Chapter 13

It was Tuesday afternoon at Fuchu Sengen Middle School, and the third term was slowly grinding our classmates into dust. 

Outside, the gray sky looked heavy enough to scrape against the roof. Inside, the back row of desks had been turned into a miniature mourning parlor.

Yuuki sat with his chin planted firmly against his desk, staring at a small pile of foil wrappers with complete despair.

"Look at this," Yuuki whispered, his voice cracking with grief. "Just look at it, Yama. It is an insult to my youth."

I leaned back in my wooden chair, turning a mechanical pencil between my fingers. 

"They look like chocolates to me," I said.

"They are not chocolates," Yuuki hissed, jabbing an accusing finger at the pile. "They are convenience store wafers. Every single packet is the exact same brand, bought from the same discount rack near the station."

He picked up a blue wrapper, shaking it violently in front of my face. 

"Seven girls gave me this exact wafer today! Seven! That means they coordinated their purchases in a group chat or something to minimize their budget! It was a targeted strike against my self-esteem!"

To my right, Shizuo took a calm bite out of an apple he had pulled from his lunchbox. 

"You got seven pieces," Shizuo remarked, chewing slowly. "That is seven more than you got last February."

"Those were pity wafers, Shizuo! Not a single one of them was honmei chocolate! Not one!" 

Yuuki slumped sideways, burying his face in his crossed arms. "Let alone Christmas, even Valentine's Day has passed, and my heart remains an abandoned construction site. Why does my luck in love suddenly disappear?"

"It seems you've been cursed by that matchmaking goddess after doing service with ulterior motive," I said offhandedly.

"Crap.. is that really it? No, that might be it!" 

Leaving the panicked Yuuki, I looked over at Shizuo, who continued eating his fruit with steady focus. 

Earlier this morning, I had heard a quiet rumor circulating near the shoe lockers. Supposedly, a girl from class C who had known Shizuo since kindergarten had slipped a black box with pink ribbon into his locker very early in the morning. 

Shizuo hadn't said a single word about it all day, and his bag stayed zipped shut on the floor. 

I decided to let the matter rest. When it came to things like that, digging around was poor etiquette, especially if the subject was Shizuo. I preferred to keep my neck.

As for myself, my haul was entirely standard. 

I had received three obligation packets from classmates, and two small bars from the soccer club managers who handed them out to all the third-year athletes. Nothing surprising, and nothing that required a panicked return gift next month.

Yet, as I watched Yuuki complain to the plaster ceiling, my thoughts drifted back to breakfast.

Over the weekend, Yuri had returned home from the Tracen dormitories, tossing a small wax-paper container onto our kitchen counter. 

She had explained that Top Road spent an entire evening making handmade matcha truffles for her homeroom and the girls on her dormitory floor. 

Then came the peculiar detail.

Yuri had squinted at me with deep suspicion while explaining it. According to my sister, Top Road had prepared the ingredients with precision, measuring every gram of cream and sugar on a digital scale. 

Yet, after handing out dozens of sweets to her classmates, Top Road had claimed there was an accidental surplus. 

Suspiciously, exactly one single piece remained.

Top Road had supposedly cleared her throat, avoided eye contact, and casually asked Yuri to hand that leftover confection to me.

I had eaten it after my morning toast. 

The outer coating was dusted with rich matcha powder, giving way to a smooth chocolate ganache that tasted absurdly refined. It reminded me of the boutique sweets my mother’s former racing friends occasionally brought from Ginza. 

A graded-stakes winner must have had serious prize money to burn if she was buying cocoa butter of that quality for school treats. 

Still, for what was supposedly a mere calculation error, the flavor had been ridiculously good. 

I had sent her a short message after breakfast, thanking her for the leftover and casually adding that she shouldn't be confused if she received a White Day package next month after I accidentally bought one too many boxes at the bakery. 

Her reply had been a sticker of a cat hiding behind a blanket.

The sharp rattle of the classroom door pulled me back to the present.

Our homeroom teacher stepped inside, clutching an attendance roster and a clipboard. He stopped by the podium, his tired eyes scanning the room until they landed on the back corner.

"Shimazu, Nomura, Jougasaki," the teacher called out, tapping the wooden stand with his pen. "Up front, please."

Yuuki lifted his head from the desk, blinking through messy bangs. "Are we in trouble? I haven't kicked a soccer ball indoors since November."

"Just get up," Shizuo muttered, already rising to his feet.

We walked down the center aisle under the quiet gaze of our classmates. 

From behind the podium, the teacher reached into a folder, pulling out three identical slips of light green paper. 

"These are your official absence forms for Thursday, February sixteenth," the teacher said, handing one to each of us. "So the day after tomorrow."

I looked down at the paper resting in my hand. 

Printed across the top header in crisp black font was our future destination: 

Musashi Gakuen University Affiliated High School.

"You boys have an excused leave for the entire day," the teacher continued, his tone softening with genuine warmth. "The interview panel begins at nine in the morning. Make sure your uniforms are spotless, keep your shoes polished, and represent our school properly."

"Yes, sir," Shizuo answered with a firm bow.

"Thank you, sensei," I said, folding the green slip neatly along its crease.

"Finally," Yuuki whispered, his previous despair vanishing as he gripped his paper like a winning lottery ticket. "Another visit."

We walked back to our desks in silence, but the atmosphere around our row had fundamentally shifted.

The high school transition was no longer some comfortable concept waiting for us in April. It had already this close from graduation.

My fingers brushed against the green paper in my pocket, feeling the crisp edge of the fold. 

A quiet tension settled behind my ribs, steady and sharp.

---

Thursday morning arrived under a clear sky that held the bite of persistent winter.

I woke up at six o'clock, well before my alarm had the chance to chime. 

The house was completely still. Down the hall, the ever so familiar low hum of the refrigerator was the only sound cutting through the freezing morning air. 

I slipped out from under the blanket, shivering as my bare feet touched the cold wooden floorboards. 

After a hot shower, I laid out my middle school uniform across the bed. 

I pulled on a clean white shirt, buttoning the collar to the top, and stepped into my dark navy trousers. I slipped my arms through the sleeves of my school blazer, adjusting the lapels until the fabric sat square over my shoulders.

I stepped up to the mirror above my dresser, checking the knot of my necktie. 

The boy looking back at me was still the same person who had spent years loafing on dirt fields, but there was a subtle change around the jaw. The morning runs and the laps at the park had trimmed the softness from my cheeks. 

My gaze shifted down toward the wooden surface of the desk.

Sitting beside my pencil case was a small pouch of woven purple silk, decorated with gold thread. 

The victory amulet she had given me.

I picked it up, feeling the cool fabric between my thumb and forefinger. 

I remembered her frozen hands that evening, and the way she had looked down at the concrete while asking if her decision at the Yayoi Sho was reckless. She was fighting her own battles every single day, wrestling with every single details that might make or break career.

I couldn't afford to show up looking like a coward today.

I slid the silk amulet into the inner breast pocket of my blazer. It settled securely against my chest, right over my heart, resting with a quiet weight that felt reassuring.

I grabbed my school bag, turned off the bedroom light, and walked downstairs.

---

The local bus stopped at the curb with a sharp squeal of hydraulic brakes.

Shizuo and Yuuki were already waiting beneath the metal roof of the bus shelter. 

Both of them were dressed in their formal school blazers, their shoes brushed clean of dust. Yuuki looked unusually pale, repeatedly tugging at his collar as if the fabric were actively choking him.

"You look like you're heading to the dentist," I said, walking up beside them.

"My throat is dry," Yuuki complained, adjusting his tie for the fifth time in a minute. "What if they ask me about current economic policies? No, nowadays maybe immigration policy is more actual. Or what if the principal asks me to recite the prefectural constitution?"

"It is a sports recommendation interview, idiot," Shizuo said, boarding the bus ahead of us. "They are going to ask about soccer and your grades. Sit down and stop sweating."

We found three empty seats near the back of the bus. 

The ride westward took forty minutes, cutting through the quiet morning traffic. Outside the window, gray apartment blocks gradually gave way to wider streets lined with evergreen hedges and university campuses.

"Next stop," the automated chime announced. "Musashigakuen-mae."

We stood up together, moving down the narrow aisle and stepping down onto the pavement.

The gates of Musashi High stood fifty meters ahead.

Even though this was our second visit since the campus tour back in October, the sheer scale of the grounds was enough to make us pause on the sidewalk.

A massive wall of dark red brick enclosed the perimeter, broken by towering iron gates that were pinned open for the day. 

Beyond the threshold, wide stone walkways wound between four-story lecture halls, modern glass skywalks, and sprawling lawns that looked immaculate even in winter. In the distance, the white steel framework of their private stadium rose against the sky, flanked by the green perimeter netting of their full-sized turf pitches.

Dozens of middle school students in different uniforms were streaming through the entrance. 

Some wore blazers from private academies in central Tokyo, while others wore traditional black gakuran jackets from rural prefectures. They carried duffel bags, track spikes, and equipment cases, walking with the tense posture of young athletes entering an arena.

"Look at this place," Yuuki whispered, his swagger completely gone. "It looks like a government ministry."

"They have four different cafeterias," Shizuo noted, his dark eyes taking in the surrounding buildings. "And I heard the coach said their soccer club budget is larger than our entire middle school's operating cost."

The cold air rushed into my lungs, sharp and clean, clearing away the last traces of morning fog from my head. 

"Let's go," I said quietly, looking between the two of them.

Shizuo gave a short nod, while Yuuki took a deep breath, setting his shoulders.

Side by side, the three of us crossed the threshold and stepped through the red-brick gates.