The fluorescent light of the classroom felt too thin.
I sat at the back, my desk shoved as far into the corner as the floor plan allowed. In my world... the real world — everything had weight. The air, the stone, the people. Here, in the first week of the Sanctuary transfer program, everything felt like it was made of balsa wood.
I kept my head down, fingers gripped so tight around a ballpoint pen that the plastic was starting to stress-fracture.
"You're doing it again."
I didn't look up. I knew the voice. It was Kaito.
He was leaning against the locker just outside the open classroom door, ostensibly waiting for the bell, but his eyes were locked on me. Tall, lean, styled hair parted to the right, sleeves rolled to his elbows. School uniform under a beige fall jacket, white scarf. Kaito didn't carry himself like a student. He carried himself like someone who'd already measured the room for exits.
He was the only one who'd grasped who I really was. What I really was.
Lunar Knight Capsicum was better than I'd have given him credit for.
"Doing what?" I muttered, keeping my gaze on my notebook.
"Being the ruthless, calculating assassin in the corner."
He was blunt. I respected that.
I lifted my head, my dark hair falling over my face. "I'm doing homework." I didn't tell him the full truth. That I felt like I was in a world made of cardboard and tissue paper. That I was afraid I was going to break something. Or someone here, by accident.
He snorted. "Homework. You're a Void Astra, not a student." He paused, his white scarf fluttering in a breeze I couldn't feel. "You should sit at the front. Momoka's already complaining that you're hiding."
It took me a second to register what homework could have sounded like to someone already suspicious.
"Leave me alone, Kaito," I muttered.
"Momoka wants to invite you to lunch," he said, his voice flat. "I told her it was a bad idea. I told her you'd probably bite her hand off."
"Then we're in agreement. Go away."
He didn't move. He just watched me with that infuriating, calm vigilance. He wasn't scared of me, and that was the problem. He respected the threat I posed.
"She's coming," he added, pushing off the locker. "Try not to bruise her. She doesn't understand that you don't have a soft setting as you are."
A second later, the shadow fell over my desk.
"Reimi-chan! Look! The cafeteria actually had strawberry milk today!"
Momoka didn't wait for a reply. She slid into the seat next to me, her pink-dyed pigtails a blur of motion. She set the carton down with a triumphant clack.
She was beaming — that high-wattage Momoka radiance that made the thin classroom light feel even more apologetic for itself.
"I'm not hungry," I said. "And don't call me Reimi-chan."
"Ruri says your metabolic burn is fixed at a ridiculous rate," Momoka countered, leaning in.
I could smell her shampoo. Something floral. It felt like the kind of thing I could destroy by breathing on it wrong.
"You can't level your intake like we do, Reimi. You're always running at 100%. So you're eating with us later. Drink the milk."
She laughed and reached out, her hand aiming for my shoulder.
I flinched.
My chair screeched — a violent, tearing sound as I threw myself back. My hand blurred, catching her wrist in midair with a crack that was too loud for the room.
The classroom went silent. Momoka's breath hitched. I saw the flash of pain in her eyes, her skin already starting to redden under the pressure of my grip.
I let go like her wrist was white-hot.
"I told you," I hissed, my heart hammering that same industrial rhythm. "Don't touch me. Stay on your side of the room, Momoka. I'm not — I'm not built for this."
Momoka didn't cry or even look offended. She just rubbed her wrist, looking at me.
She should have been afraid of me. Instead she looked at me like I was something that needed fixing. Her face was covered in pity. Stubborn, ridiculous pity.
"Oh sweetie. You're shaking, Reimi," she whispered.
"I said don't —"
My eyes were blazing red before I could even think to control myself.
"Momoka. Get back."
The voice came from the doorway. Cold. None of the classroom's forced cheer in it.
Kaito stood there, blazer unbuttoned, scarf gone, one hand loose at his side. He was looking straight at me.
His eyes were all Lunar Knight Capsicum now. Sharp, analytical, still completely unconvinced by my civilian disguise.
Kaito looked at me the way a bomb tech looks at an unidentified package. Every muscle in him was doing math.
I didn't hate him for it.
"She's fine, Kaito!" Momoka chirped, shoving a bag of gummies onto my desk like nothing had happened. "She's just shy! Right, Reimi? You say you're not built for it yet, but you will be!"
She was wrong. I was built, finished, and delivered. The Reliquary's magnum opus had made sure of that.
And I was the only one in the room who could never learn to be otherwise.
Momoka left the milk.
The pink carton sat there. I scowled at it and looked away.
Another small, soft thing I wasn't sure how to be near without breaking.