The gates loomed high, kissed with gold and shadow.
St. Laphine's Academy for Girls stood like a dream from a different world—ivory towers, silent statues of goddesses long forgotten, and girls in flowing silk uniforms who whispered like ghosts in the wind.
Ame Yukishiro stood at the entrance, clutching her worn transfer letter, her eyes wide beneath a fringe of silver hair. Her suitcase rattled beside her like a nervous child.
"It's just a school," she told herself.
But her heart whispered: No, it isn't.
The air here tasted... strange. Sweet, but sharp. Like roses blooming over something dead.
"Name?" a voice called. Crisp, cold.
Ame looked up. The girl holding the clipboard was beauty incarnate—porcelain skin, jet-black hair tied in silk, and eyes like polished frost. Her nametag read: Rika Ayanami.
"Ame. Ame Yukishiro."
Rika's gaze lingered a moment longer than necessary. "Transfer student," she murmured. "You'll learn quickly, Yukishiro—at St. Laphine's, we don't touch recklessly. Especially not lips."
Ame blinked. "Excuse me?"
Before Rika could answer, a bell rang in the distance—soft, melodic, yet eerily sharp. Dozens of girls turned their heads at once, as if hypnotized, and began moving through the archways.
Ame stepped forward. "Wait—what did you mean by—?"
But Rika was already gone, her scent lingering like lavender and warning.
As Ame entered the academy, her fingers brushed against a statue carved near the entrance. The figure's lips were parted in a silent scream, and beneath the stone was a phrase etched in crimson:
"To kiss is to curse."
She froze.
And behind her, far beyond the gates, a breeze whispered across her neck—
like someone had just kissed her skin.