My footsteps felt heavy as I entered the Special Service Division room, as if my soles were made of lead. The smell of dust dancing in the afternoon sun greeted me, a scent that usually felt calming, but now felt suffocating. I sat in my chair, in the corner furthest from anyone's reach, and dropped my school bag onto the floor with a dull thud.
Across the room, Kurokawa Reina had returned to her position. She sat upright, a book open on her lap, but I knew she wasn't actually reading. Her fingers didn't move to turn the page. She just stared at the rows of letters with a blank gaze, as if searching for an answer to a question she didn't even dare to ask.
My mind drifted back to her words in the corridor. 'After everything that happened in the past...'
I turned my head away, staring out the window. The sky was changing into a rotting shade of orange.
I used to believe that time was the ultimate healer. I believed that if I just kept moving, if I kept my eyes and ears closed, then the echoes of the mockery and those cold stares from the past would eventually fade away on their own. But it turns out I was wrong. The past isn't something you leave behind; it's a shadow that lengthens as the sun begins to set. And Kurokawa Reina is the most painful living reminder of that shadow.
Every time I look at her, there's this discomfort that crawls under my skin. Not because she's beautiful, not because she's smart, but because of the way she looks at me. She looks at me as if she knows exactly what's broken inside me. As if we both once stood in the middle of the same storm, but chose different ways to survive.
A Wound That Doesn't Bleed.
"Why are you so quiet?" Kurokawa's voice broke the silence. It wasn't as sharp as usual. There was a hidden fragility in it, like a hairline crack on expensive porcelain.
"I'm enjoying the peace and quiet before you start lecturing me again," I replied without turning around. "Besides, my job is done. The culprit has been found, the victim has had her cry, and the truth has been revealed. Isn't that what you wanted? A logical resolution?"
"Logic doesn't always bring peace, Nakamura-san."
I let out a short laugh—a dry, raspy laugh that hurt my throat. "You're only realizing that now? I thought you were the goddess of logic who had no room for useless feelings like that."
Kurokawa closed her book gently. The sound felt like a judge's verdict in an empty courtroom. "I just didn't expect that after all this time, you would still choose to be a 'monster' rather than a human. You intentionally let that girl hate you earlier, didn't you? You baited her so she'd take all her anger out on you instead of Sagami."
"It's the most efficient way," I said flatly. "If they have a common enemy—namely me, the creepy observer—it'll be easier for them to reunite later. I'm just speeding up their reconciliation process."
"By destroying yourself all over again?" Kurokawa stood up. She walked toward the window, standing a few meters away from me. I caught a faint scent of lavender from her—the same scent as the ink on that threat letter, yet it felt much purer and more painful.
"Don't act like you care, Kurokawa. We both know that's not true."
She didn't deny it. She just stared at her own reflection in the darkening window pane. "Maybe you're right. I don't care. But seeing you act like that... it reminds me of that day. The day everyone turned away, and you stood there as if you actually deserved all that hatred."
I clenched my fists under the desk. "Stop. Don't say another word."
"Why? Are you afraid that if you hear it, the walls you've built will come crashing down?"
"I said stop!" my voice rose, echoing through the cramped room.
I stood up abruptly, causing my chair to screech painfully against the floor. I looked her straight in the eye. For a split second, the cynical mask I always wore finally cracked. My eyes betrayed the pain I had kept hidden so deeply. And in her eyes... I saw something worse than hatred. I saw recognition.
We both fell silent, gasping for air as if we had just run a marathon. The room suddenly felt too small, too hot, and too crowded with secrets that were never meant to be told.
There was a reason why I never wanted to see her again after middle school graduation. There was a reason why I chose a school far away, and why I tried so hard to become invisible. I wanted to start over. I wanted to be a blank sheet of paper, free from any stains.
But meeting here destroyed everything. Kurokawa Reina is the silent witness to the moments I lost my faith in the world. And I... I might be the only person who knows that beneath her perfection, she carries wounds just as deep as mine.
"You know..." Kurokawa spoke again, her voice now very soft, almost like a whisper in the wind. "Sometimes I wish we had never gone to the same school back then. Maybe then, I could just see you as some pathetic stranger, instead of... someone who makes me feel guilty every time I look at him."
"You have no reason to feel guilty," I said, my voice more controlled now. "What happened back then... that was my choice. And what happened to you... that's not my responsibility."
"A choice?" Kurokawa smiled, but it was the saddest smile I had ever seen. "You call being 'systematically destroyed' a choice? You've truly lost your mind, Nakamura-san."
She walked toward the door, picking up her bag with stiff movements. Before leaving, she paused for a moment, her hand gripping the door handle without turning back.
"Tomorrow, don't be late again. There are still many requests we need to finish."
"Yeah, yeah, I know," I muttered.
The door closed with a final click. I sat back down, letting myself sink into the darkness of the room, now lit only by the streetlights outside.
I touched my chest, feeling my heartbeat still racing. That incident... the secret we kept buried deep beneath these school uniforms... it's still there. It hasn't vanished; it hasn't been erased. It's just waiting for the right moment to explode and destroy whatever is left of us.
I closed my eyes. In that darkness, I could hear the laughter from the past, the whispers in the corridors, and the muffled crying behind restroom doors. And in the middle of it all, there was the face of Kurokawa Reina—cold, pale, and broken.
"We really are a pathetic pair," I whispered to the empty room.
I stood up, straightened my chair, and walked out. Tomorrow would be another day. Tomorrow I would go back to being the pathetic, cynical guy with sloth-like eyes, and she would go back to being the untouchable ice queen. We would keep playing these roles, keep pretending that the past is nothing but dust, until one of us can no longer bear the weight.
The sun had completely set. And beneath the cold mercury streetlights, I walked home alone, carrying the residue of a story that hasn't truly ended.