"Are you ready yet?" the kind voice of Aunt Reiko reached Shinka's ears.
"In a moment!"
"You're going to be late!"
"I have everything under control. It'll be quick." Shinka was in front of his bathroom mirror.
His face was wet, and a towel was on his shoulder.
'My hair grew a bit.'
At the start of the vacation, his hair was short, but now strands reached the tip of his nose.
He wet his hands and began to style his hair with the water, hoping it would look slightly aesthetic.
After a few attempts, he finally stopped looking like a vagrant.
His eyes moved from his face and hair to his body.
Before, he had strived not to create visible muscles, only functional ones, but it seemed he had reached the peak of what his body could hide.
Now he actually had slightly bulging muscles, but no one could appreciate them except himself because all his clothes were a bit big on him.
He was already wearing his Gakuran pants and shoes, so he hurried to put on his dress shirt, jacket, and glasses.
"I'm ready, Aunt!"
"Good. I have your backpack down here."
Shinka's quick footsteps on the stairs stirred the quiet atmosphere.
"Are you sure you'll be on time? Don't you want me to take you in my car?"
"No need. I'll be on time. Besides, if you take me, you will definitely be late for work. You could get Sanjuro in trouble."
"I trust you, but if I find out you didn't go to class, I'll kill you!"
Shinka just nodded with a nervous laugh.
"Will you come straight home after school today, or are you going out with your friends?"
"I don't think I'll do anything. Do you need me for something?"
"It's just that your uncle and I wanted to watch a movie with you. You know, like before."
Shinka seemed to remember certain good old times and could only nod with a smile of genuine happiness.
"Then we'll wait for you. Goodbye, dear."
"Goodbye, Aunt." And he left the house.
He began to walk while admiring everything around him.
The quiet streets he had seen thousands of times throughout his life. The friendly neighbors who had spoken with him so many times as well. Even some stray animals adopted by the community seemed to greet him.
However, his job of admiring the beauty of the ordinary was interrupted when he heard two steps behind him.
Tap!
Tap!
"Did Raymond send you to follow me?"
"Not at all. It's just that now you're part of our circle. Consider this an official welcome." Kaede spoke, approaching Shinka's shoulder.
"And only you two belonged to that circle before me?"
"Well, it's a very exclusive circle." Shizumi also approached.
"In any case, we're a triangle. If we find another, we could become a square." Shinka began walking, being followed.
"The more people from the hidden world in one place, it means things are going to get intense. It's better to be few." Kaede expressed her thought.
"Well, I guess you're right..." Shinka continued admiring the panorama, as if those words had made him reflect deeply.
"You seem a bit different today..." Kaede analyzed him in detail, interrogating him.
"It's just that I've decided I'm going to appreciate the little normality left in my life before everything changes." Shinka remained unfazed.
"I see... Now you're more resolute. I like that."
"And why did you decide to do that now, Kusaka-san?" Shizumi asked kindly and with genuine curiosity.
"Spring break was insane... I can't go back to being an ordinary person. Maybe I won't see things the same way I used to in a few weeks, months, or maybe years. Whether it's people or simple places. I want to be able to save it all."
Even the wind seemed to agree with Shinka's thought, gently caressing his face.
"I see..." Shizumi became contemplative and stopped talking, seeming to reflect on something herself.
"It's a good way to mentally prepare yourself. Once you're inside this world, you can't get out. I can't know if what awaits us is good or bad, but I pray every day and every night that our lives and the lives of others are as unturbulent as possible."
Kaede's expression while saying those words was one Shinka had never seen.
They were words so pure and full of goodness that it seemed hard to believe they came from the mouth of the furious girl he knew.
"What's wrong?" She noticed the boy's gaze on her and couldn't help but frown.
"It's nothing. I just didn't know you could be so kind. Usually, you're like a ball of rage."
"It's because you drive me crazy." She turned her head to avoid confrontation while her sister could only laugh quietly.
The boy smiled.
He liked the new dynamic he had with the Namikawa family.
Even though the start was extremely turbulent, everyone's hearts moved for a common principle.
. . .
Once inside the school facilities, a different atmosphere was evident.
"Ah, damn it, the vacation really didn't last at all," whispered a boy with messy blonde hair as he walked with his friend.
"Tell me about it. This last week felt like a blink." the other boy said.
Both were climbing the stairs to reach the second floor of the school.
"Do you think Shinka has arrived yet?" asked the blonde one.
"He's pretty punctual. He's probably already sitting by our seats... I hope nothing happened to him."
"Yeah. It's weird that he never answered our calls."
"There's surely a good explanation for that."
Opening the classroom door, both boys were a bit lost seeing most of their classmates, but Shinka wasn't there.
"H-He hasn't arrived..." The blonde said, a bit impressed.
"Maybe he's a little late. You know how the first days of school are." Tomo laughed nervously. "Let's sit and save his spot."
The boy walked a bit to put his backpack in the spot he and his friend called "The Protagonist's Seat," located in the corner at the back of the room next to a window.
As he placed the backpack, out of inertia he looked out the window, and there he was.
"Hey look, Shinka just entered the school..." He said it quite cheerfully but stopped speaking before finishing the sentence.
His friend didn't pay much attention and just spoke.
"About time. He's not usually later than us." He whispered and looked at his friend's face.
"H-Hiro, is something wrong?" he asked innocently upon seeing his friend's expression.
It looked like his jaw was about to hit the floor, his eyes wide as plates, while he pointed out the window.
Instinctively, Hiro's friend followed where his finger was pointing, and just like him, was immensely surprised.
Both saw the Shinka they knew, walking and talking with two girls.
"D-Does Shinka c-can talk to girls without having a heart attack?" Hiro, Tomo's friend, spoke, unable to avoid stammering.
"N-NO! M-More than that, is he talking to two SSS-class beauties?!"
Both became thoughtful.
How was it possible that the Shinka they knew well, being a video game, anime-addicted geek, and a social misfit afraid of talking to girls?
This didn't match their memories of Shinka! Wasn't he insecure in the first place? Now he at least seemed to walk with confidence.
"Who the hell are those two girls, and why do they seem to be Shinka's friends?"
"The three of us have known each other since we were kids; it's impossible that he always had those friends and never said anything."
Without them noticing, Shinka was now walking through the school hallways.
Kaede, Shizumi, and he passed near several doors.
As he advanced, he couldn't help but look at a certain door of a certain classroom.
*'Classroom E-8...'*
With a subconscious movement, his body stopped.
The two girls in front of him also stopped.
"Is something wrong, Shinka?" Shizumi noticed the strangeness in his actions.
"It's nothing. Go ahead, I'll catch up."
Both nodded and seemed to continue walking.
For his part, the boy slid open the door, and his eyes met the glint of the sun through the window.
He saw the backs of two boys he knew well.
"Now that I think about it, wasn't the only girl our age he could talk to his sister?" Tomo wondered aloud.
"If you keep saying weird things about me out loud, I'll kill you." A boy's voice came from behind them.
"S-Shinka!" Tomo was surprised.
"We weren't talking about you; we were talking about the girls who were with you." Hiro looked at him for answers.
Shinka laughed a little, as if remembering something, and spoke: "Believe me, it will be less trouble if you stay away from them."
"Liar, you just want them for yourself." Hiro said while sitting in his spot as well. "By the way, we saved your seat."
Hiro made space for Shinka to take his place, but he didn't move.
"Uh... Actually, I just stopped by to say I got transferred to a different class."
"W-What?!" Tomo and Hiro were startled at the same time.
"Y-Yeah. I'm in classroom E-4 now."
"A-Are you serious, Shinka?"
They were incredulous, and a somewhat awkward silence formed among the three.
"Well. I just wanted to let you know. If you need anything, you can always find me there. See you." Kusaka was the first to react, turning around halfway.
Once outside, he sighed.
"You did the right thing."
Beside him, he saw Kaede leaning against the wall.
"You think so?" He didn't look directly at her, still trying to find an answer within.
"You're usually very rational. It's obvious. It's the way to keep them safe." She left the wall to start walking towards their classroom.
"You'd better come, or Teacher Kurosawa might leave you outside." She stopped, looking at her new classmate, now covered by the shadows of the walls.
Shinka watched her for a few moments with his mind lost.
But he finally managed to recompose himself: "Coming."