Tōhō Getsukai was not annoyed.
He wasn’t even particularly surprised.
Yukinoshita Yukino’s sharp tongue was a certified weapon of mass destruction at Sobu High School.
You wouldn’t find a second person in all of Chiba Prefecture capable of getting a visitor’s gender, grade, and purpose entirely wrong in their very first breath, all while weaving in a flawless sarcastic jab.
Strictly speaking, however, she only got two things wrong.
Pretty?
That was an objective fact.
Senior?
Incorrect; they were in the same grade.
As for the gender…
Tōhō stepped up to the long table.
His expression remained utterly placid as he placed the club application form onto the polished wood, pushing it forward with his fingertips until it rested in Yukinoshita’s line of sight.
“Club application.
Teacher Hiratsuka instructed me to deliver this to you.” He paused, letting the silence stretch for a fraction of a second.
“Also, as a side note—while I appreciate the compliment, I am a boy with perfectly normal physiological characteristics, Yukinoshita.”
His voice carried a slightly cold, lingering resonance.
It was sweet yet mature, pitched at the exact right frequency.
Yukinoshita’s hand, suspended mid-page-turn, froze.
She lifted her chin, her ice-blue gaze re-evaluating the uninvited silver-haired guest standing before her desk.
Her eyes swept him from top to bottom.
Silver hair cascaded over his shoulders, the slightly curled ends catching the heavy, orange-red glow of the sunset.
Below the collarbone, the fabric lay completely flat.
There was not a single trace of the curves a woman ought to possess.
Further down—a pleated skirt, black over-the-knee socks, and small, immaculate leather shoes.
His legs were straight and impossibly slender.
The proportions were so flawless one might genuinely suspect the Creator had measured them millimeter by millimeter with a ruler.
Yukinoshita’s gaze lingered on that absolute territory for an extra half-second.
Verification complete—there were indeed no flaws.
If he walked down the street claiming to be a girl, not a single soul in Japan would bat an eye.
Yet, he had just declared himself a boy.
Yukinoshita closed her paperback with a soft snap, her pale fingertips resting lightly against the cover.
“Aside from the distinct lack of feminine curves, you are indeed so perfect that…
you don’t look quite real.” She tilted her head, her expression unreadable.
“Is Teacher Hiratsuka planning to remodel the Service Club into a visual-kei host club?”
A rapid-fire barrage of sharp insults, striking with surgical precision, cutting straight to the bone.
Anyone else would have either frozen in place, paralyzed by social anxiety, or flushed bright red and exploded in a clumsy counterattack.
Tōhō did neither.
He didn’t even offer a polite smile.
“If it were a visual-kei host club, having only me would be a bit too shabby.
Would you consider joining, Yukinoshita?
Two beauties holding down the fort would be much more impressive than one.”
Yukinoshita’s fingers twitched against her book.
What kind of tactic was this?
She had thrown out a handful of thorns, but he hadn’t dodged, blocked, or stammered out a retort.
Instead, he had caught them barehanded, snapped off the sharp points, and handed them back with a decorative ribbon attached.
A normal person, when mocked about their presence, would explain themselves, argue, or storm off.
This person was actually complimenting her looks?
Yukinoshita offered no reply.
She simply lowered her head and returned to her book.
Refusing to engage was the ultimate defense—a social strategy she had honed for sixteen years, and one that had never failed her.
Tōhō, however, wasn’t waiting for a response.
He had already turned on his heel, his skirt swishing softly as he walked toward the window.
The late afternoon sun poured directly through the western glass, bathing the entire activity room in a thick, suffocating orange-red glare.
It was warm, but the angle of the light hit Yukinoshita’s desk with blinding intensity, turning the pages of her book into a harsh expanse of white.
She had been reading against the glare the entire time.
Tōhō reached the window and casually raised a hand to the blinds’ control rod.
A quick twist.
The metal slats tilted downward, angled just enough to sever the direct beam of sunlight, leaving only a soft, diffused glow to spill across the floorboards.
The text on Yukinoshita’s pages instantly shifted from glaring to perfectly clear.
The entire sequence took barely two seconds.
He didn’t pause.
He didn’t look back.
There was no lingering glance to imply, ‘I did you a favor, hurry up and thank me.’ He had simply passed by the window and adjusted it as an afterthought.
Yukinoshita stared at the suddenly softened light illuminating her desk.
The next round of sharp insults lodged firmly in her throat.
She had already organized the words.
The gist was ready to fire: ‘If you are joining the Service Club just to pad your social resume, then I suggest you go to the Student Council next door; it’s more suitable there.’
But speaking those words now would sound inexplicably ungrateful.
Someone had just shielded her from the blinding sun, and her immediate reaction was to attack?
That wasn’t being sharp-tongued.
That was just being utterly devoid of manners.
Yukinoshita hated many things in this world, but what she despised above all else was rudeness.
And so, the verbal combo she had carefully prepared was swallowed back down, leaving only a dry, reluctant sentence in its wake.
“…I didn’t ask you to do that.”
Tōhō replied with a single syllable.
“Mm.”
No ‘you’re welcome’.
No ‘it was nothing’.
He didn’t even spare her a glance.
Just a quiet, indifferent sound of acknowledgment.
Clean, crisp, devoid of aggression, and entirely lacking any hint of pandering.
Translated, it meant: ‘I know you didn’t ask, and I’m not looking for credit, so you don’t need to feel burdened.’
Yukinoshita’s fingers unconsciously traced the edge of her paperback.
This feeling was incredibly strange.
She couldn’t find a precise word in her extensive vocabulary to describe it.
Tōhō had already taken a seat in a chair a short distance away.
Not too far, not too close.
Exactly two empty seats separated them.
It wasn’t close enough to trigger her defensive instincts or create a sense of oppression, nor was it far enough to seem deliberately aloof.
When dealing with a beautiful girl you aren’t close with, forcing intimacy without respecting boundaries is the absolute worst strategy imaginable.
The less you approach, the more curious she becomes about why you aren’t approaching.
The less you talk, the more she wants to know what you are thinking.
Distance creates beauty; leaving space creates anticipation.
This was the foundational course on taming heroines, the very first line on the very first page of the textbook.
He crossed his legs naturally, the hem of his pleated skirt draping elegantly over his knees.
The lines of his calves, encased in black over-the-knee socks, were relaxed and fluid.
A sliver of his slender ankle peeked out from the edge of his shoe.
The toe of his leather shoe tapped the floorboards, the rhythm slow, steady, and entirely casual.
Then, he pulled a paperback from his own bag and opened it.
Quietly.
No self-introduction.
No tedious small talk.
None of the polite, empty nonsense like ‘we’re club companions now, please take care of me’.
Even better, there were no clumsy attempts to strike up a conversation, cozy up, or curry favor.
He just sat there.
The activity room fell so silent that only the faint rustling of turning pages remained.
Yukinoshita stole a glance at him from the corner of her eye.
This person’s quietness wasn’t the stifled, ‘I’m enduring this awkwardness’kind of quiet.
Nor was it the predatory,’I’m observing you’ quiet of a hunter waiting to strike.
It was true, pure quiet.
He wanted absolutely nothing.
Yukinoshita mentally cataloged the people who had visited this activity room over the past year.
There were boys who wanted to get close, desperately initiating conversation within three minutes of sitting down.
There were the unfortunate volunteers sent by Teacher Hiratsuka, who didn’t dare lift their heads the entire time, and after ten agonizing minutes, would invent a bathroom excuse and flee, never to return.
Everyone who approached her came with an agenda.
What about the boy sitting across from her?
She stared at his side profile as he turned a page, watching him for three full seconds, searching for a crack in the facade.
She couldn’t find a single flaw.
Tōhō turned another page, feeling that faint, lingering gaze resting on him.
His lips curled upward by a fraction of a millimeter, a curve so minuscule only he knew it existed.
He didn’t look up.
What was the rush?
The fish was already inspecting the bait.
The wall clock in the activity room ticked steadily, marking the passage of fifteen minutes.
Yukinoshita suddenly realized something.
Her shoulders had relaxed at some point.
Her back, which had been rigid with tension the moment a stranger invaded her territory, was now resting against the chair, settling into a rather comfortable posture.
She lowered her head, dragging her focus back to the printed words.
But her peripheral vision betrayed her, drifting inevitably back toward that silver-haired silhouette reading in the soft light.
Outside the window, the sharp whistle of the baseball club finishing practice echoed across the distant field.
Tōhō turned a page.
Yukinoshita turned a page.
The rustling of paper, echoing through the empty activity room, fell into an unexpected, perfect synchronization.