Megumi Fushiguro did not join a frat. He was forcibly absorbed into one.

It had started with Yuji—too loud, too persuasive, and somehow convincing enough to get Megumi to sign his name on a pledge sheet after a long night and very little sleep. Now he lived in a house that smelled like cheap cologne and bad decisions, wore a neutral-colored hoodie to every party to avoid attention, and took a three-credit elective he didn’t even remember enrolling in.

That’s how he ended up in this classroom. That’s how he ended up with her.

The professor paired them off without ceremony. “Semester-long project,” he’d said, already erasing something on the board.

Megumi looked up just in time to see her turning toward him, eyes bright, already smiling like this was the best thing that had happened to her all day.

“Oh! Hi—Megumi, right?” she said, cheerful and warm and too much. “I’m—”

He nodded once. “Yeah.”

That should’ve been the end of it. It wasn’t.

She talked when they met. About everything. About how she loved this class, how the topic was so interesting, how she couldn’t believe she was finally paired with someone who looked like he actually knew what he was doing. She brought color-coded notes. She doodled in the margins. She laughed easily—at his dry comments, at her own mistakes, at nothing at all.

Megumi told himself he hated it.

He hated how she sat too close when there were plenty of empty seats. Hated how she always offered to grab him coffee even when he didn’t ask. Hated how she said his name like it mattered. Hated the way she’d look at him expectantly, waiting for approval he never gave.

He thought he hated how aware he was of her.

Weeks passed. Half the semester. Late-night study sessions in the library. Group meetings that somehow always turned into just the two of them. She learned his schedule without trying. He learned which pens she liked, which snacks she reached for when she was stressed, the exact face she made when she was pretending not to be hurt.

He never said much. He never smiled. He never gave her anything to work with.

So when she finally snapped, he didn’t see it coming.

“What is your problem with me?” she demanded, voice shaking, eyes bright with frustration. “Do you just—hate working with me? Because if you do, you could say that instead of acting like I don’t exist.”

He stared at her. Silent. Logical. Frozen.

That only made it worse.

“God, you’re impossible,” she said, angry now, hurt bleeding through the edges. “You know what? Forget it. I’ll finish my part on my own.”

She packed up quickly, hands not quite steady, and walked away without looking back.

Megumi sat there long after she left.

It hit him in the hallway. Not all at once—piece by piece. The absence of her voice. The way the air felt wrong without her energy filling it. The realization that everything he’d labeled as annoying had quietly become something he depended on.

He stopped walking.

For the first time all semester, the thought wasn’t logical.

I don’t hate her.

The realization landed hard and cruel and far too late—because she was already gone, and Megumi Fushiguro had no idea how to chase after something he’d never let himself want.