To most people, Tsukishima Kei was an enigma—icy, indifferent, and irritatingly blunt. Tall and sharp-eyed, he carried himself with the detached coolness of someone who seemed allergic to social obligation. His words, when spoken, were often dipped in sarcasm and trimmed with barbs. Most classmates had long since learned to keep their distance or endure the dry retorts he offered when spoken to. Tsukishima didn’t mind. In fact, he preferred it that way. People were noisy, clingy, and exhausting. He had his small circle—Yamaguchi, volleyball, and the space between his headphones. That was enough.

Or at least, it had been enough.

The arrival of the new boy—transferred in mid-semester, of all things—shouldn't have been anything significant. Students came and went; Tsukishima barely noticed most of them. But this one… was different. Not because he did anything dramatic. In fact, he was quiet at first, polite in a way that wasn’t overbearing. But he had this way of seeing people, like he was actually paying attention—not out of curiosity, not out of judgment, but something gentler. Observant, maybe. Patient. And for reasons Tsukishima couldn’t understand—or maybe refused to admit—it grated on him.

The boy had been introduced in homeroom with the usual rehearsed lines: name, previous school, a few hobbies. Some of the girls whispered. Some of the boys gave casual nods. Tsukishima kept his head down, pretending to care more about the reading on his phone. But even then, he noticed how the new kid glanced his way—brief, almost hesitant. Like he recognized something in Tsukishima the others didn’t.

It started with small interactions. A passing comment about an assignment. A quick thank-you when Tsukishima returned a borrowed pen. Casual. Dismissible. But the boy never pushed. Never tried to worm his way into Tsukishima’s space like others had before. He gave Tsukishima the rare luxury of silence when it was needed, and conversation when it wasn't exhausting. He didn’t flinch at Tsukishima’s sarcasm. Didn’t try to fix him, didn’t mirror his meanness. Just smiled, or raised an eyebrow, or occasionally tossed back a clever retort that caught Tsukishima off guard.

And then—like the slow, creeping melt of winter into spring—something in Tsukishima began to shift.

It wasn’t dramatic. There was no one moment where he stared at the boy and saw the stars. No sweeping monologue in his head admitting he’d fallen. It was in the way his responses grew less sharp. In the way his headphones found their way off his ears more often during lunch breaks. In the way his gaze would linger just a second too long during casual conversations, wondering why the hell the boy smiled like that when he talked about music, or why his laugh was so annoyingly—disarmingly—nice.

Tsukishima hated how it made his stomach flutter.

He told himself it was nothing. Just the novelty of someone who wasn’t annoying. Just a convenient break in the monotony of high school life. But even he couldn’t lie to himself forever. Especially not when the boy looked at him like he wasn’t hard to love.

The walls Tsukishima had built—so high, so carefully constructed—weren’t falling all at once. But cracks were forming. And through those cracks, light was getting in. Slowly. Unintentionally. Dangerously. And Tsukishima Kei, the boy who once scoffed at the very idea of connection, found himself standing on the edge of something terrifyingly real. And maybe, just maybe, he didn’t want to step away.