The entrance ceremony was every bit as tedious as I'd predicted. The principal delivered a long-winded speech about "the future" and "the fire of youth," which ultimately only succeeded in making me yawn three times.
Once the ceremony concluded, I immediately headed down the hallway toward my classroom: Class 1-B. As someone who craves the peace to read novels or solve mystery brainteasers, I already had my eyes on the most strategic seat: the back row, right by the window.
I slid the classroom door open. The atmosphere inside was already buzzing. Small groups were forming, people introducing themselves and chatting about their old middle schools. Ignoring the noise, I walked straight toward my target desk.
However, just as I set my bag down, my instincts suddenly caught a sharp gaze directed at me from across the room.
I froze for a second. In the corner of the class sat a girl with long hair tied neatly back, a stark contrast to the rowdiness surrounding her. Our eyes met. She had a piercing stare—the kind of eyes that looked as if they could read your thoughts in a single glance.
That face... it felt familiar.
"Itsuka...?" she murmured. Her voice wasn't loud, but it was enough to make me stop dead in my tracks.
My memory was instantly hurled back six years. The image of a young girl who used to follow me everywhere during elementary school suddenly surfaced. The same girl who would always scold me if I came home late because I was too busy reading mystery books in the village library.
"Yumina Nika?" I asked, making sure.
The girl stood up from her chair. Her calm expression vanished in an instant. She crossed her arms, lifted her chin slightly, and her gaze turned fierce—an expression I recognized all too well from our childhood.
"I see your memory isn't as bad as your old math grades, Shinomiya Itsuka," she snapped bitingly. "Why do you have to be in this class too? I was hoping to start a peaceful high school life without having to see your stupid face."
I could only scratch my head, though it didn't itch. "Well, this is a public school. Anyone can get in. But I didn't expect you to move back to this town, Nika. Didn't you say you were moving far away after elementary graduation because of your parents' work?"
Flashback: Six Years Ago That afternoon, under the giant tree behind the school, Nika stood with swollen eyes. She gripped the hem of her skirt tightly while I was busy cleaning a scrape on my knee from falling while chasing a cat.
"Itsuka, I'm moving tomorrow," she said softly.
"Oh, stay safe on the road," I replied innocently—perhaps a bit too obliviously.
Nika suddenly screamed in frustration, "Is that it?! You really are useless! And here I was... I was really going to miss this place!"
She then ran away without looking back. At the time, I just thought she was annoyed because I didn't give her a dramatic farewell. I never realized that "missing this place" might have meant something else entirely.
Present Day Nika walked toward my desk. She stopped right in front of me, and a faint, floral scent of perfume wafted over, overpowering the dusty smell of the new classroom.
"Don't get the wrong idea," she said quickly, her cheeks flushing slightly even though her eyes remained sharp. "I didn't come back here because I wanted to see you again. This is strictly a family matter. Understand?"
"Yeah, yeah. I get it," I replied as I took my seat in the back. "Besides, we haven't seen each other in three years since middle school. A lot of things change, right?"
Nika went quiet for a moment. She glanced toward the window, then looked back at me with a slightly softer gaze, though her lips were still pressed into a firm line. "At least you look a bit... taller. And it seems your hobby of reading those weird books hasn't disappeared either."
She pointed to the novel in my bag. I gave a thin smile. "Some things aren't supposed to change, Nika."
Nika huffed, then turned back toward her desk, which turned out to be only two rows ahead of mine. Before sitting down, she muttered something that almost escaped my hearing.
"So dense..."
I could only sigh. My first day of high school wasn't going to be as quiet as I'd imagined. Having Shiro at home was already enough to keep my days colorful, and now, this emotional childhood friend had suddenly reappeared.
The chatter in Class 1-B resumed after my brief interaction with Nika. I could feel several pairs of eyes on us—they probably thought some romantic drama had just begun. To me, however, meeting Yumina Nika again was like finding a missing puzzle piece, only to find the piece had jagged edges ready to cut your hand if you held it wrong.
I leaned back in my chair, staring at Nika's rigid back two rows ahead. She hasn't changed, I thought. Still surrounded by high, thorny fences.
My daydreaming was interrupted when a middle-aged male teacher with thick glasses entered. "Good morning, everyone. I am your homeroom teacher, Satou-sensei. Since it's the first day, please use the next hour to get to know each other and fill out the club application forms."
Satou-sensei handed a sheet of paper to every desk. When it landed on mine, I just stared at it blankly. A club? To me, clubs were just organizations that wasted my reading time. But before I could write "The Go-Home Club," a shadow blocked my light.
Nika was standing in front of my desk, arms crossed. "Don't tell me you're joining the literature club again like before, Itsuka."
I looked up, giving her the same thin smile that usually annoyed Shiro. "What if I am? It's the quietest place to sharpen my grey matter, Nika."
"Lame," Nika snorted, but she didn't leave. Instead, she pulled the chair in front of my desk and sat down facing me—a bold move for the first day of school. "You know, this town has changed a lot since we were kids. Don't think you can just keep living in your own little world."
"Oh? You sound like you're warning me about something mysterious," I said, growing interested. "Is this part of the 'family matter' you mentioned?"
Nika's eyes flickered. She looked away toward the window, exactly like Shiro had done this morning. Do all the women in my life have a hobby of staring out windows? I wondered.
While I was struggling with Nika's mysterious aura at school, back at the house that was supposed to be empty because Shiro said she was off...
"Stupid Nii-chan... clumsy... useless..."
Shiro was in my room. She wore a pink apron over her casual t-shirt. Her hand held a vacuum cleaner, but her eyes were fixed on the slightly messy stack of Light Novels on my shelf.
"He says he loves mysteries, yet he can't even solve the mystery of why his socks always go missing," Shiro grumbled, picking up a sock from under the bed with her fingertips as if it were a piece of high-level criminal evidence.
She began tidying my desk. Her fingers brushed an old photo frame tucked away behind a pile of books. It was a photo of the two of us with our parents, a few months before the accident.
Shiro's usually flat, cold expression softened. There was a deep sadness in her eyes—a side of her she never allowed me to see. "Only I can look after him, because someone like Nii-chan wouldn't survive on his own," she whispered softly to the photo.
Suddenly, Shiro spotted a small notebook lying open under the desk. She picked it up. It was my "analysis" notebook where I recorded observations about people around me. Shiro flipped through the pages until she stopped at one titled: "Shiro." It seems my cute little sister is growing up and getting bigger, and by bigger, I mean... that part, but I will always protect her.
Shiro's face instantly turned bright red, all the way to the tips of her ears.
"NII-CHAN, YOU PERVERT! WHAT IS THIS NOTE!"
She slammed the book back onto the floor, and with an explosion of emotion, she began cleaning my room with full force, as if the dust were a manifestation of my annoying existence. "I'll make sure tomorrow's breakfast is burnt to a crisp! Just you wait!"
I was walking down the hallway toward the cafeteria with Nika. Somehow, she had decided to follow me.
"So, Nika, you haven't answered my question. Why come back now? After six years of silence?" I asked, dodging a crowd of students running past.
Nika was silent for a long time. Her pace slowed as we passed the shoe lockers. "My parents... they felt there was something unfinished in this town."
I stopped walking. "Unfinished? Like what?"
Nika stared at me with an incredibly sharp gaze, almost like an interrogation. "Itsuka, have you ever felt... that your parents' death wasn't just an accident?"
My heart skipped a beat. That was the question I had kept buried deep in my consciousness for years. "Why are you asking that?"
Nika stepped closer, closing the distance between us until I could catch the scent of her hair, making me blush slightly. She was just about to open her mouth when a male student with a "Student Council" armband intentionally bumped into my shoulder.
"Oi, Shinomiya! Don't block the hallway with your girlfriend!" he shouted with a mocking laugh.
Nika immediately jumped back three steps, her face turning red with embarrassment and rage. "G-Girlfriend?! Who are you calling a girlfriend, you delinquent!" she screamed at him, but he was already gone.
She then glared at me, returning to her usual tsundere mode. "Forget what I said! It was just my imagination! And don't you dare think I like you, got it?!"
Nika turned and ran off, leaving me standing frozen in the corridor.
I felt something massive moving behind the scenes of our boring lives. This reunion with Nika wasn't a coincidence; it was the first chapter of a mystery. At least, that's how it felt.
I looked toward the sky through the corridor window. Dark clouds were beginning to gather in the distance.
"Looks like it's going to rain," I whispered to myself.
--END OF CHAPTER 1--