Chapter XXV - Something Worth Breaking For (II)

The morning bell tolled through Amane Private Academy, monotonous as usual, summoning students to their assigned places like chess pieces on a board.

My face throbbed beneath the gauze I'd hastily taped over the welt—a poorly made, haphazard disguise for what lay beneath. While navigating the crowded hallway toward Class 2-A, the white patch might as well have been a neon sign.

And as always, it was Inoue Yui who noticed first.

"Kagami-kun! What happened to your face?"

The question drew attention like blood in water. A small cluster of girls materialized around my desk as auras of concern radiated off them in suffocating waves. Miyazono leaned in, her glasses catching the morning light, while Kurihara Nao's hand hovered near my shoulder as if unsure whether touch would help or harm.

"It's nothing. Just an accident at home. I slipped on the bathroom floor and hit the counter." I said, offering what I hoped was a convincing smile.

"That must have been some fall," Miyazono acutely observed. "The bruising goes past your bandage."

I resisted the urge to touch the discoloration spreading from beneath the white fabric. The mirror this morning had told the truth that my words wouldn't: my father's hand had left a mark too large to hide completely.

"Haha, you know me... always clusmy~"

From the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of red.

Minazuki-san had entered the classroom as her gaze briefly connected with mine before sliding to the spectacle surrounding my desk. Something flickered across her face—a twitch, almost imperceptible—before she proceeded to her seat by the window. The movement was so slight that I might have imagined it, but for a moment, it looked like...

Concern?

No. Impossible.

And yet, after our encounter at Sunrise Mart, after seeing her blush when I mentioned the imported cookies, after watching her awkwardly navigate a friendly interaction... I wasn't sure what was necessarily "impossible" for Minazuki Serena anymore.

"Kagami-kun... should you even be in school? That looks really painful," Inoue murmured, fingers tentatively brushing the back of my hand. The gesture, meant to soothe, only served to tighten the noose of guilt around my throat.

"I'm fine, really." Setting my bag on the desk drove in that I wasn't speaking in platitudes, but rather, finalities.

Their concern was genuine, I knew... and in a way, that made it worse.

These girls cared, at least superficially, and I repaid them with practiced lies.

But what else could I say?

My father hit me because I suggested spending my own money on college entrance exams instead of his drinking?

I stayed up until dawn holding a frozen coffee can to my face, watching the bruise bloom like some grotesque flower?

I've become so accustomed to this that my first thought wasn't pain or anger, but how to cover it up?

God, I'm such a mess.

The classroom door slid open as Fujimiya-sensei entered, and the girls reluctantly dispersed to their seats. Her eyes found me immediately, widening at the sight of the gauze. Unlike the students, she didn't approach directly. Instead, she organized her papers at the podium and waited for the class to settle.

"Good morning, everyone. Before we begin announcements, I'd like to remind you all that the school nurse is available for any health concerns—even minor ones."

Her gaze lingered pointedly on me.

"Sometimes injuries that seem manageable can benefit from professional attention."

I nodded slightly, acknowledging her message while silently refusing it.

The school nurse would ask questions I couldn't answer, make inductions from injury patterns that I couldn't explain away. Better to suffer in plain sight, hidden behind flimsy excuses and gauze that would eventually be replaced by foundation stolen from my father's long-abandoned bathroom drawer.

Nevertheless, as Fujimiya-sensei continued with the morning announcements, I felt another gaze burning into me from a few seats away. Akise sat rigidly in his chair, adorning a tense posture that seemed foreign on his frame. Shadow and seriousness clouded his usually mischievous and flamboyant eyes. He hadn't spoken to me since our fight in the club room—not in class, not in the hallways, not even to pass along his characteristic quips or cryptic mythological references. The silence between us grew heavier with each passing day. And now, as he stared at my poorly concealed injury, I could see something in his expression I'd rarely witnessed: helpless anger. Akise, for all his fantasies and make-believe, knew exactly what had happened. He'd seen the aftermath too many times not to recognize my father's handiwork.

"The Cultural Festival committee has extended the submission deadline to this Friday," Fujimiya-sensei was saying. "Classes that have not yet finalized their proposals should take advantage of this opportunity, or else you risk being assigned something by default."

Yeah... kinda my fault.

The maid café proposal sat half-completed in my bag, abandoned like so many other responsibilities I couldn't bring myself to fulfill. Once, such a deadline would have sent me into a frenzy of organization and delegation. Now, it felt as distant and irrelevant as stars at noon.

Morning homeroom proceeded with its usual efficiency, but beneath the routine, something had shifted. I felt it in the sidelong glances, in the whispered conversations that faltered when I turned my head, in the unusual care with which people moved around me.

My injury had altered the classroom's ecosystem in some subtle but unmistakable way.

Somewhere in this altered dynamic, I found myself newly aware of Minazuki-san's presence. Though she maintained her usual indifferent disposition, I noticed details I'd overlooked before: the way she occasionally glanced at the classroom clock, the slight furrow that appeared between her brows when Fujimiya-sensei mentioned the Cultural Festival, the almost imperceptible tap of her finger against her desk when someone spoke too loudly.

Was it the gauze on my face that had heightened my perception? Or was it the memory of her at Sunrise Mart—awkward, blushing, human?

As homeroom concluded and students began gathering their materials for first period, a shadow fell across my desk. I looked up to find Midou looming over me, flanked by Honda and Takagi, his self-appointed entourage.

"Nice accessory, Kagami," he sneered, gesturing to my face. "Very fashion-forward."

"Thanks. I'm trying a new look." I replied flatly.

He leaned in, his voice dropping to a "whisper" that conveniently ensured those nearby could still hear every word.

"Heard you were seen with Minazuki outside of school. Getting cozy with the Ice Queen, huh?"

My stomach dropped.

How had he—?

Oh... but of course. Sunrise Mart wasn't far from school; it was entirely possible some student had spotted us at the tables outside.

And at Amane Private Academy, nothing remained secret for long.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Who knows? Maybe she likes her boys a little battered and bruised. Makes them more submissive, right?" Honda smirked from over Midou's shoulder.

Takagi chuckled. "Or maybe it's the other way around. She's the one who gave him that crooked nose, after all."

Midou glared at both of them, shutting them up quickly before turning his attention back to me.

"Come on, don't play dumb. You and her, sitting together at some convenience store? People talk, Kagami. Word gets around."

I risked a glance toward Minazuki-san's desk. She appeared absorbed in her book, but the slight stiffness of her shoulders suggested that she was listening intently to the exchange.

"We were just—"

"Just what? Having a little date? Playing hero to the damsel in distress?" His smirk turned ugly. "You've always had a thing for her, haven't you? Even after she rearranged your face the first time, you're still chasing after her like a lost puppy."

"It wasn't like that." My fingers tightened around the edge of my desk.

"No? Then what's with the matching injuries? She hit you again, didn't she? What was it this time? Another permission slip she didn't like? Maybe she just doesn't appreciate your stalking?"

"Shut up, Midou."

"..."

"..."

"Kagami Shouma, what did you say to me?"

I couldn't even call the look on his face a "smile" anymore, moreso, it was akin to an inverted frown.

The air in the classroom seemed to thin as conversation halted. From the corner of my eye, I saw Fujimiya-sensei at her desk, attention shifting toward our confrontation.

"I said, it's not like that," I backtracked, instinct kicking in. "She didn't hit me. I had an accident at home."

"Surrreeeee you did."

His tone made it clear he didn't believe me for a second.

"Just like I'm sure you accidentally ran into her outside of school. Just like I'm sure you accidentally can't seem to take a hint and leave her alone."

The last words were delivered with such venom that they almost felt physical.

"I wasn't—I'm not—"

He silenced me by putting his hand on my shoulder, gripping on it so tightly I felt like he was trying to rip out muscle.

And then he whispered, right across from my ear so no one else could hear it.

"Kagami, let me make this clear for you: Minazuki Serena is mine. You touch her without my permission, you'll never walk again. Do I make myself clear?"

The threat in his words was undeniable, but it wasn't what made my blood run cold. It was the possessiveness, the entitled way he spoke about Minazuki-san—as if she were a prize he'd already claimed.

As if I were trespassing on his territory rather than talking to another human being.

I wanted to say something—anything—that might puncture his bloated self-importance, that might make it clear that Minazuki-san wasn't property to be claimed. That she was her own person who could choose who to speak with, who to sit with, who to...

A loud scrape of chair against floor cut through the tension like a knife.

Minazuki-san stood in one fluid motion, gathering her books meticulously. She turned toward the door, her stride unhurried yet somehow radiating such intensity that the room fell completely silent. Just before crossing the threshold, she paused, turning her head just enough to fix Midou with a glare so cold it seemed to lower the temperature of the entire classroom.

"It's noisy."

Those ice-blue eyes held his for one excruciating second—then two—until Midou actually took a half-step back from my desk. No words were exchanged. None were necessary. The message was as clear as if she'd shouted it from the rooftop:

Get your hands off him.

Without another word or glance, she strode out of the room with the click of her heels, leaving a stunned silence in her wake.

The vacuum she left behind was swiftly filled by Fujimiya-sensei's unnaturally bright voice.

"Alright, everyone! Let's transition to first period. Quickly now, take your materials for English with Fukawa-sensei."

Midou stiffly retreated from my desk, Honda and Takagi following like well-trained dogs. The predatory gleam in his eyes hadn't diminished. If anything, Minazuki-san's intervention had only stoked the flames of his obsession. He'd taken it as a confirmation of some connection between us—some threat to his imagined claim.

his posture stiff with thwarted aggression, but the predatory gleam in his eyes hadn't diminished. If anything, Minazuki-san's intervention had only stoked the flames of his obsession. He'd taken it as confirmation of some connection between us—some threat to his imagined claim.

I wasn't sure what message he was trying to convey, but, I felt at ease.

And yet, as I gathered my own books, I couldn't shake the chill that had settled into my bones. Midou's threat lingered like a storm on the horizon, gathering strength, waiting to break.

And somehow, I knew that when it did, neither gauze nor excuses would be enough to hide the damage.