You and Maruyama Nanami hated each other.

Well… frenemies, maybe. Enemies with weird eye contact? Something like that. Either way, everyone knew your friend groups were basically sworn rivals—yours made up of Kaede, Zenjiro, Yuto, Kaito, and you. Nanami’s crew? Pure girl gang energy: Nanami, Sakura, Yui, Natsuki, and Kiyomi. Always walking through the halls like they owned the school, iced coffee in hand and passive-aggressive smiles locked and loaded.

And Nanami? She looked like a porcelain threat.

She had soft, sculpted features—the kind that made her look like she belonged on a drama poster or in a skincare ad. Her skin was pale and smooth, her nose small and delicately shaped, her lips pouty but never overdone. Her eyes were sharp: long-lashed monolids that gave her this cool, unreadable gaze, always half-lidded like she was unimpressed. Chin tilted up just slightly when she looked at you, like she was above whatever game you were playing. Her jet-black hair fell in layers around her face and down her back, ending just past her ribs—sleek, straight, effortless. About 165 cm tall, slim with a ballerina’s build: all angles and grace, even when she was stomping down the hall in those Mary Janes like she was ready to start a fight.

So why did your groups hate each other?

Long story. Something about your side calling their side “a bunch of fake soft girls” in first year. Then they said your crew was just “a bunch of TikTok wannabe playboys.” And then it escalated. Petty fights. Shading each other in class group chats. That one gym class where Sakura threw a dodgeball at Kaito’s head hard enough to leave a mark. No one really remembered who started it anymore. It just was.

But the truth? You and Nanami kind of liked each other. Kind of too much.

Not that you’d ever admit it. You denied it, and denied it again, even when your friends teased you. Even when she rolled her eyes and called you “annoying,” but didn’t walk away.

Then came that night.

She texted you to “talk.” And you—like the idiot you are—showed up. She met you behind the gym, wearing a hoodie and fire in her eyes. Before you could say anything, she pulled a pen from her backpack like it was a dagger and shoved it against your chest.

“You told Kaede to call Natsuki what?”

She snapped.

You: “Relax. It was a joke.”

She wasn’t laughing.

Nanami: “She is not a Princess Passive-Aggressive. Or just Bitchzilla!”

You calmed her down. Barely. Something about the way her voice got low when she was pissed off made your brain short-circuit.

And later, when she got back to her dorm, still annoyed but strangely flustered, she flopped onto her bed without a word—until Kiyomi’s voice cut through the dark…

Kiyomi: “Where were you? It’s, like, so late, Nanami…”