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Chapter 10 - Chapter 10 — The Distance Between Hearts

The morning air inside the academy was heavy, the corridors unusually silent except for the faint echo of shoes striking the polished floor. Arata walked with an unreadable expression, his hands buried in his pockets as he approached the faculty office. The atmosphere inside was cold — the type that made even the most confident student hesitate before entering.

Inside, Saeko Shizuru, his homeroom teacher, stood by her desk with her arms crossed, her sharp eyes fixed on him. Papers were scattered across the desk, and Arata could almost feel her disappointment before she even spoke.

"Arata Kurosawa," she said sternly. "Do you know why you're here?"

Arata didn't flinch. His calm gaze met hers. "Because I skipped class yesterday."

Saeko sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Exactly. You're one of the more promising students in this class, even if your behavior says otherwise. Do you understand how serious it is to skip school without notice?"

"I understand," Arata replied flatly. His tone wasn't rebellious — just… detached.

"That's not the answer I'm looking for," Saeko said, her voice softening slightly. "This isn't just about rules, Arata. You isolate yourself from others, and now you're skipping class. I'm starting to wonder if something's bothering you."

Arata's eyes shifted toward the window. Sunlight streamed through the blinds, illuminating dust floating in the air. "I'm fine," he said.

Saeko stared at him for a moment longer. There was something about the way he said it — emotionless, hollow — that made her feel a pang of worry. But she knew better than to press further. "Return to class," she finally said. "And don't make this a habit."

Arata bowed slightly, then turned and left.

When he entered Class 1-D, the room was filled with chatter. The moment Arata stepped in, the noise slowly died down. Naomi Takahashi, who had been laughing faintly with her friends, froze the instant she saw him.

Her heart skipped.

"Arata!" she called out, rushing to him. "Are you okay? The teacher said you were called to the office—did something happen?"

Arata stopped, looking at her briefly before turning away. "I'm fine. Thanks for worrying."

His words were simple, polite… yet distant.

Naomi's expression faltered. Something about the way he spoke — the lack of warmth — made her chest tighten. He's drifting further away… she thought. Even when he's right here.

Arata walked to his seat without another word.

Naomi sat down slowly, biting her lip as she tried to hold back tears. The rest of the class noticed the change in atmosphere; whispers started to spread.

"Hey, is Naomi crying?""What happened between her and Arata?"

Naomi quickly wiped her eyes, forcing a small smile. "It's nothing," she whispered, her voice trembling. "I'm fine…"

But everyone could see she wasn't.

Haruto, who had been watching quietly from his seat beside Arata, leaned toward him. "Hey… did something happen between you and Naomi?"

Arata didn't look up from his notebook. "No."

"Then why is she crying like that?" Haruto asked, frowning. "She looks devastated."

"I don't know," Arata replied. "Maybe she's just emotional."

Haruto wanted to say more, but he stopped when he noticed the look in Arata's eyes — calm, empty, distant. The kind of look that said this conversation is over.

The rest of the class passed slowly. Naomi couldn't focus on the lesson at all; her mind kept replaying Arata's cold response. He thanked me, but it felt like… he didn't care at all.

And when the final bell rang, Arata stood immediately, packed his things, and slipped out before anyone noticed.

The hallway outside was quiet. The sun had already begun to set, painting the windows orange and gold. Arata walked calmly through the corridor, his footsteps echoing faintly.

Outside, near the training field, he saw Kurogane Yagami again — this time surrounded by a few rough-looking students.

Yagami had a smirk on his face as he grabbed one of the boys by the collar and slammed him against a wall. "You thought you could challenge me with that pathetic strength?" Yagami sneered. "You're nothing but a waste of air."

The boy whimpered, unable to look Yagami in the eye.

Arata stopped for a moment. His sharp gaze locked on the scene. For a brief second, Yagami's golden eyes flicked toward him — a silent challenge, a test to see what he'd do.

But Arata didn't move.

He simply turned away. "Not my problem," he muttered, walking past them.

A faint grin formed on Yagami's lips as he watched Arata's retreating figure. "Heh. Cold as ever," he whispered.

Arata kept walking until he reached the small convenience store just outside the dorm complex. The faint hum of the refrigerator units and the smell of instant coffee filled the air.

He picked up a few basic necessities — toothpaste, snacks, a new notebook — and stood quietly in line. The clerk smiled politely at him, but Arata didn't notice. His mind was elsewhere.

As he stepped outside, the streets were already dark, the neon lights flickering faintly. The cool night breeze brushed against his face.

He looked up at the sky. The stars were faint, hidden behind the glow of the academy's lights.

"Why do people keep caring about things that don't matter…" he murmured to himself. "Friendship. Love. Worry. All of it just… fades away eventually."

He started walking back toward the dorms, his figure slowly disappearing into the dim light.

But behind him, somewhere far in the shadows of the school grounds, Kurogane Yagami stood with his hands in his pockets, watching.

A faint smirk crossed his face."Arata Kurosawa…" he whispered. "You might just be the only one worth my attention."

The wind blew, carrying his words away into the night.

And the world — quiet, dark, and full of hidden motives — continued to turn.

The evening air had cooled into a pleasant hush by the time Haruto and Naomi left the classroom. The corridors were mostly empty; most students had gone home or returned to the dorms. A few groups still lingered near the vending machines, and the faint hum of the academy's lights made everything feel slightly unreal — like a stage after the actors had finished a scene.

Haruto walked beside Naomi at a comfortable pace, hands shoved into his pockets, trying to sound casual despite the odd tension that had clung to the day. He had always been the sort of person who used words to make space where silence threatened to suffocate.

"Hey," he said lightly, glancing at Naomi, "what do you think is wrong with Arata? He's been… off, lately. Colder than usual."

Naomi kept her eyes forward. Her voice was small. "I don't know. Maybe he just… doesn't like me." The sentence came out brittle, not the simple denial Haruto expected. It sounded like a possibility she'd considered more than once and quietly feared.

Haruto stopped, turning to face her. "No way. That can't be it. Arata's weird, but he isn't the type to—" He hesitated, then added more carefully, "—to just hate someone without reason."

Naomi forced a half-smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Every time I look into his eyes, they're empty. Like… there's nothing behind them. It's like he's looking at a wall."

Haruto frowned, trying to imagine that expression. He had seen Arata look away from people, had seen him sit withdrawn and silent, but the word "empty" unsettled him. "I get it," he admitted slowly. "Sometimes when I look at him I feel like I'm looking at a different world. No emotion. Nothing. Like a calm that's actually hiding an ocean."

They walked in silence for a few more strides, the weight of the thought settling between them.

And then, just past the school gym, they saw him.

Arata stood near the shadow of the practice field, speaking with Kurogane Yagami — the same bully Haruto had glimpsed nights before. Yagami's posture was relaxed, but his presence was taut, like a coiled spring. A couple of other students lingered nearby, pretending to check their phones but clearly attentive to Yagami's every gesture.

Naomi's heart stalled for a split second. She had chosen to follow Arata with the hope of catching a quiet moment — a simple word, perhaps a sliver of warmth. The sight of him talking with Yagami felt like a small, cruel joke.

"Shh," Haruto breathed, grabbing Naomi's sleeve and pulling her back into the shadow of a pillar. The two of them pressed themselves into the darkness, shoulders almost touching. Their breaths pooled tiny ghosts of white in the cool air.

From their hiding place they could see everything — the angle was perfect, and the pillar masked them well. Haruto's voice was a harsh whisper. "That's him. The one I told you about. Yagami… he's trouble. He bullies kids, runs with a weird crowd. If he's talking to Arata, I don't like it."

Naomi's lips trembled. "What do you think he wants?"

"Time to find out." Haruto leaned forward, trying to keep his tone level. "Let's just listen for a bit. Quietly."

They both fell into silence, ears straining to catch fragments of the conversation.

Arata's voice was low, careful, the kind of tone he used when he deliberately kept his distance. "What do you want, Yagami?"

Yagami's laugh was soft and amused, as though he'd been expecting the question. "You don't know? I want you to join my group." His words were casual — he placed them like a proposition, not a demand. "We have a team. It's a little… informal. We solve problems. We make sure things in this school go the way they should, through our way."

Arata's reply was immediate: blunt, flat. "I'm not interested."

Haruto felt the air in Naomi's chest tighten. He could see Arata's jaw shift minutely — the only outward sign of any emotion at all.

Yagami shrugged. "Of course you aren't. You're always the solitary type. I thought I'd try anyway. You move well. You're useful — more useful than most."

Arata's tone carried a quiet edge now. "If that is an offer, I refuse. If it is a threat, I'll handle it."

Yagami's gaze lingered on Arata, but there was a cruelty that slithered under his smile now, a thought being tested. He leaned in just slightly and spoke softer, as if sharing a secret almost too raw to say aloud.

"And what if I told you that your little solitude will put the people you care about in danger?" Yagami's eyes were flat. "What if I told you that if you keep getting close to certain people — like a girl in your class — then those people will begin to suffer?" He tapped his wrist as if marking a countdown. "What if I told you I could hurt them?"

Haruto felt the world tilt. Naomi's hand tightened on the pillar until her knuckles blanched. She pressed her back against the cool stone, barely breathing.

Arata's gaze didn't waver. He replied with practiced indifference, crisp and contained. "Then don't do it."

Yagami's smile froze. He cocked his head in almost theatrical surprise. "Is that your answer? Just… don't do it? No other consequences? No deal?"

Arata's jaw tightened. He'd known where this would go. He'd read the tone in Yagami's voice from the first. There were always two ways through a situation like this: die for your pride, or bleed for others.

His mind moved fast — cold, clinical calculations working beneath the surface.

If he refused and stayed near Naomi, Yagami might torture her, or Haruto, or both. Yagami sounded petty but precise; a bully who enjoyed pain and power. If Arata accepted, he'd be tangled in something that would demand obedience, murky alliances, and favors he did not want to return. He could do it — skill-wise he was more than capable — but joining a gang meant being a problem solver for them, being used as an instrument. He would lose much of the control he kept so obsessively.

Arata thought about the precise cost: thirty thousand points had been a currency already proven fungible in Saeko's hands. Yagami's threats were different; they weren't transactional. Pain and humiliation had no ledger but consequences were easier to measure: harm to Haruto or Naomi, social ostracization, mental scars and worse.

He thought of Naomi's face when she had offered him concern earlier, of the way Haruto tried to shoulder everything with a smile. They were messy, illogical ties — useless for utility, perhaps — but not worthless. They were, in a way he never admitted, variables he could not eliminate without a cost he could not accept.

So he answered simply.

"Fine," Arata said quietly. "I will not get close to Naomi."

Yagami's smirk widened as if he'd expected capitulation. "See? Told you I could bargain with you." His tone was triumphant, predatory. "And if you ever try to… approach her again? If you try to defy me? Then Haruto — or Naomi — will pay. I don't do empty threats."

Haruto's breath stuttered. Naomi's eyes filled fast. The stone pillar felt cold beneath her fingers; she could not tell whether that cold was from the night air or the chill seeping through her bones.

From their hiding place, Haruto whispered hoarsely, "So that's why he's been pulling away. He's protecting her."

Naomi's throat constricted. The idea that Arata, who had been so brutally distant, had been doing it for her hit with a force she didn't expect. Tears pooled in her eyes — not only relief at an explanation, but a grief so complex she had trouble naming it. She had interpreted distance as indifference; it had been protection.

"Why didn't he tell me?" she asked in a voice that was barely audible.

Haruto's hand found hers without thought and squeezed lightly in the darkness. "Some people don't say things. They act."

Naomi pressed her forehead to the cool pillar, trying to make sense of the knot of feelings: hurt that he'd left her to worry, admiration for the sacrifice he'd made, shame she'd ever thought him cold out of preference instead of necessity.

Inside the garden, Yagami continued, poised and dangerous. "Don't test me," he told Arata. "You know I don't joke about pain. You stay away from her — and Haruto — and you'll see that I'm nothing more than a rumor. You don't. And people who care about you get torn."

Arata's reply was nothing more than a whisper clipped by resignation. "Understood. I will stay away."

He turned and walked slowly down the path, the quiet click of his shoes on concrete swallowed by the night. Yagami watched his retreating back with interest, then took a drag off a cigarette he produced from nowhere. The plume of smoke hung in the air like a trophy.

Haruto and Naomi remained motionless for a moment longer, the implications settling like cold stones in their chests.

Haruto finally exhaled. "So that's it," he said, voice small. "He's been doing it on purpose. He pushed her away because Yagami threatened… them."

Naomi's shoulders shook in a suppressed sob. "He sacrificed being close. For us." Her voice was raw. "For Haruto. For me."

Haruto's jaw tighted. "That— that doesn't make any sense. He's… he's doing something noble, in his own way. But he didn't tell us."

"Some people don't ask for thanks," Naomi whispered. "They don't want it."

They watched in silence as two distant figures — Arata's thin frame and Yagami's taller stance near the practice field — were slowly swallowed by the darkness. The streetlights glowed weakly; the night seemed endless.

After a long moment Naomi let out a ragged breath and wiped her cheeks with her sleeve. Her tears were hot and sudden, but beneath them was a stubborn flame.

"He's protecting me," Naomi said again, as if convince herself. "Even if he doesn't want me to know."

Haruto's hand drifted to her shoulder as if offering a small comfort. "Then we protect him back," he said with the kind of certainty that had gotten him into trouble and out of it more than once. "We keep our distance but we watch. If Yagami tries anything — we tell Ms. Saeko. We find some way to beat him at his own game without making it worse."

Naomi looked up with wet, fierce eyes. "I won't let him be alone. Even if he asks me to stay away."

Haruto nodded firmly. "We survive this together."

They remained there a long time, breathing the night, aware that an unseen boundary had been redrawn. Arata's distance had not been born of dismissal; it had been a deliberate armor. The revelation didn't make the distance hurt less; it simply gave the pain a name.

When they finally left the shadow of the pillar and walked back toward the dormitory, their steps were quiet but resolute. They had a secret now — one that made them both fragile and determined. Naomi's cheeks were stained, but her shoulders were straighter. Haruto's usual grin was subdued but burning with a kind of stubborn plan.

Behind them, somewhere in the dark, Yagami watched and smiled without warmth. The game had changed. He had won a concession without getting his hands dirty. He had placed a leash on someone who could have been a threat — and had done so mostly through fear.

And Arata walked alone down the path, as he had chosen to do, bearing an invisible burden in return for a safety he couldn't otherwise guarantee. For him, there was no drama in that. It was simply a calculation, an acceptable loss versus the unacceptable possibility of harm befalling those who had, without request, come to matter.

For Naomi and Haruto, the knowledge was both a relief and a wound. They had been seen and chosen to be protected, but at the cost of closeness. In their hearts something shifted: a stubborn determination to be worth the sacrifice.

The academy's lights hummed as the night folded them into its quiet — three young lives rearranged by a whispered threat, bound now by a secret none of them desired, but one that would inevitably shape what came next.

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