and uncapping it for him. "Use the tool for its intended purpose."
"I will," Suki said solemnly, and wrote Ryuzí is mean in the margin.
The bell for the first break loosened the room's edges. Chairs skidded, snacks surfaced, the corridor filled with footsteps. Suki popped up. "Snack expedition. Volunteers?"
Kenji stood. "If you're paying."
"I will spiritually reimburse you," Suki said.
"I'm telling the cashier that," Kenji said, already drifting toward the door with him.
"Coffee?" Suki called back to Ryuzí.
Ryuzí considered, then nodded. "Black."
"Like your humor," Suki said, winking. He and Kenji disappeared into the hallway clatter.
Aoi opened her planner, checked three boxes with neat ticks, then looked up to find Haruto already sketching in the margin of his notes. She watched him for a breath—how his shoulders eased when pencil met paper—then turned away to underline the word deadline twice. She didn't see the balled-up scrap arc through the sunlight and land by Haruto's elbow.
Haruto did. He hesitated, then smoothed the paper out with two fingers.
NERD, scrawled in thick block letters. Below it, a shaky little crown.
He folded the paper once, very small. He put it in his pencil case. His chest felt tight in the way that made breath feel like a thing you owed the world, not a thing you got for free.
"Hey," Shaun said, voice too friendly, seat creaking as he leaned forward. "That was a compliment, you know."
Haruto flipped to a clean page. "Thanks," he said, and hoped it sounded like water, not glass.
"Yeah," Daichi added, drawling. "We need someone to get handouts for us too, right? That's what pets do."
Riku chuckled at the desk. "Fetch."
Haruto looked at his hand. He hadn't realized it was clenched around his pencil. He loosened his fingers, then drew a line. Another. He told himself the line mattered. He told himself the line would keep him on the shore.
"Minori," Miyako said suddenly from across the aisle, "you dropped this."
Kenji, who had returned with Suki and a bag loud with snacks, looked around. "Dropped what?"
Miyako held out a receipt. Suki squinted. "Ah. Proof of my spiritual reimbursement."
"Physical," Kenji said, pointing at the numbers.
"Alas," Suki sighed, then pressed a jelly bread into Ryuzí's hand. "For the scholar who endures me."
Ryuzí took the bread, thumb brushed with sugar. Something in his face eased. "Thanks."
Suki waited a beat, eyes shining. "And…?"
"You're insufferable," Ryuzí said.
Suki smiled like he'd won a prize. "Love you too."
Haruto didn't mean to watch, but it happened anyway—the easy way something soft lived between those two, no announcements needed. He tucked the feeling away like a postcard: This is what safe looks like. Keep for later.
"Hey," Shaun murmured, and the postcard bent. "You staring for notes or for fun?"
Haruto blinked. "What?"
"Nothing," Riku said, mouth slanting. "Our man is just very observant."
"Like a camera," Daichi said. "Click click."
Haruto faced forward. The class clock ticked too loud through the room.
The second period passed without incident. Then the third. He almost convinced himself that the paper ball was weather, not weather report. By fourth, he believed it might be a one-time mistake. He allowed himself to think about how to shade clouds with a 2B pencil.
Then, as class broke again before lunch, Shaun's pen rapped twice; Daichi's too-bright voice floated over. "Hey, Kisaragi."
Haruto turned halfway in his chair.
"We were talking," Shaun said, lacing his fingers behind his head, casual. "You always answer quietly, right? Real polite. Teachers love that."
Haruto lifted a shoulder. "I just don't like being loud."
"Right," Riku murmured. "And you… watch people. For drawing."
Haruto's mouth felt dry. "Sometimes."
"Creepy," Daichi said, smiling like he was kidding.
Shaun laughed. "Nah, it's a gift. Gotta be good at copying stuff to be good at… copying stuff."
Haruto set his pencil down. "I don't copy," he said, before he could choose not to say it.
Shaun's eyes lit—there it was, a seam. "No? So the calendar backdrop you did? You invented calendars?"
Riku made a low, appreciative oof. Daichi snorted.
"It's fine," Shaun added, spreading his hands. "We can't all be original. Some of us are useful."
Haruto glanced instinctively toward the front, where Aoi had just stood to ask the teacher something about Friday's lab. The shape of her attention was elsewhere. Suki and Ryuzí were split by a classmate asking about the project. Kenji was talking with Miyako, who looked like she was giving him a list of instructions he'd actually follow.
Nobody's eyes on him. Nobody's radar pinging. He felt like a paper airplane that had misjudged a window.
"Hey," Suki called across the room, oblivious. "Ryuzí, if we put sparkles on the poster—"
"No," Ryuzí said automatically.
"Biodegradable," Suki bargained, and Aoi muttered something about the vacuum in her future.
Haruto inhaled. "I should… get water," he said quietly, to no one in particular, and stood.
Shaun flicked a two-finger salute, a parody of courtesy. "Hydrate, Picasso."
In the corridor, the drinking fountain bubbled like it had not overheard laughter. Haruto cupped his hand under the stream, drank. Water splashed his knuckles, cold enough to make the sting behind his eyes calm down. He pressed his thumb into the soft place at his wrist—just a little pressure, to remind his body that it had edges.
When he came back, someone had rearranged the smallest things on his desk—the angle of his notebook, the cap off his pen, the ballet of trespass that doesn't spill anything but leaves you feeling as if you've been poured out.
He reassembled his small world in three neat motions. He didn't look over his shoulder.
Lunch came. The desks slid together into their usual island. Suki cooed, "Family mealtime!" and Ryuzí murmured, "Stop announcing that," as he set down chopsticks. Kenji narrated his bento reveal like a cooking show. Miyako portioned out pickles with exact fairness. Aoi said, "Eat five vegetables," and Suki said, "Love is conditional," and Aoi replied, "Love is nutritional."
Haruto smiled. He did. His chest and his mouth were not on speaking terms, but he smiled.
"Haruto," Aoi said, as if picking up a thread she'd left here on purpose, "show me your Act II color tests after we eat."
"Okay," he said, and the word felt like anchoring.
Across the island, Kenji leaned toward Miyako. "After school, coffee?"
"Rehearsal," she said, reminding him and also not saying no.
"We'll drink coffee at rehearsal," he said.
"You can drink water," Aoi told him, without looking.
Suki, mid-bite, tapped his chopsticks against Ryuzí's. "Cheers."
"That's not—" Ryuzí began, then sighed, clinked wood against wood. "Fine."
Haruto risked one glance toward the row behind him. Shaun looked away too fast, smile tucked in like a knife.
Maybe it stops here, Haruto told himself. Maybe it's just noise. He took a slow breath, then another, and ate his food, small bites, tasting nothing and everything—ginger, warm rice, the relief of company.
The afternoon slid into math, then literature. At the end of fifth period, the teacher passed back short response sheets. Papers fluttered from desk to desk like startled birds. Haruto's landed with a soft skitter.
Full marks. A neat circle around his final paragraph, the teacher's tiny clear and elegant in the margin.
He should have felt proud. Instead, he closed the folder over it before anyone could see.
"Good job," Aoi said, passing by to drop a rubric on Suki's desk. She hadn't looked at his grade. She hadn't needed to. He nodded anyway.
"Group heads," the teacher called, "five minutes at the front about your progress. Everyone else, prep your next assignment."
Aoi set down her pen and went. Suki nudged Ryuzí. "Go with her. You are group legs."
"Not a thing," Ryuzí said, but stood.
Kenji stole one of Suki's dumplings; Miyako smacked his wrist with her chopsticks and then, when he pouted, placed half of hers in his box, shaking her head at herself, at him.
Haruto opened his pencil case for an eraser. A tiny square of paper fell out—smaller than the first, folded tight. He knew before he opened it what the shape would be in his chest. He opened it anyway.
QUIET FREAK—letters gouged harder this time, as if whoever wrote it had wanted to carve through the world.
A laugh rustled behind him—softer, just for the small circle of boys. "Maybe the teacher likes him because he never argues," Shaun murmured.
"Pets don't argue," Riku said.
Daichi clicked his tongue, feigning regret. "Such good manners. Must be exhausting."
Haruto set the paper down very carefully. The board at the front blurred for a moment. He found the eraser, rubbed a tiny smudge from the corner of his page that nobody would have seen except him, and whispered something he hoped sounded like a normal breath.
He lasted the day. He always did.
After the final bell, rehearsal swallowed the room in noise again—projector whirr, tape ripping, Suki singing off-key until Aoi held up a decibel app at him. Haruto stood at the back, holding two test panels. Aoi came to him like she always did: direct line, clear gaze.
"Which one do you like?" he asked, holding up dawn and dusk.
"Dawn," she said. "But we'll earn dusk later."
He smiled, small. "Okay."
Suki painted a heart with leftover tempera on the side of a prop crate. "For morale," he said.
Ryuzí capped the paint. "For trouble."
Miyako's narration tried out a new cadence; Kenji clapped at the end like an audience of ten. Aoi called break. They ate oranges. Haruto peeled his in spirals, careful. A scrap of peel stuck to the back of his wrist like a comma.
"Haruto?" Suki leaned over, mouth still half-full. "Your sunrise is crazy good. It makes me want to—what's the word—be alive."
"Live," Ryuzí supplied.
"Yeah," Suki said. "That."
Haruto flushed, startled by how strong gratitude could feel. "Thanks."
They ended late. The halls were mostly dark when they left, the vending machine at the end of the corridor glowing like a small spaceship. Outside, evening had folded the campus into a quieter shape. The group split at the gate—the station this way, the bus that. Suki tugged Ryuzí's hand like gravity. Kenji and Miyako fell into the kind of walk that looked like a conversation even when nobody spoke.
Aoi lingered a step behind Haruto. "You okay?" she asked, simple and clean as a checked box.
He nearly said fine. The word gathered in his mouth like rain. He swallowed it.
"I'm… tired," he said.
She considered him, head canted. "Sleep," she said. "And send me the new storyboard."
"I will."
"And if you need anything," she added, a beat softer, "say it."
He nodded. "Okay."
He watched her go, then turned toward the station. In his bag, the papers rustled—grades, notes, two sharp little pieces of nothing that somehow weighed enough to pull the whole day to one side.
At home, he sat at his desk, opened his sketchbook, and drew a horizon. He made the line steady. He made the sky light. He wrote resolve in tiny letters near the edge and closed the book.
Across the city, Suki sprawled on Ryuzí's bed with his ankles crossed, recounting his "scholarly triumphs" while Ryuzí pretended not to listen and listened anyway. "We nailed the first scene today," Suki said, bright. "We're going to crush eighty. And then—mountain, hot cocoa, you, me, sweaters."
"You own two sweaters," Ryuzí said.
"Then I'll wear them both."
Ryuzí turned a page in his notebook. "You'll overheat."
Suki leaned over and nudged his shoulder. "I'll just take them off. Problem solved."
Ryuzí huffed a laugh before he could stop it. Suki watched the sound like a boy watches a firefly: delighted that it exists, careful not to scare it away.
"Hey," Suki said more softly, propped up on one elbow. "You good?"
Ryuzí glanced at him. Something in his face unwound, just a little. "Yeah."
"Promise?"
Ryuzí put his pen down. "Promise."
Suki nodded, satisfied, and settled closer until their shoulders touched. The room felt like a small country they'd built with jokes and stubbornness.
Haruto turned off his light. He lay awake for a while, listening to the thin traffic below his window, the small human sounds of an apartment building at rest. When his phone buzzed, he looked without lifting it from the desk.
Aoi: Dawn panel—use the cooler pink. It feels honest.
He smiled into the dark.
Haruto: Okay. Thanks.
He almost added for asking if I'm okay and didn't. He didn't know how to draw those words yet.
Outside, the city closed its eyes. Inside, somewhere in the neat stack of papers in his bag, two small notes waited to either turn into trash or become proof. Haruto decided they would be neither.
He set his alarm, pictured a clean horizon, and chose, for the thousandth time, to show up tomorrow with his pencil sharpened.
The boys in the row behind him would sharpen theirs, too. He knew that now.
But so would the people who looked at him and said things like dawn and good job and send me the storyboard and you're insufferable with so much love it became a lullaby.
He slept. The horizon held.