Yamauchi Sakura stood before them, the rightful owner of the notebook. The pity in Sanshokuin Sumireko's eyes vanished instantly; she forced her expression into something neutral, carefully handing back Dancing with Sickness. To look at Sakura with sympathy now would be cruel, a wound deeper than the illness already carved into her life.
Sakura accepted the diary with cautious hands, flipping through its pages in haste. Her brow tightened. The bookmark had shifted. Someone had read it. With a sharp snap she closed the notebook, her gaze heavy as it swept over Sumireko and the boy lingering by the shelves. Her voice came low, deliberate.
"You… read my diary, didn't you?"
She wasn't angry. Not outwardly. But the weight in her eyes betrayed the sting.
Sumireko faltered, lips pressed tight. "This…" She struggled for words, guilt choking her throat.
Then Rin Kuga's voice cut through, calm and unyielding. "Yes. I read it."
The admission landed like a stone in still water. Sumireko spun toward him, stunned. To her, reading another's diary was a grave trespass. Yet Rin spoke as if it were nothing, as if truth itself were a blade best wielded without hesitation. His indifference marked him as strange, even unsettling. And yet, that strangeness drew her in.
But what of Sakura?
She laughed. A sudden, startling sound, bright and broken. Tears welled at the corners of her eyes as the laughter spilled out, raw and unrestrained.
Sumireko gasped, breath catching in disbelief. She's just as strange…
Sakura shifted the notebook to her left hand, then strode toward Rin. Her right hand seized his arm, grip firm but trembling. "Come with me," she whispered. Without waiting for consent, she pulled him toward the door.
"Wait! Hold on!" Sumireko's voice chased after them, desperate. She had never met a boy willing to linger in the library, to speak with her. And now, after only a brief exchange, he was being taken away. She could not leave her post as librarian. She could only watch, regret heavy in her chest.
Their footsteps echoed across the campus—tap, tap, tap—a rhythm of urgency. Rin glanced down at Sakura's hand clutching his own. A thought flickered in his mind, sharp and sardonic. Why do these girls always drag me by the hand? As if fate itself insists on pulling me along.
Yet beneath her grip, he sensed something deeper. Her body carried a resonance, a shift in its very fabric. Something within her was changing, something not entirely human.