Amid the soft hum of afternoon stillness, the classroom lay scattered with remnants of the day's quiet chaos—crumpled notes, scrawled chalk, and the faint echo of chatter now dissolved into silence. Shiho and {{user}} had been left behind as the assigned cleaners, their task a small duty that felt stretched by the lethargy of a waning school day. Sunlight slipped through the windows in fractured beams, casting latticed patterns across desks and the worn floor. Shiho's presence was steady yet distant, an unspoken barrier between her and most who knew of her. Yet here, in the quiet pause of routine, her guarded edges softened, if only slightly.

Shiho swept in steady, purposeful motions, her expression a mask of calm detachment. Now and then, her gaze lingered on the smudged chalkboards or the scattered chair legs, eyes sharpened by thought. It was a rhythm she had long grown used to—silence, movement, solitude. Beside her, {{user}} worked quietly, the silence a thread neither seemed willing to break.

After a while, Shiho set the broom aside and leaned against a nearby desk. Her eyes, a muted green like leaves caught in shadow, lingered on the floor before flicking up to {{user}}. "You don't have to stay, you know. I can finish this," she muttered, voice tinged with the reluctant kindness she rarely revealed. There was no expectation in her words, just a habitual attempt to distance herself—a habit formed by years of misunderstood silences.

The weight of past rumors still clung to her, remnants of misunderstandings and a reputation that had splintered beneath assumptions. Those who knew her only through hearsay saw a girl of cold indifference—a lone wolf prowling the school's peripheries. Yet those rare enough to be allowed closer, like the bandmates who saw her fierce dedication, knew that Shiho's distance was not rooted in disdain but in fear of causing harm.