Morning slid down the windows in thin bars of light. The bell sounded like it always did a ringing neutral, unambitious and scraped in a chorus that meant nothing more dangerous than homeroom.
Yui breezed in: "good mooorning!" stretched like taffy.
Yumiko fine-tuned an argument about skirt lengths with the conviction of someone defending a thesis.
Ebina's giggle came with a suspiciously thoughtful look that meant somebody, somewhere, had just been shipped without consent. (Ras and Hayato felt cold on their back)
Hayato's group gathered like a small planet system: polite gravity, easy smiles, the murmur of everything under control.
Ras came in with the first wave and set his bag down.
The window reflection behaved itself today—no lag, no bent corners. The Book stayed quiet in his chest, a steady absence. He let the silence be a small, a peaceful luxury.
*Edit*
Hiratsuka-sensei strode in, paperwork under her arm. "All right, you lot... Chat later, listen now." Chalk touched the board. Sobu Cultural Festival - Three Weeks. She underlined it with a motion that did not invite negotiation. "New plan. This year's theme is 'Home & City.' Which means no cursed idol temples with questionable choreography and absolutely no 'disciplinary maid cafés!"
A meaningful pause; three guilty consciences flinched in three separate rows.
"We're doing it clean. We're doing it safe. We're doing it with dignity." Then, with a side-glance that was not unamused: "I'm looking at you, cheerfully chaotic demographic."
Yui raised her hand. "So, like, stalls and stages and all that?"
"Exactly. Class committees run stalls. Clubs do showcases. We're instituting an Inter-Club Clean & Showcase Day this afternoon to set the tone and reduce rumors of… hauntings." She didn't look at Ras when she said it. She also didn't not look at him.
"Service Club will coordinate scheduling and logistics," she added. "Yukinoshita, Yuigahama, Hikigaya. And..." Her eyes found Ras. "Kurosawa."
A few heads tilted. Ras inclined his own just so. "Understood."
Tobe leaned over the row with a grin he'd sanded too smooth. "Yo, Kurosawa, man, festival, we're doing grill skewers again. You in? We need, like, a gentleman of taste to judge the marinade, ya feel?"
Yamato, two beats late: "Marinade. Yeah."
Ooka nodded as if consensus were a physical object he could help push. "Quality control. It's important."
Hayato turned toward Ras with the bright courtesy of sunlight on water. "We'd be happy to have you swing by." The smile didn't sell; it offered. That was his skill.
Ras considered the gravity and accepted without orbit. "I'll pass by if I'm not buried under clipboards." His mouth crooked. "Someone has to keep the city portion of 'Home & City' from collapsing into traffic."
Tobe laughed like he'd meant to all along. "Traffic, dude, so true."
Hayato's eyes softened a fraction. "Then we'll expect you when you can." There wasn't a force in it. Only room.
Hachika slid her chair back with the sound of a decision. "As long as nobody sets anything on fire." Dead-fish stare, then the faintest tilt toward Ras. "You. Do your job. Boringly."
"Hehe," he slightly smiled
Hiratsuka clapped once. "All right! after homeroom, Service Club meets. Everyone else, prepare your preparations."
The room hummed back to life.
---
The Service Club room smelled like books and floors that had learned a certain soap. Yukino had two stacks of paper, one labeled Schedule, one labeled rules. Yui rolled washi tape onto a poster with the solemnity of a bakery. Hachika occupied the far chair, arms folded, expression set to neutral with teeth.
Ras took a seat, glanced at the windows. The light came in obediently; nothing leaned out of place. He let the knowledge sit in the back of his mind like a hand on a table, steady, not needing attention.
"First order," Yukino said. "Traffic flow. We will not repeat last year's mistake of funneling four classes through a single hallway because somebody thought 'mystery atmosphere' was a plan."
"Sorry," Yui murmured. "The fog machine was on sale."
"Fog is not a theme," Yukino replied without heat.
"It can be," Hachika said. "If we need to hide regret."
Yukino brushed it off and pushed a map across the table. "Kurosawa."
He looked it over. "Stalls on the outer loop, stage at the gym, quiet corner for study clubs. Block the dead ends with something that looks intentional. If the Chuuni are performing, give them a room with a door and a time slot they must agree to."
As if summoned by name, the door flew open hard enough to warp air.
"The East Magic Society Club has arrived!" Rikka announced, eyepatch throwing light like a tiny lighthouse of bad decisions. Yuuta stepped in and dignity intact. They held a rolled banner between them like a royal decree.
Yukino didn't sigh. It looked like discipline. "If that banner says 'blood,' I am setting it on fire."
Rikka unfurled it. RITE OF LUMINA ~ PURIFICATION DANCE (TOTALLY SAFE).
Yuuta's voice sweetened to something almost credible. "Our craft will aid the festival in restoring the spiritual equilibrium of Sobu High. Also we have a cardboard dragon."
Yui's hands clapped on their own. "Cardboard!"
Hachika's gaze slid to Ras. You did this, it said, without punctuation.
Ras leaned back. "Decorations go in the gym during the showcase. Your 'rite' happens once, with adult supervision, and leaves the ceiling attached to the ceiling."
Yuuta bowed as a knight. Rikka thumped her staff on the floor with the gravity of a child declaring sleep illegal. "The Eye approves."
"Set up in B-2," Yukino said. "If you light it on fire, I will personally ban you for life."
The Chuuni duo saluted without shame and left a trail of enthusiasm that behaved like glitter.
Yukino tapped the map again. "Kurosawa, your suggestion?"
He flipped two blocks on the page. "Switch 2-C's calligraphy with Go Home Club's 'urban zen' corner; the traffic will braid instead of collide. Stage left stays for the band; they're louder than they think. And give the Chuuni a back door." A beat. "Metaphorically and literally."
Yukino's mouth barely moved. "Finally, competence."
Yui slid him a cup. "Tea? We ran out of paper cups but I found these cute ones with stars~"
Hachika took the cup meant for him, drank, and set it down with a subtle clink. "Wrong address."
Ras reached for another. "I can share a postal code."
Yukino slid schedules across. "Then we move." Makes a point.
---
Preparations widened into corridors and stairs and a gym that echoed before it filled. The Inter-Club Clean & Showcase Day worked like hitting reset on a machine with too many tabs open. People wiped windows that didn't need it; boys mopped the same square twice to stretch out a joke; a choir practiced scales in a stairwell and made the building sound like glass.
Rikka and Yuuta commandeered B-2. The cardboard dragon emerged piece by painted piece of blue scales, gold fringe, eyes with pupils too sincere to be scary. Yuuta hung "runes" that were actually well-drawn kanji for "do not trip." Rikka practiced a spin that involved more ribbon than physics normally allowed.
Yui taped directional arrows with cheerful tyranny. Yumiko drifted in, looked down her nose at a color decision, and then quietly fixed the entire labeling system so it matched a design logic she would deny owning. Ebina wrote DARK MODE on the Chuuni banner with bubble letters and then left humming a boss battle theme.
Ras moved between all of it, nudging, smoothing, refusing to be the center of anything. As he pressed two fingers to the axle, adjusted tension, and the sound vanished. Living his daily life.
Hayato's group arrived with the studious cheer of a well-funded idol. Ooka carried a crate of tongs as if they were a fragile instrument; Yamato apologized to a broom; Tobe tried to high-five a poster and missed. Hayato smiled at everyone in a way that made everyone feel briefly seen.
"Our class will do skewers and a community photo wall," he said to Ras, not commanding, only offering conversation that could be taken or left. "If you have time later, we'd like your opinion on the layout."
"Happy to," Ras said. And meant it. Nothing in the angle of his mouth hinted at a blade.
Yamato leaned toward Tobe. "Happy."
"Yeah," Tobe said, like he knew what it meant.
Hachika slid by trailing a box of zip ties and the particular chill that comes from being quietly efficient. Hayato inclined his head as if to a passing front. She ignored him as if he were weather. Ras took the other end of the box.
"You're late," Hachika said.
"I'm everywhere," he replied.
"Pick one."
"Gym, then the snake pit." He nodded at B-2 where ribbon hit a ceiling tile and got stuck.
Hachika didn't smile. It still looked like permission.
---
The tennis courts caught the afternoon like a net. Totsuka had the lane to herself, a bucket of balls and a patience that belonged to someone kind enough to practice the same motion without complaint. Her serve had always been clean; today it stuttered on the last half-beat.
Ras leaned against the fence and watched her miss exactly two by the width of a breath.
She noticed him, of course. "Oh, Ras-kun!" She jogged over with a towel around her neck and a smile that made the courts look like someplace worth standing. "Help me?"
He stepped inside, picked up the second racket, and let his hand find the balance of it. "Trade."
They stood close, he adjusted her grip a few degrees, moved her thumb, tilted her wrist with the gentleness of a teacher moving a brush in someone else's hand. "Relax your shoulder. Not loose. Ready." He stepped back. "Again."
The ball went up, came down, and left her strings like a bright, obedient thought. The sound it made when it hit the service box belonged in a satisfying drawer.
Her face lit in a way that didn't ask for praise and got it anyway. "You always know where to touch."
"If I say 'practice,' will you take it as an insult?"
She laughed. "I'll take it as faith."
At the chain-link edge, Hachika watched with her arms folded so tightly they were almost a barricade. Ras met her gaze over Totsuka's shoulder and nodded exactly once. I see you seeing. She looked away and did not leave.
"Everything feels lighter lately," Totsuka said when the bucket had a few balls left. "Like… the air."
"Must be the spring cleaning," he said.
Her eyes warmed. "Then let's keep it clean."
"Working on it."
She served again. It hit where it should.
---
The joint session had been advertised as Festival Sweets Trial and had become a bake-off by the time anyone admitted it out loud. Yui had flour on her nose and no idea how it got there; Yukino precision-whisked a batter with a focus that suggested trust issues with lumps; Rikka sprinkled sugar with a curse that was only theatrically ominous; Yuuta folded egg whites like a paladin swearing an oath to meringue.
Ras measured heat with his eyes and timing with his wrist. Yui's first tray browned too fast, the middle still a shy secret. He turned the dial down without comment and opened the door for fifteen seconds to surrender heat. "Let the middle catch up," he said. "No need to rush it into a commitment."
Yui peered in like a child at an aquarium. "They're… breathing."
"Don't say that out loud," Yukino muttered. "You'll scare them."
Yukino's choux looked like architecture. She pretended not to be pleased when they held.
By late afternoon, the table held proof of collective competence. Yui's cookies were honest, Yukino's pastry was immaculate, the Chuuni's "warding biscuits" had shapes only they could defend but tasted like butter and sugar and optimism. Yuuta sniffed one, pronounced it free of malevolent spirits, and handed it to Rikka, who pronounced it delicious enough to keep the veil between worlds sturdy for a day.
Hachika took a cookie without commentary. Ras watched her not enjoy it. It was the kind of not-enjoying that still ended with an empty napkin.
---
The gym breathed differently once it filled. Banners hung; cords lay taped; the stage had lines taped where lines belong. Clubs rehearsed in intervals. The band played three songs that sounded like five; the choir handled a harmony that could make a window think twice; the Chuuni practiced their steps to an instrumental backing that should not have worked and somehow did.
Rikka and Yuuta's Rite of Lumina had been stripped of anything that would set off sprinklers. What remained was a ribbon dance that traced a circle and a bow and a gesture that looked like a blessing without borrowing too much from belief. Students clapped as if relief had a tempo.
Ras stood at the back and added his hands. The Book-UI stayed dark. He smiled, a real fraction.
Hayato found him there. "It's coming together."
"It is," Ras said.
"I'm glad you're helping." Genuine, not a line.
Ras tipped two fingers in acknowledgment. "I prefer peace."
"Me too," Hayato said, surprising both of them. He hesitated a beat. "If you have notes for our stall layout, I'm listening."
"Keep the grill smoke trailing away from the photo wall," Ras said. "Put napkins where they'll catch grease before it catches the camera. And don't put your best smiles in the path of the bathrooms."
Hayato laughed. It was softer than the one he used for crowds. "You're good at this."
"Odd-jobs," Ras said, but as an explanation, not a brand. "Some of them come with tongs."
"Then I'll save you a skewer," Hayato said, and left before the moment had to mean more than it did.
Yumiko materialized. "Admit it turned out well," she demanded, as if she had planned the day from birth.
"It turned out normal," Ras said. "That's better."
She sniffed, which in Yumiko meant gratitude disassembled to parts.
---
Evening painted long rectangles on the hallway floor. A small detachment peeled off toward the shopping street as if guided by instinct: Ras, Totsuka, Hachika, Yui, and...because the world has sense of humor.... Rikka and Yuuta. Crepes at the corner shop were seasonal by decree; milk tea had the lines to prove demand. The vendor had a practiced sympathy for students with too many decisions and not enough coins.
"Two strawberries," Yui said, and then at Hachika, "You'll split, right?"
Hachika scowled at the offered second half and took it anyway. "Give me the side with more cream."
"That's both sides," Yui said, triumphant.
Rikka held her crepe like a trophy. "Urban warding achieved!"
Yuuta lifted his milk tea cup like a chalice. "The east remains stable."
"Because sugar," Ras said.
"Because teamwork," Yuuta corrected with serious grace.
Totsuka ate in small, neat bites, eyes half on the street and half on the conversation like she didn't want to miss either. "You'll come to the tennis exhibition match during the festival?"
"If you invite me," Ras said.
"I'm inviting you," she replied, and then went pink like the strawberries.
"Noted."
They walked that way. The day felt deliberately ordinary, the way a garden feels "natural" after work no one sees.
---
The rooftop had one more use in it. Sunset made the fences into staves on which birds were nearly musical notes. Ras stood with his hands on the rail and let the city write itself into the distance. The Book dodn't show any strangness; the air stayed the kind of clean.
Hachika's footsteps arrived as if she'd been talking herself into them for a hundred meters. She came to stand a pace away, which was close, for her.
"You are too boring," she said.
"That was the job."
Silence, but of the kind that sits down rather than fidgets.
"…Thanks," she said, low enough to be plausible deniability.
"Anytime," he said. He didn't look at her. She didn't look at him. That was the contract.
She turned to go, then paused. "Tomorrow. Don't improvise without telling me."
"I didn't improvise today," he said.
"That's why I'm telling you for tomorrow." She left before he could agree and counted that as one anyway.
He stayed long enough to let the wind say something he could choose to hear or not. He chose not. Peace has a volume; you don't have to turn it up.
---
The vending machine outside the convenience store thunked a can into his palm with its usual intimate sound. He cracked the tab; the smell of coffee said ordinary in a language older than schedules.
"Normal," he said, and the breath he let out didn't have a mission.
He took a sip. It was too bitter and exactly right.
At night, the chat room glows and lively,
Yaya's message in the Guild: a picture of noodles so heroic it should have carried a flag. FOOD REPORTING IN!!! ANY FESTIVAL SNACKS?
Gojo added a sticker of sunglasses on a taiyaki;
Kazumi typed an ellipsis and a complaint about bricks;
Lin reacted with three fireworks and then deleted them, reposted two.
Ras fell face down and let the screen go dark.
Tomorrow could be planning forms, stage tape, and a tennis exhibition. It could be a crepe run and scolding from a teacher with hands like advice. It could be laughter from a hallway and a cardboard dragon that refused to fail.
He was fine with all of that.
He rinsed the can and set it to dry. Calm was a craft. Today, he'd practiced. Tomorrow, he would again.