The apartment was quiet.
Not the kind of quiet that felt empty, but the kind that settled in when nothing needed to happen anymore. Outside, cars passed at steady intervals, their sound softened by distance. Somewhere above me, someone walked across their floor. Ordinary noises. Familiar ones.
I sat at my desk, the glow of the computer screen filling the room. Lines of text scrolled slowly as I moved the mouse, though there was nothing new to see. I already knew what it said.
Advanced Nurturing High School.
Tomorrow, I would be going there.
The school presented itself plainly. Facilities, rules, systems everything was written clearly, almost reassuringly. It was designed to look open, fair, uncomplicated. A place where students could grow freely, judged only by their own efforts.
That was the image, at least.
Still, there were things that bothered me. Not obvious flaws, not anything I could point to directly. Just small inconsistencies. Details that felt intentionally vague. Systems that worked too neatly on the surface.
I noticed them, but I didn't pursue them.
I could have. I knew how. But knowing everything before stepping inside would strip the place of its meaning. It would turn tomorrow into nothing more than another environment to adapt to.
I didn't want that.
This time, I wanted to walk in without answers.
I leaned back slightly, eyes lifting from the screen. Tomorrow would be my first day at a real school. Not a controlled facility. Not an isolated program. An actual campus, filled with students my age.
People who laughed too loudly. People who failed and complained about it. People who dreamed without being told what they were allowed to want.
The thought felt distant, but not unpleasant.
At first, I planned to blend in completely. Act normal. Say little. Observe. Learn how everyone behaved, then adjust myself to match. It was the safest way. Matsou had warned me being too blank, too detached, would make me stand out more than trying at all.
That advice made sense.
But recently, the idea of acting from the very beginning started to feel hollow.
If I spent three years pretending, then what would I actually gain?
I didn't come here just to exist quietly. I came because I wanted something to change. I wanted to see what would happen if I stopped deciding everything in advance.
More than anything, I wanted to lose.
Not casually. Not on purpose. I wanted to be defeated in a way that mattered. By someone who could stand in front of me honestly and still come out ahead.
If that happened, then maybe I could finally prove it.
That I wasn't what he believed me to be.
That I wasn't perfect. That I wasn't finished. That I wasn't a thing built only to perform.
The thought lingered longer than I expected.
I turned off the monitor. The room dimmed immediately, the blue light vanishing as the screen went dark. The silence felt heavier without it.
My hand moved to the drawer beside the desk. I opened it and took out my sketchbook.
It wasn't meant to be used not yet. It never was.
The cover was simple. The pages inside were untouched, clean and white. I opened it slowly, letting it rest in my hands.
There was nothing there.
That was the point.
The sketchbook wasn't for drawing pictures. It was something else. A quiet test. If my emotions ever became real if something genuine slipped through then maybe, just maybe, color would appear where there had only been blank space.
A flicker.
Proof that something inside me had changed.
I closed it and placed it into my bag without another thought.
Everything else was already prepared. Uniform folded carefully. Documents packed. Phone charged. Bag set by the door.
It all looked too orderly, but that was fine. Order was familiar.
I stood and walked toward the mirror in the hallway. My reflection stared back at me, calm and unreadable. The same face I'd seen for years.
I practiced a smile.
It felt awkward, but not impossible.
A smaller one followed. Less forced. Less empty.
"That'll do," I murmured.
I didn't need to be convincing. Just human enough.
The lights went out one by one as I headed upstairs. My room was dark and quiet when I lay down, the ceiling faintly visible in the low glow from outside.
And then, unexpectedly, I felt it.
Excitement.
It wasn't intense. It didn't make my heart race. It was quiet and steady, like something slowly waking up after being asleep for a long time.
The feeling reminded me of the books I read as a child. Stories about school life. About friendships that didn't need reasons. About futures that weren't decided before they began.
Shiro used to read beside me sometimes. Yuki asked questions constantly, even when the answers didn't matter.
I didn't like remembering their names.
But tonight, I let myself.
I hoped they were free now.
Just like I was about to be.
Tomorrow, I would walk into that school without a mask. Without certainty. Without knowing whether I would win or lose.
Whatever waited for me there, I would face it.
I closed my eyes.
Tomorrow was close.