Chương 377: 166.Campus Broadcast

I'd barely stepped out the side door of the auditorium when I saw Jess's face — primed to laugh me straight into an early grave — already waiting outside, ahead of the new term itself. The stone steps outside the hall were bleached pale in the early spring light. Under the cherry trees, a thin scatter of pink shadow lay across the ground, mixed with petals crushed flat by the crowd that had just come through.

The building's exterior carried that old Federal-style solemnity — brick, arched windows, handrails too dignified for their own good — as if the architects believed that simply stuffing students inside would make civilization and order sprout naturally from the mortar. It doesn't. Because no amount of civilization or order was going to fix the expression currently on Jess's face. She stood by a pillar, arms crossed. The second she saw me, one corner of her mouth lifted. Not a smile. A premeditated act of violence.

Harvey stood beside her, head down, reading something in his program — the kind of person who leaves an assembly in perfect format even when everyone else is scattering. D stood a step further back, shoulders wide enough to qualify as a legally installed obstacle, watching me with no expression at all, like he'd just wrapped up a field report on the behavior of some wild animal. I stopped. Instinct said turning around and walking straight back into the hall might still save me.

Unfortunately, the side door was still spitting people out, wave after wave of footsteps pushing up behind me. Fighting my way back in would just make me the silver-haired freak who got mobbed by first-years inside and is now trying to swim upstream against the exit crowd. Too ugly.

"Oh." Jess spoke first, tone like someone tearing the wrapper off a long-anticipated program.

"Our auditorium favorite has emerged."

"You'd better shut up right now," I said.

"Can't." She blinked.

"First time in my life I've watched someone get physically cornered by first-years leaving an opening ceremony, complete with a side effect of mass psychological collapse in the surrounding male population. You expect me to sit on that?"

"I suggest you start by holding your breath." Jess was entirely unmoved. She leaned in half a step, dropping her voice to mimic the first-years from earlier:"'Senpai is so cool...'" My temple twitched. She clearly felt that wasn't enough."' Could I ask what hair products you use?'"" Jess.""' I really want to lick—'""Finish that sentence and I'm burying you under the cherry tree right now. I'll even count it as a genuine educational contribution to this school." Jess laughed so hard she nearly toppled into Harvey.

Harvey stepped aside with visible distaste, like he didn't want to catch whatever low-grade, self-replicating joy she was carrying.

"You're famous today," Harvey said.

"I've already noticed. I don't need the postmortem."

"Not a feeling." His tone stayed flat.

"A phenomenon. You've upgraded from noticed to cornered. That implies it's becoming replicable." I glared at him.

"Could you not analyze my social death like a lab trial?"

"I could," Harvey said.

"But it would cost accuracy."... This man genuinely needs to be banned from public speech on certain days. D finally spoke, slow as ever.

"They weren't joking." I turned to look at him. His expression was serious — serious enough to be irritating. When someone who almost never jokes says they weren't joking in that heavy a tone, the whole scene shifts instantly from comedy into something absurdly real.

"I know," I said.

"It's going to get worse," D added.

"Thanks for the warning." I kept my voice flat.

"I was just starting to hope the new term might go easy on me." Jess wiped a tear of laughter from the corner of her eye, cutting in fast as a pickpocket.

"Don't be so pessimistic. Look on the bright side — you've simultaneously cornered the underclassman market and topped the upperclassman male resentment chart. That's comprehensive."

"Comprehensive my ass."

"Oh, and let's not forget the Student Council President personally stepping in to keep order." Jess drew the syllables out.

"Very high-class treatment, Hoshino." I seriously considered kicking her. Before I could, a thin, collective intake of breath reached me from nearby. I went rigid. Please, no. I turned. Sure enough, three of the girls from earlier had filtered out through the side door too, hovering under a nearby tree — wanting to approach, not quite daring to. Plenty of nerve inside the hall. Out here, under open daylight, it was like someone had severed their primary motor functions on the spot.

Only their eyes were still running at full brightness. One of them was still clutching a program. Fuck. She really hadn't given up. Jess followed my gaze, and her smile widened with absolutely no conscience attached.

"Ohhh — they followed you out."

"Keep your voice down."

"Why? They tracked you to the side door. This isn't ordinary admiration anymore, it's a campus rear-end collision."

"My biggest regret today is not having Disciplinary seal you inside the bus along with everything else." Harvey glanced over too, tone level enough to deserve a punch.

"Their clustering behavior is very stable."

"You too?"

"I'm describing a phenomenon," he said.

"Also noting: if you keep standing here, their numbers will probably increase within five minutes."

"Harvey's right." Jess nodded with total solemnity.

"Your posture right now is terrible." I narrowed my eyes.

"Meaning?" She looked me up and down, letting her gaze linger deliberately at my collar and belt, wearing the concentration of someone studying a piece of restricted-classification disaster.

"Meaning—" she gestured vaguely, "you can't see it, but everyone else can. Short silver hair, permanent scowl, collar buttoned to the top, hand always hovering near the belt, legs too long. You know what you look like right now?"

"What."

"Like the kind of trouble that's clearly a nightmare to deal with, but makes people want to provoke you anyway."

"That is not a compliment."

"To the high-school-girl market, it probably is." I inhaled slowly and forced myself not to strangle my housemate in broad daylight. Honestly — I already knew. This face, this hair, this uniform on me, was always going to cause a problem. Especially today, in the dark-blue stand collar and trousers, with the silver piping keeping every line sharp. Even I'd looked in the mirror that morning and thought: fine, if a stranger mistakes this for a boy, I can't entirely blame them. Knowing it is one thing.

Hearing it said out loud in public is another kind of infuriating. And the worst part is you can't even deny it properly. Deny it too hard and you just look like you care. Don't deny it, and the idiots around you get more pleased with themselves by the second. I was still weighing whether to just commit to playing dead when another set of footsteps arrived from behind. Unhurried. Even. The rhythm on the stone steps almost offensively controlled. I didn't need to look.

There are very few people at this school who can turn leaving a ceremony into a public etiquette demonstration. Hedwig stepped out the side door on a thin gust of wind, the lines of the Federation uniform she'd now fully committed to barely shifting. Her gaze passed over me first, then Jess, Harvey, D, then finally the girls under the tree pretending to be ordinary pedestrians. She was quiet for two seconds. Then delivered her verdict.

"You really are popular." I looked at her, flat.

"If you're here to kick someone while they're down, at least pick a deeper well first." Her eyes stayed mild, though the corner of her mouth might have moved, almost imperceptibly.

"I'm not that bored," she said.

"I just find it interesting." Jess raised a hand.

"I can confirm. Extremely interesting."

"Shut up." Hedwig fell into step beside me down the stairs — not too close, not too far, exactly the distance that reads as socially fine in public. The girls under the tree, seeing her approach, quieted further, like small animals caught under a second spotlight.

"At least the reason you're being stared at is healthier than mine," Hedwig said. I glanced at her.

"How is that healthy."

"They look at me because of what I am." Her tone stayed even.

"They look at you because your face and your uniform lead people to draw the wrong conclusion."

"... That doesn't sound like comfort at all."

"I wasn't offering comfort," Hedwig said, mild.

"I was stating a fact." Of course you were. Not even a girlfriend, and her method of sliding a knife in still carries that same infuriatingly high-end family resemblance to Maki's. I looked down at myself. Dark-blue tunic buttoned to the throat, silver-white piping keeping the lines clean, black belt cinched at the waist, gray trousers pressed sharp down my legs.

My hair, after too long sitting in the hall, had a few strands loose across my forehead — and, naturally, they hadn't fallen into a mess so much as a deliberate-looking mess. Shit. No wonder they'd lost their minds. I had a sudden, genuine urge to peel this uniform off and throw it in the fountain. Unfortunately, uniforms are expensive, and I wasn't financially secure enough to be that dramatic.

"Your expression right now," Hedwig noted, glancing over, "looks like you're cursing your own face."

"I am."

"That's unusual."

"How."

"Most people, after being complimented, don't look like they want to blow up the auditorium." A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. I laughed, dry.

"That's because most people aren't complimented, mobbed, glared at by boys, and observed live by their idiot friends, all at once." Jess cut in from behind.

"Not an idiot. A dedicated chronicler of your social death."

"That's worse." D walked on the other side without speaking. Only once we hit the petal-strewn path at the bottom of the steps did he add, slow:"They'll keep following." I glanced back. Sure enough — the three girls trailed at a distance that was technically polite and functionally not, not openly chasing, just running the universal excuse of we happen to be heading this way too. Not fast. Very determined. I closed my eyes.

"Can I file for immediate withdrawal."

"No," Harvey said.

"I wasn't asking you."

"I can still answer first. Saves time."

"You're genuinely unbearable."

"Thank you." Right then, a Student Council officer's voice cut in from the far end of the main path.

"President, we need you over here for the first-year routing!" I looked up on reflex. Maki stood not far ahead near the covered walkway, flagged down by two officers, an even larger stack of papers now under her arm. She turned slightly to listen, expression calm, posture that same infuriatingly clean thing I knew too well. A few minutes ago at the side door, she'd knocked my pulse sideways with one sentence. Now she'd turned back into the flawless Student Council President — not a hair out of place. Irritating.

More irritating: she seemed to sense my gaze. Across the not-quite-short stretch of path, she looked over. Just once. Enough. Enough for me to watch her scan me, then the people beside me, then the stragglers still trailing behind. Her eyes rested on me for a fraction of a second, and the meaning was unmistakable: You still haven't handled this? I answered with my eyes: This is your fault. She didn't smile. Not visibly. But I knew she'd understood.

That particular feeling — knowing the other person's gotten it, and still having to keep your hands on the professional rails across a crowd — is genuinely unpleasant. Like discovering someone tied a thin thread around your finger ages ago. You never notice it day to day. Until it pulls. Jess followed my line of sight and let out a low, entirely unprincipled sound.

"Your girlfriend's watching you."

"Shut up."

"I'm not wrong."

"One more word and you're going in the fountain."

"Pushing people into water in this weather is inhumane."

"Ethics don't apply to you." Hedwig added a light cut from the side.

"Though, for what it's worth — when the President looked over, you did look rather like someone who'd done something wrong." I turned on her sharply.

"Are you also just bored today?"

"No," Hedwig said.

"You're just very easy to read." Wonderful. Had the entire school undergone some collective Hoshino-comprehension upgrade overnight? First Maki, now Hedwig, both telling me I'm easy to read. Since when. I am difficult. I work hard at being difficult. Maki, pulled off by the officers, couldn't linger any longer. She tucked the papers under one arm and tipped her chin, very slightly, in my direction. To anyone else, it was just the President giving a routine nod to a student. I knew better. Stay. Don't wander off.

My mouth twitched. This woman really is something — packing that much command into a gesture that casual, from that distance. And, worse, I understood it perfectly. And, worse still, I actually stopped walking for a second. Love really does impair judgment.

"Is the President calling you?" a tentative voice asked from behind. I turned. The girls had found their nerve again, closing the distance by another step. The one with the program had eyes lit up like she'd just found something forbidden tucked inside a textbook. I was tired down to the bone.

"No," I said.

"But she just looked—""You're overthinking it." Another one murmured, "But we thought so too—""Are you here to study, or to research me?" The one with the program answered instantly.

"Could it be both?" I looked at her. She looked back, completely sincere.... At what exact point had the Federation's education system broken to produce this. Jess had laughed herself out and was leaning on Harvey's shoulder, shaking. Harvey's face was still its usual dead-man stillness, but the glint behind his glasses was not entirely wholesome. Even D gave me two silent seconds, apparently recalculating how much chaos the organism known as Hoshino Shimo naturally attracts in a group setting.

Finally, all I managed was: "No."

"Not even just research?"

"Especially not that."

"What about hair care—""Absolutely not." Hedwig seemed to decide she'd seen enough. She tilted her head slightly.

"I'll go ahead." I looked at her.

"Not staying to help split the fire?"

"Unfortunately," she said, composed to the point of elegance, "my presence would only excite them further." That was, depressingly, true. I had nothing. She took two more steps, stopped, and turned back for one last cut.

"Though," Hedwig said, "when you turned around and told them to be quiet earlier — you did look rather like you were bullying them." I narrowed my eyes.

"That's not a parting shot. That's slander."

"An observation."

"Why does everyone love observing me today." Hedwig didn't answer. She just gave me one last look, then turned and walked away — back straight, pace even, a clean line that didn't seem to belong to this mess, leaving the entire heap of adolescent wreckage for me to clean up on my own. Her Highness. Truly something. I stood there on the path, blossoms drifting down in a way too pretty to be real. Jess on my left, laughing herself sick. Harvey on my right, delivering cold autopsies.

Behind me, a cluster of first-years with adoration basically stamped across their foreheads. And far ahead, a Student Council President who also happened to be my girlfriend, buried in official business and still capable of nailing me to the spot with a single glance. Perfect. The picture was finally complete.

I flicked a fallen petal off my shoulder seam and had a genuine, sincere desire to pack this entire school — auditorium, path, trees, Student Council, Disciplinary Committee, first-year fan club, and my currently-laughing-without-mercy housemates — into a crate and launch it into deep space. Not an option. The term had barely started.

I was apparently going to have to keep wearing this uniform that invites misidentification, keep this face that causes trouble, and hold together some minimally human shape for the rest of this cursed semester. With that in mind, I was left with exactly one sincere wish. Please. Let this afternoon's classes be the one part of today nobody shows up wanting a program signed. By the time I extracted myself from that whole mess, it was nearly noon. Extracted is generous.

There was no heroic breakout, no cold-blooded verbal artistry that scattered the crowd. More accurately, I'd been hoisted onto an altar and exhibited for half the morning, and only managed to slip out the back once the curator wasn't looking. Day one of second term at UIMA, in theory: hope, order, fresh energy.

In practice: dragged out before six-thirty for a ceremony, stood up, sat down, stared at, surrounded, and then, right as my stomach started questioning the meaning of life, expected to keep performing minimum institutional respect. By tradition, real classes didn't start until after lunch.

And on day one, real classes usually just meant a teacher doing one lap of the room like checking irrigation ditches, confirming this year's cohort hadn't died yet, tossing out a few lines about new term, new attitude, and then leaving everyone to fend for themselves. Meaning: right now belonged to food. Hot food. Edible food. Ideally something with grease in it.

"Let's eat," I said, walking.

"Dragged out here since dawn, nothing's gone in since. Any longer and the Federation loses a student before it loses a lunch allocation." Jess was on it instantly.

"Then we'd better hustle to the dining hall." She drew a theatrical breath, voice pitched like a cheap street-theater emcee.

"Starving a hot guy to death would be a genuine crime. The school might have to fly the flag at half-mast." I didn't even bother looking at her.

"Jess has real talent — turning concern into noise pollution."

"That means Shimo's got Jess in her heart." She slid half a step closer, dropping her voice into a warm thread right at my ear.

"That's called love." I brought my hand down in a clean, efficient chop to her forehead. Smack. Not loud. Excellent contact. Jess clutched her head, acting chops polished from a hundred rehearsals.

"Ow — Senpai's hitting me—" Half-crying, half-laughing, unable to keep the corners of her mouth down.

"UIMA campus violence, broad daylight, zero humanity—" A few students passing by couldn't help laughing. Jess had the nerve to nod at them, like a beloved street performer accepting applause. Some people exist purely to prove shame isn't distributed equally at birth. Harvey trailed slightly behind, holding a new-term schedule acquired from somewhere. Same face as always — cold in that energy-efficient way, like any excess emotion would show up on the Federation's power bill.

Just as the dining hall came into view, he said, mild as ever:"At this hour, if Hoshino walks into the dining hall, the scene will probably be significant." My step stalled. Fuck. He wasn't wrong. The auditorium fiasco had barely dispersed. This was peak hour for rumors to jump between year groups like a contagion. If I walked in now, the food might not even reach my tray before the stares turned the whole room into today's featured exhibit.

Worst case, some of the first-years' friends were already inside, trays in hand, watching with the shining eyes of pilgrims. I stood there and gave two full seconds to weighing starvation against public spectacle on the dignity scale. Conclusion: both terrible. I turned to the two men in the group. D, quiet as a wall. Harvey, wearing don't route this to me like a second uniform. Purely by build, both were well-suited to tasks requiring muscle and a willingness to sacrifice.

I gave them a smile — very friendly, very reasonable, and entirely without goodwill.

"Then I'll leave it to our two strong gentlemen to fetch lunch for the poor, fragile women here." Jess cheered first.

"Yes—""Quiet, Jess." I held out a hand.

"Cash first. No free rides." Her expression flipped from national holiday to moral bankruptcy in under a second.

"Eh... where's Shimo's love for Jess?" I glanced at her.

"Might still be some left in the trash. Go dig around — you might get lucky." The laugh that got was a proper one, even something behind Harvey's eyes shifted a fraction. Jess, entirely undefeated, clutched her chest, playing the heartbroken victim.

"So cruel. Is this what's left after being loved?"

"That would require it having started."

"Jess doesn't accept unilateral rulings."

"Unfortunately, the Federation doesn't run a jury system." D looked down at her and finally spoke.

"If Jess stays quiet, buying food goes faster." She rounded on him immediately.

"Even D's taking sides now. This world is full of malice toward pretty girls." I was about to correct her — the world is actually full of consequences for talking too much — when the campus PA cut in overhead. A short burst of static first. It bounced between the pre-noon buildings with a distinctly bad-omen flavor, like someone had rung a bell to remind everyone: whatever you thought counted as trouble so far, the real thing hasn't started yet. Then a woman's voice came through, clear enough to ruin an appetite.

"Second-year, Class O. Hoshino Shimo. Report to the Student Council Office immediately." The air around me paused for a beat. Not the whole campus — just this small circle. Jess's mouth stopped mid-motion. Harvey nudged the schedule up half an inch. Even D tilted his head slightly, recalculating my odds of survival. I stood there, staring at the dining hall, with one very simple, very sincere, very profane thought in my head. Right. Haven't even eaten yet. Jess recovered first, mouth curling up.

"Wow." She dragged it out.

"Student Council Office. Day one, Shimo, and you're already getting personally summoned by the President. Premium treatment."

"If you start gloating, your lunch budget's the first thing on the chopping block."

"This is concern."

"Your concern sounds like festival announcements." Harvey, as usual, stayed analytical.

"Given the timing, this doesn't look disciplinary." I frowned.

"Why."

"Disciplinary cases usually route through homeroom or the Committee first. A direct summons from the Student Council is usually administrative, or—" he paused, meeting my eyes, "the President needs you for something." Jess lit up immediately.

"Maki needs Shimo for something — that sentence has a whole story in it all on its own."

"Jess."

"Okay, okay." She raised both hands, surrender in posture only, grin fully intact.

"But seriously, calling you in right now is cruel. Not even letting a starving hot—" I gave her a flat stare. She corrected instantly.

"—not even letting a starving Shimo eat first. The Student Council has no humanity."

"You're half right about that." I sighed. Whether the Student Council has any humanity isn't something I can generalize about, honestly.

The person sitting at the top of it — composed, clear-headed, able to press an entire school's order flat with one look — is privately the same person who reaches into my collar to smooth down a flipped seam; who can hook my little finger from an angle no one else can see in the middle of a crowd, like quietly staking a claim; who can say we'll settle this later in a tone that leaves my nerves wrecked for the rest of the walk. That's the problem. Maki Kushima is the Student Council President.

Maki Kushima is also my girlfriend. And when those two identities overlap, it usually doesn't end well for me.

"So what's Shimo going to do?" Jess asked.

"What else." I gave the dining hall one last mournful look and felt my soul linger there with me.

"Go meet my fate." Jess snorted.

"Don't make it sound like an execution. Might just be a summons of love."

"Say that again and your lunch voucher's coming to the grave with me."

"Tyrant."

"That's called redirected anger." Harvey folded the schedule, tucked it into his pocket.

"We'll still get the food. Find somewhere to wait until Hoshino's back." I looked at him.

"Harvey's got a conscience today."

"Not a conscience," he said, level.

"I just don't want to listen to Jess talk on an empty stomach." D nodded.

"Reasonable." Jess looked wounded.

"This household's love for Jess is deeply twisted."

"There is no love," I said.

"You won't even fake it."

"Too hungry today. No energy to perform." I peeled off some cash and pushed my own lunch money into Harvey's hand.

"If I'm not back in half an hour, save mine." Jess cut in.

"What about an hour?"

"Light some incense."

"Two hours?"

"Then start dividing my estate. But only after you've fished the love back out of the trash." She doubled over laughing. Even D's mouth moved — maybe a tenth of a centimeter. For D, that's practically an emotional breakdown. I turned and headed for the admin block, where the Student Council office was. The campus before noon was looser than during the ceremony, though never quite quiet. The crowd split into streams heading for the dining hall, the dorms, the classroom block, the field.

Wind cut through the courtyard, tapping the flag-lines lightly against their pole. A cluster of first-years ran past on the other side, chattering, one of them stuttering mid-step the second she saw me — like some keyword in her head had just successfully matched a face. Good. My social death wasn't winding down. It was expanding across grade levels. I looked away. Not worth the effort. Try to shut up every single one of them and I'd miss dinner too.

The admin block was quieter than anywhere else — not peaceful, the kind of quiet where every sound automatically drops half a register the moment it enters, like the walls were wired not with electricity but with something that forces your posture straight. The floors were polished clean enough to make you wonder if someone buffed them nightly with their own soul. I walked up, my shoes ticking against the steps in a rhythm just slightly too regular for comfort.

The closer I got to the office, the more opinions my stomach developed. Part of it was hunger. The other part was knowing, with total clarity, that being paged over the school broadcast was almost certainly not just so she could look at me. If Maki simply wanted to see me, she had other methods. She always looks like she breathes according to institutional rhythm — and is privately very skilled at hiding personal intent in the least visible gaps. A patrol route that just happens to pass by.

A note slipped into a Student Council folder that only I can decode. Standing in front of the whole school with a flawless President's face, and then, the second no one's watching, pressing me against a door and asking, low, whether I'd been picking fights on purpose again. My step hitched at the thought.... No. Not the time for that. I kept walking, expression blank, trying to let the admin block's overly earnest air press those inappropriate images back down. Limited success.

Memory is sometimes worse than rumor — the more you tell it to shut up, the harder it knocks to remind you it's still there. The door at the end of the hall came into view quickly enough. Student Council Office. Nameplate straight. Font unforgiving. The air around it like an entire filing cabinet built for homicide. I hadn't wanted to run this badly when first-years surrounded me over my gender in the auditorium. I hadn't wanted to run this badly when Jess was annoying enough to justify a trash-bin burial.

I'd even managed to stand off to the side and calmly watch Nikaido and Maki trade citations at the gate. It was only here, in front of this door, that the hollow in my stomach braided together with something thinner, more inconvenient, harder to name. Because the person behind it wasn't just anyone. It was Maki Kushima. The one who can flatten her voice to something blade-flat in front of the entire school, then turn around and set my ears on fire with one quiet sentence. My classmate. Also my girlfriend.

And, worse, currently sitting in a pile of paperwork tall enough to bury someone, mood uncertain, patience probably thin — while I, having not eaten a single thing, had just been publicly summoned by name over the school's own speakers. I was starting to think UIMA's real survival training had nothing to do with the drill field or the classroom. It was exactly this.

Hungry, exhausted, reputation half in ruins, and forced to face someone who is simultaneously institutional authority and the person you're dating — what expression do you put on before you knock, so however you end up dying today, it doesn't look too pathetic. I raised my hand. Let it hover half a second. Then knocked.