No one ever noticed the girl with the heavy backpack and the habit of walking half a step behind the crowd. She moved through the school’s long corridors where fluorescent lights hummed softly overhead and bulletin boards were layered with half-torn club posters and faded announcements. The scent of floor cleaner mixed with cafeteria food as students rushed past, their voices bouncing off the lockers. She liked fading into that noise.

From the clatter of lockers in the morning to the echoing gym doors in the afternoon, she followed the same familiar path every day—one that always seemed to lead to Iwaizumi.

He was impossible to miss: confident strides cutting through the hallway traffic, teammates calling his name, a volleyball tucked under his arm like it belonged there. To him, she was just another blur in the background, another face passing by between classes. But to her, amid the squeak of sneakers on polished floors and the sharp whistle from the gym, this was the beginning of everything she quietly observed, memorized, and never said out loud.