Facing the Heart

Without warning, she leaned forward from the edge of the bed like a bird that had finally confirmed the direction of its nest. With total trust and a sense of reckless abandon, she threw herself into the arms of Yun Lan.

Yun Lan was pushed slightly backward by the impact, his hands instinctively circling her. The girl's soft body pressed tightly against him, carrying a faint, sweet fragrance and warm body heat, her cheek buried in the hollow of his shoulder. He could feel the subtle trembling of her body—not from crying, but more like the light shivers that follow the release of intense emotion.

Then, he heard her muffled voice come from his shoulder, tinged with a slight nasal tone, yet devoid of any sadness. Instead, it held a peculiar, resigned brightness and a touch of cunning:

"So you're a scumbag, then. You even put it so... so grandly, 'there will always be a place for me'..." She mimicked his tone, then let out a soft laugh, the sound tickling his neck like a feather.

She lifted her head, pulling back slightly from his embrace, though her hands remained gripped on the fabric of his chest, her face tilted up to look at him. On that delicate, lovely face, the blush had not yet faded, but her eyes were startlingly bright, brimming with moisture, laughter, and an incredibly firm expression. She wrinkled her nose and made a cute, "there's just no helping you" grimace, her tone familiar and filled with a touch of affectionate complaint:

"There's just no helping it, is there? Who else but Brother Lan pulled me back from the edge of the cliff?"

The words fell softly, yet they carried the weight of a thousand pounds. They pointed to the unspoken, deeper past between them—the foundation for her special status.

Her hands tightened on his clothes, her fingertips pressing in as if to brand a certain resolve through the fabric. She looked at him, speaking clearly and slowly, word by word, with a lightness and gravity that felt like a vow:

"I'm sticking to you for the rest of my life."

This was not a request, nor a confession, but a statement. A statement of a fact she had unilaterally decided upon and for which she would bear all consequences. She accepted his imperfect future, one that might be shared with others, but she simultaneously declared her own unique, never-to-be-withdrawn "place."

Yun Lan's arms tightened around her. Looking at the unquestionable light in her eyes, he felt his heart struck by an unprecedented, warm, and bittersweet torrent. He opened his mouth, only to find that any language felt pale in this moment.

In the end, he simply lowered his head, pressed his forehead gently against hers, and closed his eyes, silently accepting this declaration of "sticking for a lifetime" and tacitly allowing the belonging of that "permanent place."

The night outside the window deepened. Only a single desk lamp was on in the room, its dim, yellow glow gently wrapping around the silhouettes of the two embracing figures. The undercurrents of power, schemes, and the Student Council were, for this moment, isolated by this embrace and this sentence: "I'm sticking to you."

There was no perfect fairy tale of love here, only a man who admitted he might be a "scumbag" and a girl who, knowing this, still chose to "stick" to him. Their future might be complex, and others might intervene, but in this moment, this bond based on a profound past and shared secrets was firmer than any promise.

Ichinose eventually went back; she didn't stay the night in Yun Lan's dorm. After all, they hadn't officially defined their relationship yet—what were you guys in front of the screen expecting, you jerks!

The morning sun filtered through the clean glass windows, cutting the classroom of Class B into geometric patterns of light and shadow. The air still held the faint scent of detergent from the cleaning, mixed with the smell of ink from new textbooks. Students walked into the classroom in twos and threes; the sound of chatter, chairs being pulled out, and the dull thuds of school bags hitting desks gradually converged into the slightly awkward, bustling atmosphere typical of the second day of school.

Yun Lan walked through the back door with his shoulder bag, his steps unhurried. His gaze habitually swept across the room, passing over several familiar or semi-familiar faces already seated, before finally landing on the boy sitting upright in the middle of the classroom, methodically organizing his notes—Ryuji Kanzaki.

Kanzaki gave off the same impression as his meticulous appearance and tidy desk: rigorous, steady, and possessing a calm observational power that belied his actual age. Yun Lan paused for a moment, then naturally changed direction and walked toward him.

"Good morning, Kanzaki." Yun Lan stopped as he passed Kanzaki's seat, greeting him with a casual tone and a faint, perfectly measured smile—the standard attitude of a casual morning encounter between classmates.

Ryuji Kanzaki looked up at the sound and adjusted the thin-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose. The gaze behind the lenses was clear and calm, lingering on Yun Lan's face for a brief moment as if performing a rapid assessment. His expression remained unchanged as he replied in a steady voice: "Good morning, Lan."

He paused slightly, his gaze not immediately shifting away, and added a sentence in a tone as flat as if he were stating a conclusion from an observation: "That is quite rare."

"Hm?" Yun Lan tilted his head, feigning a bit of confusion. "What's rare?"

"You taking the initiative to greet me," Kanzaki said directly, his eyes calmly fixed on Yun Lan. He used the word "rare" rather than "surprising" or "an honor," which only highlighted that this was a judgment based on analysis.

Hearing this, the smile on Yun Lan's face widened, carrying a hint of wry amusement: "It's only the second day of school, isn't it? Is saying hello on the second day considered 'rare'? Aren't your standards a bit high, Kanzaki?" He said it half-jokingly, while taking the bag off his shoulder and placing it on the desk next to him—his seat happened to be right to the left of Kanzaki; strictly speaking, they were desk-mates.

Kanzaki was not swayed by his joke. He turned to face Yun Lan, hands folded on his open notebook, his posture still upright, but his words went straight to the core:

"Because I judged that you, Lan..." He weighed his words, "are not the type accustomed to, or keen on, this kind of daily social pleasantry that lacks substantive information exchange. Your behavioral pattern seems to lean more toward interactions with clear purpose or necessity."

His analysis was calm and objective, as if deconstructing the behavioral patterns of a test subject. Clearly, even though it was only the second day of school, this classmate, known for his observational skills and logic, had already formed an initial and quite accurate impression of Yun Lan's personality.

"What is this—" Yun Lan drew out his tone, making an exaggerated expression as if he had been unfairly judged, before returning to that slightly lazy smile. "In your eyes, Kanzaki, have I already been categorized as a 'socially anxious person' or a 'cold and aloof student'? Isn't it normal for classmates to say hello when they run into each other in the morning?"