"Hmm? Hey? Yuzu?"
"...Victor."
Kiana's voice was light, teasing, her finger poking Yuzuki's cheek in a childish bid for attention. But her touch barely registered. Across from them, Elysia's whisper trembled from her lips as if uttering the name itself took something from her. "Victor…" she breathed, her fingers clenching around his hand with a desperation she didn't voice. The air had shifted. Heavy. Still. The space between the two men seemed to warp with tension, as if time had faltered.
Two pairs of eyes locked—silver and violet.
And then the silence cracked.
Victor's breath hitched sharply. His hand shot to his throat as if invisible hands were squeezing it shut. He stumbled a half-step back, vision swimming, the taste of ash seeping into his mouth. Screams—distant, hollow—bloomed at the edges of his mind. A burning skyline. A blue figure crumpled in firelight. The sensation of something unforgivable.
Gone.
Yuzuki flinched. Tears, unbidden and unstoppable, slid down his cheeks with such force that his skin stung where they trailed. His hands trembled at his sides—half-closed fists, half-desperate attempts to hold onto something solid. Everything inside him screamed to run. To flee from whatever it was that Victor stirred within him. And yet... through that fear, through the blaring instinct, came fragments that felt older than the self he knew: camaraderie, laughter, trust.
Guilt. Grief. Recognition.
"…Some things are destined, after all," Elysia murmured as she stepped forward. She reached out gently, her fingers brushing against Yuzuki's cheek with such care it was as though she feared he might shatter beneath her touch. Her smile was wistful, brittle, and infinitely kind. "Even when time forgets… souls remember."
"Woahhh! I didn't know I had an older brother!" Kiana suddenly blurted, the sheer brightness of her voice cutting clean through the heavy atmosphere like sunlight parting storm clouds. She threw herself between the two boys, her grin impossibly wide, arms flailing with excitement.
Victor blinked, yanked back to reality by her force of personality alone.
"...Brother?" he echoed, stiffly raising a brow as Kiana began circling him like a curious cat, stars practically orbiting her head.
"Yeah! See? Look at us—we're twinsies!" she beamed, tugging at a lock of her white hair and then motioning dramatically toward his. "You've got the tragic beauty thing going on, too!"
"You two… do kinda look alike," Yuzuki said, finally managing a laugh—weak, but real. The tremble in his hands subsided enough for him to extend one forward. "Yuzuki."
Victor looked at the offered hand like it was a live wire. He hesitated, breath still uneven, but then slowly reached forward. Their palms met.
"Victor," he replied.
"And I'm Kiana!"
The tension finally broke.
A soft chime echoed as the classroom door slid open.
"You can come in no—" Mei's voice began, calm and measured as ever, before she caught sight of the scene unfolding. Her brow lifted slightly. "Ah. Miss Eden. It seems the two other transfer students have arrived."
"Woah! Wait, what? Eden?" Kiana gasped, spinning toward the door like a child who'd just spotted her favorite pop idol.
"H-Hey! You can't just barge in—!" came the flustered voice of Mei beyond the frame, a string of laughter following soon after.
A soft laugh came out of the two men as they were left alone outside in the halls. Their eyes met once again, both trying to feign kindness, but behind that thin veil was wariness and fear. Like a fleeting moment in time, Elysia wished that those emotions too would pass.
The final school bell rang—a crisp, piercing chime that echoed through the marble corridors of Chiba Academy, stirring the classroom back to life instantly with students rising from their seats in a blur of voices, rustling bags, and sliding chairs.
And yet, three transfer students remained still at the eye of the storm.
They had seized the attention of the entire class from the first moment they stepped in. Kiana, with her uncontainable energy and radiant smile, had charmed half the classroom before the first lesson even started. She laughed freely, loudly, a streak of unfiltered sunlight in uniform. Yuzuki, by contrast, exuded warmth in quieter shades. His empathy laced every interaction—listening when others spoke, defusing tension with a well-timed joke. It wasn't long before students leaned into his orbit without even noticing.
And then there was Victor.
Cold. Poised. Unreachable. Whispers of his connection to Lady Eden spread like wildfire, and before the lunch bell had even rung, he'd already been elevated in whispers—mysterious, noble, tragic. His silence said more than words ever could. No one dared approach him.
But it wasn't reverence that kept the others at bay now. It was the air between him and Yuzuki.
Throughout the day, the two had said nothing. Yet their eyes met again and again—each time like flint striking steel. Yuzuki would glance over with a wary flicker in his silver gaze, and Victor, unmoving, would return it like a wall of frost. There was no visible hostility. No aggression. Just a tension so thick it dragged the air down like storm clouds over calm water.
So the others left them alone.
Now, as the last students trickled out, leaving behind only drifting chatter and sunlight slanting through tall windows, the three stood in their strange triangle of silence.
Kiana broke it first, flopping dramatically across her desk and groaning, "Ughhhh, how do you people do this every day? I think my brain melted during the fourth period." She peeked up at Yuzuki with a grin. "Hey, Yuzu, be honest—did you pass out for a second or were you just meditating with your eyes open?"
Yuzuki blinked, startled from the staring contest he hadn't realized he was locked into again. He gave her a tired chuckle. "It was a tactical power nap. Advanced technique. Only for professionals."
"Ooh, is it one of those special Samurai things?" Kiana grinned. "What's next? Sleeping with my eyes open and my heart closed?"
"I think Victor's already mastered that one," Yuzuki teased under his breath, just loud enough for her to hear.
Before Kiana could erupt into a giggle fit, a quiet voice cut through their levity.
"Victor."
Mei stepped into the room like the last drop of rain in a long storm. Her long, dark hair glistened faintly in the light, and she walked over with that signature expression of hers, her eyes already scanning Victor's face like she was reading a weather report written across his expression.
"Do you two know each other?" Mei asked, her voice soft, level—draped in the kind of calm that could cut more cleanly than suspicion. It wasn't accusatory. But it wasn't idle, either.
Victor didn't answer right away.
His gaze lingered on Yuzuki, the storm behind his violet eyes as unsettled as before—fear and regret roiling beneath his usual calm like waves beneath thin ice. For a moment, he looked as if he might speak.
But then he blinked. Slowly. As though swallowing something sharp.
"...No. We don't," Victor said finally, the words coming with a low sigh as he reached down to lift the bag Eden had left for him—like it weighed more than it should.
Yuzuki followed suit with a gentle grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Yeah. We don't." He straightened and gave a small, friendly shrug. "So, how about we fix that? There's a café down the road that's supposed to be pretty good. Might be a nice start."
"Ooooh! Friendship!" Kiana practically beamed, bursting into motion as if powered by joy itself. She threw her arms around Yuzuki's neck, then pivoted with zero hesitation to drag Victor into the fold by the hand. "Let's goooo~ Transfer Squad activate!"
Victor winced faintly but didn't pull away.
Mei, who had been watching the chaotic formation of their unlikely trio, let out an exhale that was half-laugh, half-defeated sigh. She turned, already halfway to the door with her usual grace, only to be halted by an elegant presence gliding into the room.
"That's a splendid idea," Eden said, smiling with the kind of warmth that could command rooms. She slipped behind Mei with ease and laid her hands on her shoulders like silk draping porcelain. "Let's all go and have fun. My treat, of course."
"E-Eh? I—" Mei stammered, caught completely off guard. "I really shouldn't... I've got lessons to review and—"
"I want you there."
The words came from Victor, sudden and sharp. A heartbeat passed before the silence cracked under the weight of them.
Yuzuki and Kiana turned to him, eyebrows rising in twin waves of surprise.
"Wha—Did he just...?"
"You confessed!" Kiana squealed, shaking him by the arm. "You're not a robot after all!"
Mei, for her part, froze. Her cheeks tinted a soft pink, and she averted her gaze with a flustered huff. "O-Okay… If you insist..."
Eden leaned in just slightly and whispered with a teasing gleam, "Ahh, don't be embarrassed. It's perfectly natural to feel that way towards Victor."
But Victor—still holding Mei's gaze, still too stunned by his own words—glanced over his shoulder, toward the corner where none of them could see.
Elysia.
She had her arms crossed and a deep, pouty frown on her lips. Her eyes—bright and mischievous—refused to meet his as she tried her best to not smile.
He spoke without thinking. Soft. Genuine. Almost apologetic.
"...That damn smile."
Elysia blinked.
And finally smiled.