"Wait… you're Kira, right?"
The world tilted. My ears didn't just short-circuit, they flatlined. Sound faded into a muffled roar, replaced by the frantic drumming of my own pulse. I was frozen, halfway pushing myself up, half-crouched over the disaster of my scattered school supplies, looking like a failed superhero landing. Mia Santos. The name echoed in the sudden, deafening silence inside my head. Mia. Freaking. Santos.
Wait.
Wait.
WAIT.
Did the girl who basically glowed, the one with the perfect ponytail and the impossible grades, the unreachable crush I only ever looked at from a safe distance... did she just say my name?
My name?
My heart went from zero to a thousand beats a minute, full-blown fight-or-flight response triggered by a four-letter word. It hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird desperate to escape, the sound so loud I felt it vibrating in my teeth.
"Ah— um. Y-yeah." I stammered, finally forcing air out. My voice cracked like a cheap mirror. "Kira. I'm Kira. That's... that's me. Hi. Uh. Yes. Yes, I'm Kira." I winced internally, physically recoiling from my own words. "Thank you... I mean— wait, not thank you. Uh."
Just stop talking, you absolute idiot.
Yeah. A lightning strike sounds good right about now. Right here, mid-awkward stammer, surrounded by my scattered textbooks and the faint, lingering smell of Daniel Montefalco's cologne from this morning's lovely interaction. Just end it.
She laughed again. Not the polite, strained kind you hear in class, but something genuinely light and warm. It crinkled the corners of her eyes as she knelt, completely unfazed by the chaos I was creating. "You're okay," she said softly, already reaching for a few loose papers. "Looks like you were in a hurry." She held up a familiar composition notebook. "And you dropped your math homework."
My blood ran cold. The JJK doodle.
Oh god, no. NO. Please. Don't. Let her see the disproportionate Gojo head I'd drawn on the practice problem page instead of doing the actual quadratic equation. My hands shot out, a frantic blur. "Oh! Right, yeah, my homework— I got it! I can— I'll get it! It's fine!"
But she just gave that calm smile, brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear – a simple, elegant movement – and held the notebook out to me. "Here," she said. "Don't worry, I saw it was math." A tiny pause. "I remember everyone's name in class," she added, like it was the most normal thing in the world. "It's not really that hard."
My internal alarm bells screamed louder. No. This isn't happening. This can't be happening. This wasn't some shonen anime where the total nobody trips into meeting the impossibly popular, kind girl and suddenly his life arc begins. This wasn't a rom-com subplot. This was... reality. And in reality, I wasn't the main character. I wasn't even the quirky best friend. I was the background extra they blur out. An NPC with zero charisma stats and negative luck.
Maybe... maybe this is it, a tiny, stupid voice whispered in the back of my mind, sounding suspiciously like the hopeful background music from Blue Box. Maybe this is your meet-cute moment. Like in Horimiya!
SHUT UP. I slammed the mental door on it. Kira, you pathetic idiot, wake up! This wasn't fiction. This was the concrete ground where Daniel Montefalco's fist just landed just a little while ago. This was the same school where my own sister looked away when she saw me coming, terrified her friends would see her talking to the "weird kid."
Reality doesn't care about your anime fantasies. The only person you can count on is yourself. Period.
Still, despite the internal lecture, my hands trembled slightly as I frantically scooped up the rest of my scattered belongings, shoving them haphazardly back into my half-open bag. "Thanks," I mumbled, not meeting her eyes. "Uh... seriously. Thanks for helping. And... yeah. Impressed you remembered my name."
She stood up smoothly, brushing dust from her skirt without a fuss. "I try," she said, her voice just as gentle as before, completely sincere. "And it's easier to remember people who are quiet, I think. You always sit near the back, right? You've been really quiet since last year."
I froze mid-shove. She noticed me? Before? Since last year? My brain immediately went into defense mode. What was this? A setup? A trick? Was someone filming this for some kind of hidden camera show? Was Daniel Montefalco lurking behind a bush, waiting to jump out and laugh?
Before I could fully descend into conspiracy theories, she tilted her head slightly, a small, kind gesture. "Hey," she said softly. "Are you okay? You seem a little... shocked."
"Yeah," I managed, clearing my throat, trying to force some normalcy into my voice. I ran a hand through my already messy hair. "Just... surprised. That's all. Really didn't expect... that."
She nodded again, a small, knowing dip of her head that made me feel inexplicably seen. "Okay," she said. "Well, I'm headed to Building 3-B. That's our classroom, right? Might as well walk together, since we're both heading the same way."
...Huh?
Walk. Together? Mia Santos. Me. Walking side-by-side? In broad daylight? Where everyone could see? My brain stuttered. Error. Does not compute. This was definitely not in the NPC script.
But before I could even form a coherent refusal or protest, my legs seemed to have already received the command... they started to move.