On our second day of school—well, I suppose technically it was the first day of class—we spent most of our time running over the course objectives. Apparently, many of the students were quite surprised, if not a little disappointed, by how genuinely warm and friendly the teachers at this school looked. Sudou had already made a spectacle of himself by spending most of the class asleep. I thought that the teachers would notice, but they showed no signs of doing so. After all, it was up to every individual student whether or not he or she wanted to listen in class. I wondered if this was how teachers typically interacted with students once they left compulsory education.
I sat in front of Ayanokōji and Horikita, my seat by the window giving me a perfect view both outside and—when I leaned back slightly—of the two of them behind me. They thought they were having private exchanges, but their voices carried just enough that I could catch every word if I wished.
I took in the relaxed atmosphere, and soon it was lunchtime. Students stood up and left with their new acquaintances, disappearing from my view. I couldn't help but notice the faint envy in Ayanokōji's eyes as he watched them. It wasn't obvious—he hid it well—but I saw it.
"How pathetic," Horikita said from behind me, her voice sharp, derisive.
I turned my head slightly, listening.
"What? What's pathetic?" Ayanokōji asked.
"'I want someone to invite me along. I want to eat with someone!' Your thoughts are like an open book," she replied.
I almost smiled. She cut into him so easily. But her dismissal was too quick, too defensive.
"But you're alone, too, aren't you? Haven't you thought the same thing? Or do you intend to spend three years here without making a single friend?" he pressed.
"That's right. I prefer to be alone," she said, without hesitation. It sounded like honesty, but I'd already noticed her contradictions.
"Well, I…" Ayanokōji faltered.
Less than a minute after the end-of-class bell rang, about half of the students had disappeared. Those who remained either secretly wanted to go, like Ayanokōji, were unconscious of their surroundings, or preferred being alone, like Horikita.
"Well, I was thinking of heading to the cafeteria. Anyone want to come with me?" announced Hirata as he stood.
"I'll go, too!"
"Me, too! Me too!"
Girls gathered around him one after another. Ayanokōji's hand twitched upward in hesitation. Then, predictably, he lowered it again.
"How tragic," Horikita muttered.
"Don't just assume you know what I'm thinking," he said, though his voice betrayed him.
"Does anyone else want to come?" Hirata looked around the room.
From where I sat, I could feel Ayanokōji's silent plea radiating behind me. His eyes locked on Hirata's. Hirata noticed, of course—he always noticed.
"Hey, Ayano—"
But before the invitation could be spoken, a fashionable girl latched onto Hirata's arm. "Come on. Hurry up, Hirata-kun!"
And just like that, the opportunity vanished.
I tilted my head slightly, enough to glimpse Ayanokōji out of the corner of my eye. His hand lingered in midair, before he tried to disguise the gesture with an awkward scratch at his head.
"Well then," Horikita said coolly. She stood, tossed him a pitying look, and left.
"That was pointless."
Ayanokōji looked small in that moment, but I didn't linger on him. My gaze followed Horikita instead, watching the way she walked with that deliberate, self-contained grace, as though she were entirely unaffected by what had just transpired.
But I knew better.
I rose silently, sliding my chair back with barely a sound. While Ayanokōji slumped toward the cafeteria, I slipped out the opposite side of the aisle, my pace unhurried, my hands in my pockets.
I wasn't following the herd, and I wasn't chasing after Hirata.
No—my eyes were on Horikita.
And as I stepped into the hall, keeping just enough distance not to disturb her, I already knew this conversation would be far more interesting
Horikita didn't look back as she walked down the hallway, her steps brisk, her figure composed as ever. She moved like someone who believed she was invisible, or perhaps wanted to be. But she wasn't invisible to me.
"Skipping the cafeteria?" I asked, my tone calm, almost conversational, as I fell into step beside her.
Her eyes flicked toward me, sharp as a blade, then forward again. "Why are you here?"
"To walk," I said simply. "And since you're walking too, it seems our paths align."
"You expect me to believe that?" she said flatly.
"I don't expect you to believe anything," I answered, letting a faint smile tug at the corner of my lips. "But I noticed the way you looked at Ayanokōji just now. Pity, irritation… maybe both. Yet the truth is, you lingered. You watched him fail. Why?"
Her stride hitched just slightly. A small, almost imperceptible falter—but I noticed it.
"You analyze people far too much," she said coolly.
"Not analyze," I corrected softly. "Understand. There's a difference. People reveal themselves without meaning to. Like you. You say you prefer to be alone, but that's not the whole truth. Otherwise, you wouldn't care enough to cut him down."
She stopped abruptly, turning to face me. For a moment, her gaze was as cold as steel. "You're meddling."
I leaned in just enough that my words were for her ears alone. My voice was quiet, gentle, but precise—like a scalpel.
"No. I'm observing. And I've already learned one thing about you, Horikita."
Her eyes narrowed. "And what's that?"
"That your isolation isn't a choice. It's a wound."
For the briefest second, her expression cracked. A flicker of something—anger, denial, fear. Then the mask slid back into place.
"You're wrong," she said, her tone clipped, each syllable sharpened.
"Perhaps." I let the smile return, faint and almost kind. "But the funny thing about wounds is that they don't disappear just because you deny them. They fester."
Her steps quickened. She thought distance would silence me.
I matched her pace easily. "You keep people at arm's length because you think it protects you. But in truth, it's because you've already been hurt before, isn't it?"
That stopped her cold. She froze in the middle of the hall, shoulders tense.
Slowly, she turned to face me, eyes narrowed into sharp blades. "You don't know anything about me."
I tilted my head, my smile faint, disarmingly calm. "But I've seen it before. The way you bristle at kindness, the way you dismiss connection… people only act like that when they've been betrayed by it."
Her lips pressed tightly together, trembling just slightly before she forced them still. I saw it. That tiny fracture in her composure.
"You're projecting nonsense," she said harshly.
"Then prove me wrong." I stepped closer, the air between us tightening. "Look me in the eye and tell me, without hesitation, that you've never once wished someone would understand you. That you've never wanted even a single person to stay, instead of leave."
Her breath hitched. Barely audible, but enough.
Silence.
I leaned in just enough that my words brushed against her like a whisper only she could hear. "You can't say it, can you?"
Her fists clenched at her sides, nails digging into her palms. "Enough."
There it was—the first crack, the first loss of control. She spun on her heel and stormed away, sharper, faster this time, like she needed to escape before I could peel away anything more.
I didn't follow now. I didn't need to.
I watched her retreating figure, her rigid back betraying the storm inside her. The seed was no longer just planted—it had been forced deep into the soil, whether she wanted it there or not.
And I smiled.
Because the first crack was always the beginning of the collapse.
——-
The gymnasium was already filling by the time I arrived. Freshmen clustered together in pockets of nervous chatter, pamphlets clutched like lifelines. From the back, I spotted two familiar figures—Horikita and Ayanokōji—standing side by side.
I made no move to approach them directly. Instead, I slipped into the crowd nearby, close enough to listen, far enough to remain unnoticed. Their conversation was mundane, about clubs and training, about effort and friendship. Horikita's sharp tongue, Ayanokōji's disarming indifference… a predictable rhythm between two people afraid of connection but too proud to admit it.
When the fair began, I skimmed the parade of representatives without much interest. Martial arts, archery, liberal arts… all these clubs fought for survival in the same way people did: by gathering numbers, even if they meant nothing. Tools to justify their existence.
But then—Horikita froze.
I followed her gaze to the stage. A boy in uniform, composed, quiet, glasses glinting beneath the light. He didn't speak. He didn't have to. The room mocked him at first, but within moments… silence. He consumed the air in the gymnasium with nothing but his presence.
It was fascinating.
And Horikita—Suzune Horikita—couldn't tear her eyes away.
Her mask cracked, just slightly. Paleness washed across her face. It wasn't admiration, nor was it attraction. No, it was deeper than that. Recognition. Fear.
The silence broke with his voice.
"I'm the student council president. My name is Horikita Manabu."
So that was it. Her reaction wasn't born from the weight of his presence alone. It was blood. Family.
I studied Suzune's expression as his speech carried the gymnasium into suffocating stillness. Her every muscle tightened, as though bracing against an inevitability she had spent years denying. She tried to remain still, yet her trembling betrayed her.
The rest of the students were entranced, cowed by his aura. Even Ayanokōji, who usually kept himself unreadable, gave a faint nod of acknowledgment. He saw the strength, though I wondered if he grasped the deeper fracture it caused in Horikita.
Manabu left as suddenly as he appeared, silence trailing in his wake like a phantom.
Suzune remained rooted to the floor. Pale, tense, silent.
I smiled faintly to myself.
"Family ties. Always the deepest wound," I murmured, though no one heard me.
Soon enough, her classmates gathered—Sudou, Ike, Yamauchi. Their chatter was light, clumsy, ordinary. They spoke of basketball, girlfriends, group chats. Fleeting things to distract themselves from the heaviness they had just witnessed.
Ayanokōji entertained them, slipping easily into their rhythm. Yet his eyes lingered on Horikita when she vanished into the crowd, as though he'd considered following. He didn't.
I knew why. He couldn't.
Because unlike him, I would follow the cracks to their very depths.
The crowd dispersed, buzzing with shallow admiration for the clubs, nervous excitement about their futures, or empty chatter about girlfriends and basketball. They left the gymnasium lighter than when they entered, pretending the tension hadn't nearly suffocated them minutes ago.
I walked out quietly, unnoticed, as always.
But my mind lingered on the stillness—the crack in Horikita Suzune's façade when her brother appeared.
Blood ties. So fragile. You can sever them, bury them, deny them… but when confronted, they reopen, raw as ever. That is the weight family carries: it binds you, whether you want it or not.
Suzune's eyes had betrayed her. Not hatred, no—that would have been too simple. What I saw was deeper. Reverence. Awe. The silent acknowledgment of standing before someone greater, someone who had always been beyond her reach. Fear laced with respect, the kind that comes from measuring yourself against another and finding yourself lacking.
Her brother was not a wound she wished to erase, but a mountain she could not climb.
And Ayanokōji. His eyes flickered, just briefly, when Manabu silenced the crowd. He recognized it. Not just authority, but dominion. He hid it well, yet I saw it—the faint glimmer of interest, perhaps even acknowledgment.
How amusing.
A sister weighed down by the impossible standard of her brother.
A classmate too skilled at vanishing to ever truly connect.
And all of them circling each other, unaware that the ground beneath them is already splitting.
I stepped into the hallway, the hum of students fading as I walked.
"Horikita Manabu," I murmured, letting the name linger on my tongue. "A president who can bend a crowd with silence. And a sister who still stands in his shadow, no matter how hard she pretends otherwise."
Suzune, you thought you could walk through this school untouched. But your cracks are already showing.
And soon, when the time is right… I will make sure they widen.
Suzune walked with her usual rigid precision, her pamphlet trembling faintly in her grip. She thought no one noticed. She thought she was unreadable.
I closed the distance until my steps fell into rhythm with hers.
"You hide it well," I murmured.
Her pace faltered, then steadied. "…Hide what?"
"The way your eyes followed him. Others might think it was fear." I leaned slightly, studying her profile. "But it wasn't. It was reverence. Awe. The gaze of someone who knows they're standing in the shadow of something greater."
Her eyes snapped to me, sharp as knives. "You presume too much."
I chuckled softly, low and dismissive. "No. I see too much."
She turned her head away, as if to end it there, but I matched her stride, my voice slipping between her defenses like a blade.
"You admire him. You long to reach him. And yet… you know you never will."
Her grip on the pamphlet tightened until the paper crumpled at the edges. "That's not true."
"Isn't it?" I stepped closer, close enough that she couldn't ignore the weight of my presence. "Every movement, every word—he commands respect without effort. And you?" My voice dropped, sharper, crueler. "You trembled because you know you'll always be behind him."
Her breath hitched, a fleeting flash of pain crossing her eyes before she tore them away.
"See?" I whispered. "You flinch because you know it's true. He's the mountain you can't climb. The standard you'll never surpass. That's why your hands shook."
"Enough," she spat, louder this time, her voice cracking at the edges.
I smiled—soft, serene, mocking. "You want to deny it? Then look me in the eye, Horikita Suzune, and tell me—tell me you don't wish you were him."
Silence. Her lips parted, but no words came.
I tilted my head, studying her like a broken puzzle. "You can't. Because even now, you're still just a child staring at her brother's back."
Her face flushed with fury and shame. She spun on her heel and stormed away, fast, as though distance could erase what I'd forced her to face.
I didn't follow. I didn't need to.
The cracks were spreading already.
The walk back to the dormitory was quiet, but my thoughts were anything but.
Suzune Horikita. So desperate to seem untouchable, so rigid in her composure. Yet all it took was one name—his name—to make her hands tremble.
Her brother is her horizon. She can chase him forever and never close the distance. She knows it. That's why she faltered when I spoke. Not because I lied, but because the truth had already been gnawing at her in silence. I only gave it a voice.
Family… such a curious prison. A bond that can elevate or suffocate, but never truly release you. For her, it is both chain and compass. No matter how much she struggles, every step she takes will always lead her back to his shadow.
And in that shadow, she'll break.
I could almost hear the fracture forming in her silence. That pause when she tried to deny me. The way her throat caught. She'll think about it tonight, in her room, staring at the ceiling. She'll replay my words, despise them, despise me… but deep down, she'll despise herself most of all.
That's how the collapse begins. Not with fire or fury, but with the quiet whisper that you are not enough—and never will be.
By the time I reached the dormitory doors, the smile was already tugging at my lips.
Suzune… you'll try to climb that mountain until your nails bleed.
And when you fall—
I'll be there to watch.