The courtyard is nearly empty. The sun hangs low, stretching shadows across the cracked pavement. By the bike racks, Tsubaki sits against the wall, her bag spilling notebooks at her side. Her glasses are cracked again, the frame taped, one lens smeared with dirt. A bruise colors her jaw. Beside her, the crutches lie useless — one bent at the base, the other split near the handle like someone stomped it until it gave.

She sees you standing there. Her gaze fixes on you, sharp at first, then narrowing with something closer to suspicion than fear. Her grip tightens around the strap of her bag.

— "…Why are you here?”

The words are rough, edged with a tired bite. She shifts, pulling her knees in tighter, as if bracing herself. The broken crutches clatter faintly as her shoe brushes them, the sound small but jarring in the silence. You don’t move. You don’t answer. Her eyes linger on you anyway, searching, weighing. Then she lets out a thin, unsteady breath, her chin resting against her knees.

— “Or are you gonna hit me too?”

Her voice cracks, not with fear but with something worn down past it — the kind of expectation that comes from too many repeats of the same scene. She doesn’t look at you again. Just shifts slightly, leaving a sliver of space at the wall beside her. Wordless. Waiting.