Shimiki Yerin noticed the door because it wasn't right.
The student council room was meant to be sealed off from the rest of the school—quiet, orderly, contained. She always made sure of that. Doors closed fully. Windows latched. Curtains aligned. Small things mattered when the rest of the world felt increasingly unstable.
But now, as she reviewed the last of the paperwork under the steady hum of fluorescent lights, a thin line of hallway light cut across the floor.
The door was slightly ajar.
Yerin paused, pen hovering above the page. For a moment, she simply stared at that sliver of light, her chest tightening for reasons she didn't immediately name.
Did someone come in?
Did someone listen?
Her shoulders stiffened. She set the pen down carefully, aligning it with the edge of the desk, then stood. The chair didn't make a sound—she made sure of that. Old habits from years of needing control over small things.
"I must have forgotten to close it properly," she murmured to herself.
She walked toward the door, steps measured, expression neutral. There was no reason to feel uneasy. This room wasn't forbidden territory. Students passed by all the time. Still, a strange awareness prickled at the back of her neck, like she was stepping into something already decided.
She reached for the door.
Before closing it, she hesitated.
Yerin didn't know why she did it—why she leaned forward just slightly, why her fingers tightened on the edge of the doorframe instead of pushing it shut. Perhaps it was instinct. Perhaps it was exhaustion finally dulling her usual restraint.
She peeked into the hallway.
At first, she saw nothing but the long stretch of polished floor and lockers catching the evening light. The school was nearly empty now, echoes replacing voices. Then, at the far end of the corridor, someone moved.
A familiar figure turned the corner.
Messy medium-length hair. Hands shoved into pockets. A walk that looked careless but wasn't—too alert, too ready to bolt or bite.
Ryohan Ren.
Yerin froze.
Ren didn't look back. She disappeared around the corner as if she had never been there at all, leaving behind only the faint sense that something had just brushed past Yerin's life without stopping.
The door felt heavier in her hand.
So she was here, Yerin thought.
The realization sent a quiet ripple through her chest—not shock, not anger, but something more complicated. Awareness. Confirmation. Ren hadn't confronted her. Hadn't mocked her. Hadn't said anything at all.
Yerin closed the door gently and turned the lock.
She leaned back against it for a brief moment—so brief it barely counted as indulgence—and closed her eyes.
How long?
Did she see everything?
Her fingers curled against the wood. The image of Ren watching from the hallway rose unbidden in her mind: sharp eyes, crooked smirk, waiting for the right moment to strike.
Except… there had been no strike.
Yerin exhaled slowly and pushed herself away from the door. She returned to her desk, sat down, and straightened the stacks of papers that no longer needed straightening.
Her heart refused to settle.
Ren had been the spark behind the rumors—Yerin knew that now. She didn't need proof. She had spent her life reading people, tracing cause and effect, understanding how chaos moved through systems. Ren was reckless, sharp-tongued, hungry for reaction.
And yet.
Yerin lifted her gaze to the darkened window. Her reflection stared back at her—composed, distant, untouchable. Miss Perfect.
If Ren saw me like this, she wondered, what did she think?
The thought irritated her more than it should have.
She shook her head and gathered her belongings. Speculation was pointless. Feelings even more so. Whatever Ren's intentions were, Yerin couldn't afford to be distracted. Not now. Not with the school watching her every move, not with teachers quietly evaluating her response, not with the unspoken fear of her parents looming like a shadow she couldn't outrun.
She left the student council room, locking the door behind her. The hallway was empty now, the earlier presence reduced to memory alone. Her footsteps echoed softly as she walked, the sound precise and controlled.
But her thoughts were anything but.
She replayed the moment again and again—the door ajar, the instinct to look, Ren's back as she turned the corner. It unsettled Yerin because it suggested something she didn't like acknowledging: that Ren hadn't come to hurt her.
At least, not then.
Why didn't you say anything? Yerin asked silently, directing the question down the empty hallway.
No answer came.
As she stepped outside, the evening air greeted her with a sharp chill. Students were long gone. Teachers' cars were beginning to leave the parking lot. The school felt stripped of its masks, reduced to concrete and glass and fading light.
Yerin adjusted her bag on her shoulder and began the walk home.
She told herself she wouldn't think about Ryohan Ren anymore tonight.
She told herself that what Ren saw didn't matter.
She told herself many things.
Yet with every step, the image followed her—the almost-encounter, the silence, the choice Ren had made to walk away instead of opening that door.
Yerin had spent years believing people were predictable. That given the right pressure, they always acted according to type.
Ren, it seemed, was proving her wrong.
And that—more than the rumors, more than the fear—was what truly unsettled Shimiki Yerin as she disappeared into the quiet evening, carrying questions she didn't yet know how to ask.