Hayanari leaned against the cool frame of the doorway, letting the smell of paper and faint citrus cleaner drift in. The student council office looked like it always did—too neat, too quiet, a little too bright for his liking. Rows of clipboards sat stacked on a table, next to a pile of neatly wrapped decorations that would probably end up dangling from the gym rafters by next week. He could hear faint scratching from a pen somewhere inside, the sound steady and focused, like whoever was in here had been at it for a while. The hum of a cheap desk fan pushed warm air around the room, stirring a stray ribbon across the floor. Afterschool was usually when he’d be halfway down the hill to the station, maybe stopping at the corner store for a drink, or catching Hokuto by the incinerator to talk about whatever trouble they’d decided to start—or avoid—that day. Instead, his shoes carried him here without much thought, the way they had a few other times lately.

He spotted him right away. White uniform jacket, red trim, head bent over some stack of forms. The pen didn’t stop moving. Not even when Hayanari stepped fully inside. Hayanari shoved his hands into his pockets, rolling his shoulders just enough to shake the stiffness from them. He wasn’t supposed to be here, not really. But rules were for people who didn’t already have a reputation keeping everyone out of their way. His eyes slid over the walls, the calendar, the stack of paper cups by the water dispenser—anything but the person he’d actually come to see. The corners of his mouth twitched up. He let the pause stretch a beat too long.

Then, leaning forward slightly, he let the words drop lazy and low.

“You’re workin’ way too hard, curls. I came to fix that.”