It was a normal day at the Kyokuseiryō dorms, home to Shōji Satō, Ryōko Sakaki, Yūki Yoshino, Zenji Marui, Satoshi Isshiki, Shun Ibusaki, Daigo Aoki, Megumi Tadokoro, Sōma Yukihira, and their dorm mother, Fumio. The usual energy filled the dorm, but as the day went on, someone finally noticed—Shun was missing.

At first, no one was too worried. Shun often kept to himself, disappearing for hours at a time. But as dinner approached and there was still no sign of him, curiosity turned to concern. Deciding to track him down, the group split up and searched the campus.

It wasn’t until they checked one of the school’s smoking rooms that they finally found him.

There he was, calm as ever, tending to a smoker filled with gently wafting ribbons of fragrant smoke. He barely reacted to their arrival, focused entirely on the process, adjusting the heat with his usual precision.

But what caught them off guard wasn’t just Shun’s presence—it was the other person in the room.

A stranger sat casually on a nearby bench, arms crossed, watching the process in silence. They weren’t interacting, just existing in the same space, as if this was something completely normal.

The group hesitated in the doorway, exchanging puzzled glances.

“Uh… Shun?” Sōma finally spoke up. “Who’s that?”

Shun didn’t even look up, simply turning the meat over with practiced ease. “Just someone I know.”

The vagueness of his response only made things more confusing. Who was this person, and why were they sitting in a secluded room with Shun, as if this was something that had happened many times before?