Intimacy

"I need to talk to you." Horikita's voice was clear and cold, like a blade cutting through the air. "You should understand what Chabashira-sensei meant."

She took a step forward, the setting sun stretching her shadow into a long, sharp line. "Getting Class D promoted to Class A—that's the only goal. Your talents shouldn't be wasted on meaningless self-interest."

Horikita Suzune's words fell, and the air briefly grew still.

Her gaze remained sharp, her conviction unquestionable, as though she had made an obvious proposal that no one would refuse.

Hoshino Kanade could clearly feel Kiyona's arm stiffen almost imperceptibly in the crook of his own. The faintly cool, soft touch suddenly felt tense. He turned his head and looked at Kiyona's profile.

The golden glow of the setting sun traced her delicate jawline. Her face, usually as expressionless as a doll's, had not changed in the slightest, but deep in her glassy eyes, a faint chill flickered like ice cracking—a hint of displeasure at being disturbed.

Hoshino Kanade looked away and faced Horikita Suzune again.

His expression remained perfectly calm. Even the barely perceptible softness at the corners of his mouth when he looked at Kiyona had vanished, leaving only a polite yet unmistakably distant reserve.

"Rely on our strength?" Hoshino Kanade's voice was low and even, betraying no obvious emotion, yet it cut cleanly through the air of certainty Horikita had created. "Horikita, have you misunderstood something?"

He met Horikita's gaze calmly, without the slightest hesitation or wavering.

"Getting promoted to Class A is a goal you're determined to pursue, and there's nothing wrong with that." He paused. His tone remained flat, but every word was clear. "But that goal itself means nothing to us."

Horikita Suzune's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly. She seemed not to have expected him to so bluntly reject the core value she held dear.

At the same time, Kiyona, who had remained silent until then, finally moved. Rather than release Hoshino Kanade's arm, she pressed herself even closer to him, as if to ward off some invisible intrusion. Her cool body rested more snugly against his.

Her gaze slowly shifted from the shadows entwined in the distance, and for the first time, she looked Horikita Suzune directly in the eye.

Her clear eyes held no emotion, only an indifference cold enough to freeze anyone who met them.

"Not interested." Kiyona's voice rang out, cool and crisp as ever, more aloof than the evening breeze. Her concise words sounded like a simple statement of fact about something that had nothing to do with her.

Those three words made her attitude toward Horikita's grand plan unmistakably clear.

Feeling the faint pressure against his arm and the chill that came with it, Hoshino Kanade gave a slight nod, as though agreeing with Kiyona. His voice was low and firm. "Chabashira-sensei's intentions, or your determination, have nothing to do with us."

His gaze passed over Horikita without lingering, his tone clearly ending the conversation. "We have our own path to follow."

With that, he gave Horikita no chance to speak again. Still nestled close together, the two turned in unspoken accord and continued down the path beneath the cherry trees.

The setting sun stretched their shadows long across the ground. Pressed close together, they seemed like an invisible barrier, shutting out the noise and schemes of the outside world.

Horikita Suzune stood where she was, her straight-backed figure seeming somewhat solitary in the lengthening shadows.

She watched the two figures walk away without hesitation, their closeness leaving no room for anyone else to intrude. For the first time, a complicated, hard-to-read emotion flickered in her sharp gaze—not anger or frustration, but a deeper scrutiny of something she might never have truly understood.

All that remained in the air was the rustle of leaves in the evening breeze and the almost inaudible sound of footsteps fading into the distance.

Horikita Suzune wasn't shaken by the rejection in the hallway. She sat alone by the classroom window, her fingertips tracing the notebook filled with class strategies as the setting sun gilded her tense profile.

Getting Class D promoted to Class A is my battle alone, she thought. Chabashira-sensei's hint only made her more certain of the value of independence. Help from others had never been part of her equation; dependence would only introduce variables that disrupted it.

Before she knew it, a week had nearly passed since the first day of May.

Since their brief conversation in the pantry that day, Kiyona and Hoshino Kanade had grown visibly closer.

After school in the afternoon, Kiyona would naturally take Hoshino Kanade's arm, and the two would walk side by side along the cherry-blossom-strewn path, their silhouettes lengthening and overlapping in the dusk.

At lunch in the cafeteria, they no longer ate quietly on their own. Every now and then, Hoshino Kanade would casually lift a spoonful of food Kiyona liked from his tray and bring it to her lips. Kiyona would lean forward slightly and accept it in silence, their movements flowing with an unspoken understanding.

Even in the library, they often occupied just one seat.

Kiyona would turn slightly and sit pressed against Hoshino Kanade. They would share a book, and whenever his long fingers turned a page, her gaze would follow, their breaths almost mingling.

Their closeness was as natural as breathing, already woven into every tiny habit. Yet it stirred a secret confusion in Kiyona's heart: in clinging to him so persistently and drawing comfort from his warmth, did she long for Hoshino Kanade himself, the one and only person he was, or was she simply greedy for the feeling he gave her—as if he could instantly fill and soothe some cold, empty void deep in her soul?

The thought skimmed lightly across the lake of her mind like a feather, raising barely a ripple.

The confusion lasted only a moment before a stronger, more unquestionable certainty swept over it: none of it mattered.

Names, definitions, reasons, motives... Such things might need to be sorted out again and again by other people, but they meant nothing to her.

The only things she could clearly feel and be sure of were the strange peace and contentment she felt when she was close to him, and the unbearable anxiety and emptiness deep in her soul whenever she was apart from him.

Kiyona didn't need to analyze the nature of her attachment or wonder whether the void was truly being filled or whether it was only an illusion.

She knew only that when she was by his side, the cold, noisy, exhausting world receded like the tide, leaving behind nothing but a reassuring silence, almost like a vacuum.

She only wanted to be with him, just like this, sharing the same air, reading the same lines, and feeling the same quiet.