Morning scraped itself across the windows in thin light. The classroom smelled like wet umbrellas and floor polish; chairs squeaked, bags thumped, the usual chorus pretending everything was fine.
Haruto slipped in quietly, collar turned up, sleeves tugged a little too far down. He headed straight for his desk by the window and set a folder on top—new paper, clean edges. Beneath it, tucked away, the sketchbook with last night's soaked pages pressed flat under heavy books.
"Scholar squad, assemble!" Suki declared, sweeping into the room with a dramatic shake of his hair.
"You're dripping on the floor," Aoi said, not looking up from her planner.
"Drama requires sparkle and precipitation," Suki said. He hooked his arm through Ryuzí's. "Right, honey?"
Ryuzí handed him a towel. "Wipe the precipitation."
Kenji slid into his seat, yawning. "I brought brain food." He produced a bag of convenience-store sweet buns. "First-come, first-served, unless your name is Suki."
Suki gasped. "Betrayal! Haruto, choose justice."
Haruto managed a small smile. "Kenji, he'll cry."
"Fake tears," Kenji said, but he slid one bun to Suki anyway. "Here. Don't tell my conscience."
Miyako arrived with her usual quiet stride, set a slim thermos on her desk, and scanned the board. "Homeroom quiz," she announced. "Two poems. Again."
Suki slumped. "We just did poems."
"We will continue to do poems until you can tell fog from horizon," Aoi said dryly, taking her seat.
Haruto's eyes flicked to Aoi by reflex and then away again. His elbow brushed the edge of his folder and he winced—small, contained, gone in a blink.
Aoi noticed the flinch. She didn't comment. Not yet.
Homeroom rolled forward. Questions, answers, laughter in the corners. When the teacher called on Haruto, he spoke steadily, even if his voice felt like a tightrope.
"Tone shifts in the last image," he said. "It's not surrender. It's… acceptance."
The teacher nodded, pleased. "Nicely put."
Across the aisle, Shaun leaned back in his chair and gave a slow, theatrical clap—two soft slaps, nothing loud enough to be scolded. Daichi smirked. Riku stared at his phone screen, reflections crawling like fish across his irises.
Haruto looked at the clock.
Break came. Chairs bumped, snack wrappers crackled, Suki tried to balance a sweet bun on Ryuzí's head, and Aoi confiscated it mid-attempt.
"Your head is not a plate," she told Ryuzí.
"I know," Ryuzí said, and looked at Suki. "He does not."
Kenji leaned across the aisle toward Haruto. "You bringing the sunrise slides to rehearsal?"
"Yeah," Haruto said. "They're done."
"Let me see?" Kenji asked, open palm.
Haruto froze. Then too casually: "After lunch."
Kenji blinked. "Okay."
Suki plopped down on the edge of Haruto's desk, eyes bright. "We're going for taiyaki after school. You coming?"
"Can't," Haruto said. "I… promised my mom."
Suki pouted. "She can come too."
Haruto shook his head. "Another time."
Suki's pout softened into something gentler. "Okay. Rain check."
Shaun sauntered by on his way to the door, slow enough that his bag brushed Haruto's knee. "Picasso," he said pleasantly, like greeting a colleague at a water cooler. "Don't forget to label your masterpieces."
Haruto stared at the grain of the desk. "I won't."
Daichi gave a tiny drumroll on the doorframe with his knuckles. Riku's glance slid over Haruto and away like oil on glass. They disappeared into the hallway.
Suki watched the doorway as it emptied of noise. "They're annoying," he said lightly.
"Flies," Kenji agreed. "Buzz, buzz."
"Focus," Aoi said, but her pen hovered uncharacteristically, then settled. She looked at Haruto's hands—how he kept them tucked under the desk and only pulled one out when he had to reach for his notebook. The cuff of his sleeve had a faint blurry mark, like a watercolor bloom, half-washed clean.
She filed the detail away with others, said nothing.
By lunch the room had warmed, steamed by umbrellas and gossip. Suki dragged desks into their usual island; Ryuzí dragged Suki's desk back when it threatened to clip a passing classmate.
"Family mealtime," Suki announced, setting down his bento with a flourish.
"Stop announcing that," Ryuzí murmured, opening his chopsticks.
Miyako distributed pickles with exact fairness. Kenji narrated his bento reveal like a game show host—"Behind door number one: karaage!"
"Haruto," Aoi said, tapping his folder with her pen, "sunrise?"
He slid the folder to her. "Here."
She opened it. The colors were softer than yesterday, sky layered in cooler pinks just as she'd asked. The lines, though—line weight that was usually so crisp—wavered here and there, almost imperceptible unless you knew his work like she did.
"These are good," Aoi said. "Your line softened."
"New pencil," he said quickly.
Aoi nodded like that answered everything. She carefully returned the pages to the folder and passed it back. "Render two frames with text before rehearsal."
He nodded. "Okay."
Kenji leaned around Suki. "You sure you can handle the—"
"I can," Haruto said, sharper than he meant to. He cleared his throat. "Sorry. I can."
Kenji raised both hands. "Just checking."
Suki watched Haruto for a long second like he was reading a weather report no one else could see. Then he fumbled in his bag and produced a ridiculous cat-shaped bandage.
"For emergencies," he said, sliding it across the desk without looking at Haruto's face. "Emotionally."
Haruto huffed, surprised enough to let the smallest laugh loose. "It's pink."
"It's brave," Suki corrected.
Ryuzí took it, peeled the paper off, and stuck it to the corner of Suki's phone. "Now it is useful."
"Rude," Suki said, but his mouth curved.
The afternoon held—math, literature, the quiet hum of survival. Haruto found a rhythm: look down when the back row laughed, answer when called, keep his voice level, don't rush, don't shrink. When he stood too fast between periods his ribs sparked a warning and he sat back down, pretending he'd forgotten a pen.
By last period the sky had gone the color of an old bruise. Rain blurred the track outside. Rehearsal waited.
They filed into the art room with the ritual of a team that had learned each other's gravity. Haruto set up the projector, plugged in his laptop. The screen blinked to life: Act II's sunrise, paper airplane drifting toward the brighter half of the sky.
"Gorgeous," Suki breathed. "Haruto, marry me."
"No," Ryuzí and Aoi said at the same time.
Kenji clapped. "Put the title card on the beat, and we're basically professionals."
Miyako checked her script. "Narration, page four."
They ran the scene. Once. Twice. Suki missed a cue and improvised a joke; Kenji saved it with a perfectly timed sound effect. Aoi's eyebrow did a small precise parabola. Ryuzí adjusted the stand light with a calmness that made the whole room move easier around him.
Haruto rode the cues and pretended his hands weren't trembling on the laptop keys.
"Again," Aoi said. "Cleaner."
They did it again. It was. By the time she said, "Break," everyone sagged into chairs and breathed like they remembered the skill.
Haruto packed the sunrise frames into the folder with reverence. He slid his sketchbook out only far enough to keep it hidden beneath the desk edge, checked the pressed pages—still damp in the center, graphite ghosts fused into the paper. He closed it again as if closing a wound.
"Taiyaki," Suki sang from the door. "Who's in?"
"Not me," Aoi said. "I'm staying a bit."
"Me," Kenji said immediately, then glanced at Miyako. "You?"
Miyako considered and then: "Okay."
Suki aimed at Ryuzí with both hands. "You're mandatory."
Ryuzí sighed like obligation was a hobby. "Ten minutes."
Suki beamed. "Fifteen."
They slipped out—Kenji promising to be back before Aoi could weaponize her clipboard, Suki promising to bring something sweet and then forgetting immediately what it might be.
The room quieted. Rain tested the windows. Aoi finished compiling notes and closed her planner. She glanced at Haruto, who was carefully erasing the faintest smudge from the edge of a frame that no one else would have noticed.
"Let me see the text overlay," she said.
He angled the laptop toward her. She leaned close, reading. The faint scent of detergent and rain lifted from his shirt; she ignored the instinct to measure his distance.
"This is fine," she said. "Color code the captions so Sensei can follow at the tech table."
"Okay," he said, eyes on the screen.
From the hallway, voices. Male. Laughing. Three sets of footfalls. They didn't slow; the sound moved past like weather. Haruto's shoulders went rigid anyway. His fingers stilled on the keys.
Aoi's gaze flicked to his hands. "Haruto?"
He blinked, unfreezing. "Sorry. I—lag."
"Computer?" she asked.
He nodded.
"Restart after we save," she said, as if that were the only answer needed. She didn't ask who the voices were. She didn't look at the door again. She pressed the tip of her pen into one of her boxes so hard the ink dot turned glossy.
Suki blew back in with a rush of air and sugar and Ryuzí pulled behind him like a tide. "I remembered you!" Suki told Aoi and handed her nothing. He blinked. "I forgot what you wanted."
Aoi took a breath through her nose. "Work."
Kenji held up a fish-shaped pastry like a trophy. "We'll share."
"After we hit the beat," Aoi said.
They hit the beat. Twice, clean. The third time, perfect enough that even Aoi's mouth softened. Kenji whooped; Suki hugged Ryuzí from the side; Miyako made a small note she'd probably already decided to make before they started.
They packed up in the blue hour between rain and night, the room's lights clicking off one row at a time. When they reached the hallway, Haruto hesitated—a fraction—and switched his folder to his other arm. The bone bruise in his rib tugged. He didn't let the tug show on his face.
"Train?" Kenji asked, juggling the speaker.
"Bus," Miyako said. "It's closer."
"Walk," Suki said, expression set like a dare.
"Umbrella," Ryuzí said, holding one out to him.
Suki's grin broke bright. "Fine."
They split at the front steps. Haruto lifted a hand—half wave, half anchor—and headed toward the station, alone.
"Haruto!" Suki called. "Tomorrow, taiyaki again!"
Haruto turned enough to let Suki see a small smile. "We'll see."
"Promise," Suki said.
Haruto didn't promise. He nodded and kept walking.
Rain slicked the pavement, caught the streetlights and braided them into gold. Haruto tucked his chin against the wind and counted his steps. The alley behind the gym gaped to his left, its weak bulb flickering. He didn't take it this time. He took the long way around the tennis courts, past the cracked mural on the retaining wall—the one he kept meaning to fix in his head with a fresh coat of paint, the one no one budgeted for.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
Aoi: Bring captions first thing.Kenji: I dropped the speaker once. It survived.Miyako:Because I caught it.Suki: Tomorrow I'm kidnapping everyone for hot drinks. Hydration arc.Ryuzí: That's not hydration.
Haruto typed, thumb hesitating over the keyboard, choosing normalcy like a suit jacket that mostly fit.
Haruto: Copy. See you.
He slipped the phone away and shifted the folder higher against his chest. The bruise tugged again. He breathed through it. Streetlight. Crosswalk. Another block. A taxi hissed by with a spray of water; he stepped back to avoid the splash and bumped into a signpost, a small, stupid spike of pain that made his breath stutter.
"Sorry," he said automatically—to the sign, to the night, to no one.
He reached his building, let himself in, climbed the stairs. In his room, he set the folder down and opened the sketchbook that still smelled faintly of rain. The ruined page—Ryuzí's profile—was dry now, creased down the center like a scar. He touched the line and felt the break beneath his fingertip.
He taped the crease from the back, a thin strip, precise. He didn't try to redraw it. He left the fracture visible, a seam that told the truth without demanding an explanation.
His phone buzzed one more time.
Suki: Hey. You good?
Haruto stared at the screen. He typed, erased, typed again.
Haruto: I'm okay.
A dot appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Suki: Okay. Sleep early. I'll be annoying tomorrow.
Haruto set the phone down face-down and leaned his forehead against the cool edge of the desk. He counted five slow breaths, then straightened, pulled a fresh sheet of paper, and drew a horizon line steady as he could.
Outside, rain softened. Inside, the line held.
He didn't tell them. Not yet. He wasn't ready to watch their faces when they learned what he had let happen right under the hum of their ordinary days.
Tomorrow, he promised the empty room. Tomorrow, he would make the sky warmer. Tomorrow, he would choose a road that didn't run past a flickering bulb.
For tonight: tape the seam, press the page flat, keep the edges neat.
Hold.