The final, raw note from her violin hung in the dusty air of the old music room, a sigh of release. Hikari carefully placed the instrument in its case, the familiar ritual closing the door on the only world where things ever made sense. Here, the music didn't judge, the silence didn't pity, and the echoes understood her perfectly.
She stepped out into the twilight, the school grounds nearly empty. The satisfaction from the A-plus, that brief, bright spark Kaito had ignited in the morning, had cooled into a quiet warmth in her chest. It was a strange feeling, being seen—not as a problem, but as a contributor. Being defended. She replayed the moment in her head: Kaito standing, his voice so certain. She deserves the praise. No one had ever said anything like that about her before. It was… confusing.
Her thoughts were a tangled mix of the day's victory and the usual background static of school life, so she didn't notice the three figures detaching themselves from the shadow of the gymnasium until they were right in front of her, blocking the path to the gate.
Yui, Mari, and a third girl, Aiko, stood in a tight, hostile line. Yui, her pretty ribbon perfectly tied, wore a smile that didn't reach her cold eyes. The jealousy from the morning had curdled into something sharper in the after-school quiet.
"Well, if it isn't the star student," Yui said, her voice sweetly poisonous.
Hikari stopped, her grip tightening on the handle of her violin case. She said nothing. Experience had taught her that words with people like this were useless.
"You must be so proud," Mari chimed in, crossing her arms. "Getting an A-plus without even trying. Must be nice to have the school prince do all your work for you."
"It's disgusting, really," Aiko added, her nose wrinkled. "You probably batted your eyes and made him feel sorry for you. Poor, lonely Hikari-chan."
Hikari's jaw tightened. The warmth in her chest turned to ice. This was the narrative. This was what everyone believed, what she'd almost started to believe herself until Kaito had spoken up. "I did my share of the work," she stated flatly, her voice low. "Get out of my way."
Yui's fake smile vanished. "Your share?" she sneered, taking a step closer. "What share? Doodling in the margins? Sleeping in class? Everyone knows the truth. You're just a leech, Tanaka. You latched onto him because you're failing everything else. You're embarrassing him. He was just too polite to say it."
The words were meant to cut, and they did, but not in the way Yui intended. They didn't make Hikari feel small; they ignited a slow, familiar burn of anger in her gut. Anger at their shallowness, at their need to tear her down to make their own crushes feel safer.
"You don't know anything," Hikari said, her voice dropping to a dangerous calm. "About the project. Or about him."
"Oh, we know," Yui hissed, now directly in her face. "We know you don't belong anywhere near him. You're a stain. A noisy, messy, nothing."
She gave Hikari a hard, two-handed shove in the shoulders.
Hikari stumbled back a step, but her footing held. The violin case swung at her side. The anger, usually channeled into furious scribbles or searing melodies, bubbled to the surface, hot and immediate.
"Don't touch me," she warned, her eyes flashing.
"Or what?" Mari laughed, moving to flank her. "You'll draw a picture of us?"
It was Aiko who made the next move, reaching out not to shove, but to snatch the violin case. "What's in here, anyway? Your collection of failures?"
That was the line.
As Aiko's fingers brushed the case handle, Hikari moved. It wasn't the graceful, practiced movement of a fighter, but something raw and instinctual, born of a lifetime of defending her solitary space. She wrenched the case away, and in the same motion, her free hand shot out, shoving Aiko back with enough force to send the girl sprawling onto the gravel with a shocked yelp.
"She hit her!" Mari screeched, and lunged.
What followed wasn't a fight in any traditional sense. It was a brief, violent whirlwind. Yui tried to grab Hikari's hair. Hikari ducked, driving her elbow back into Yui's stomach, earning a pained gasp. Mari clawed at her arm, nails scraping skin. Hikari twisted, using her own momentum to throw Mari off balance, sending her stumbling into a low hedge.
It was over in less than a minute. Hikari stood breathing heavily, her uniform blazer torn at the shoulder, a stinging scratch on her forearm welling with blood. Her knuckles were scraped raw.
At her feet, the three girls were in various states of distress. Aiko was still on the ground, crying more from shock and scraped palms than real injury. Yui was crouched, clutching her stomach, her face pale. Mari was untangling herself from the hedge, twigs in her hair, a look of pure, furious humiliation on her face.
Silence descended, broken only by Aiko's sniffles. The three girls looked at Hikari, and for the first time, their eyes held no malice, only fear. They had picked a fight with the quiet, invisible girl and had somehow unleashed a storm they couldn't control.
Hikari looked at them—their messed-up uniforms, their tear-streaked faces, their fear. She felt no victory. Just a hollow, tired disgust. She adjusted her grip on her violin case, its weight a solid, comforting reality.
Without a single word, she turned and walked away, leaving the three of them in the gathering dusk. She didn't look back. The adrenaline bled away, leaving the throb of her scraped arm and a deeper, colder ache in her chest. The brief glow of the day was gone, extinguished by the ugliness she always knew was waiting.
She walked home in the dark, the secret, beautiful world of her violin feeling very far away, and the new, fragile bridge to Kaito Sato feeling dangerously fragile.
(End of Chapter 6)