Chapter Text
The world did not dim.
I had half-expected the color to fade once I passed through the gates, a cruel trick of the light or a fleeting hallucination born of a skipped breakfast. But the blue of the sky remained an aching, impossible cerulean, and the cherry blossoms continued to drift down in blushing constellations. The sensation was overwhelming.
Every sound—the click of shoes on cobblestone, the distant echo of a ball from the athletics field, the soft hum of an air conditioning unit—pressed against my eardrums with perfect, crystalline clarity. Possibly due to my extended senses.
It felt like a furnace was lit up inside my core, and I couldn't help the flush in my cheeks from warming further.
I paused in the shadow of the main building and placed a hand flat against the cool exterior wall. The stone's texture was granular and slightly rough beneath my palm. I could feel the tiny vibrations of the building's life: the rumble of the boiler room, the creak of old floorboards settling, the bass thrum of a hundred heartbeats moving through the hallways, the families settled in together taking pictures before the ceremony. It was all so alive.
I felt so, so warm.
My own heart still raced, a wild, unfamiliar rhythm. It was distracting. I cataloged the sensation; an elevated pulse, slight tremor in the fingers, a warmth spreading from my chest to my extremities. Is this what they called exhilaration? Joy? It was so strong it bordered on pain, a pleasant ache that settled into my bones like a fever.
The entrance ceremony was held in the gymnasium. I stood in the neat rows of first-year students, my hands folded primly before me. The principal spoke, his voice a droning, gray smear against my new-found senses. I did not listen. I was far too busy watching the light stream through the high windows, catching motes of dust that spun lazily in the air like flecks of gold. The student body was a painting: of dark uniforms and pale faces, a garden of still-budding flowers, and I was its newly appointed gardener.
Yes, gardener. That sounded right, didn't it?
A girl beside me shifted her weight, her elbow nearly brushing mine. I cataloged her without turning my head. Brown hair, slightly uneven. Shorter than me. A nervous habit of twisting her skirt between her fingers. Her shoes were scuffed at the toes, a minor imperfection. The scuff was small, easily overlooked.
She was not a weed. Merely a flower with a slightly bruised petal.
And she smelled quite pleasant too. Like a dessert of some kind. It wasn't overly cloying, and I had the sudden impulse to.
To what? I blinked. What were my thoughts straying to?
She looked at me, her green eyes watching me curiously.
I tilted my head, smiling at her involuntarily. Just a small turn of my lips, but her eyes widened a bit. How odd.
She blushed, smiling back.
That was a first. How pleasant that was.
After the ceremony, I quickly left my seat to scan over the perimeter. I skimmed over the class rosters posted in the hallways, filing away names that I was in need of looking up. I found my classroom. 1-A. The room was bright and airy, with large windows overlooking the inner courtyard. I chose a seat by the window, second from the back. From here, I could see the courtyard, a stretch of the main hallway through the open door, and the entire layout of the classroom.
Introductions were made, and I noted my classmates, one by one. I would memorize them, as I had before, but with more ferocity.
The teacher called us one by one.
I watched them all with a predator's patience, filing names like specimens. Fumetsu, Dere, Miyu, Haruka, Meichi, Ruto—on and on it went.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, a steady stream of notifications I silenced with a discreet tap. My class was a cross-section of blooms, all planted in neat rows. I cataloged their colors with detached precision, already calculating which might one day need pruning.
My own introduction was a bland, smooth thing. "I am Aishi Ayano. I like reading, cooking, gardening and gaming. I'm looking forward to this year. Please take care of me." A sentence that meant nothing and everything, sliding off their memories like water off glass as I bowed.
My phone vibrated insistently. In the brief pause before the next activity, I risked a glance. A series of LINE messages from Midori, timestamped from the moment the ceremony ended.
Mido-chan 💚💚💚
Ayano ! Player One to Player Two, do you read me ? :D
I’ve already scoped out the school map. We should have lunch on the rooftop! It's locked tho :p but who said we shouldn't have fun ! ! ! !
Unless you’re busy triggering a story flag already? Mouuuu.
! ! ! ! (꒪ᗜ꒪;)
That would be so like you, you mysterious protagonist, you.
Seen
Midori’s reality had always been porous, a world filtered through game mechanics and genre tropes. It annoyed most, but I had already dealt with those with unpleasant intentions. Mostly because of how loud they were. I used to hate noise.
Ayaya
Can't today. Doing something
How about tomorrow
?
Sent
Mido-chan 💚💚💚
Awwwwww. Side quest ?
Seen
Ayaya
Something like that....
Sent
Mido-chan 💚💚💚
Ok cap'n!!!! I’ll just loiter around like an NPC with until the script calls for me
Orrrrrr Mai fufu
Seeeee yaaaaa <3
💨ヾ(˶ ’Ｏ’˶ )ﾉﾞ
Seen
I slipped the phone back into my pocket, my attention returning to the classroom. Midori saw herself as a bit player. She had no idea how right she might be. But in a garden, even the smallest, strangest bloom could serve a purpose. I’d decide later what hers was.
Lunch came. In my previous year, I tasted nothing, eating with clinical detachment. Today, I brought my bento to the courtyard, finding a bench beneath the largest cherry tree. I had declined Midori's invite for lunch, citing some reason or the other.
The petals fell onto the lid of my box, bright pink against the dark lacquer. I picked one up, studying the delicate veins. It was perfect. Every petal on this tree was perfect. The thought filled me with a fierce, possessive pride. My tree. My petals.
I ate slowly. The food had so much taste. Rice, salmon, pickled plum. The flavors burst across my tongue like fireworks, sharp and salty and sweet. I almost wept, then and there.
Was this what it meant to be alive? To taste, to see, to feel the warm sun on your skin and recognize it as pleasure? I understood my mother now. The manic light in her eyes. The desperate, obsessive love that drove her to do unspeakable things. For the first time, I understood that her insanity made some sense. She was simply awake, and terrified of falling back asleep.
But she had loved a person. A single, fallible human being who could die. Her love was a fragile thing, balanced on the whims of one man's heart.
I was different. An outlier, as I had always been.
My mother often clashed heads with my grandmother. I had always been singled out, the first in many decades of an Aishi being so "emotionless". Too emotionless, rather. A cutout of a person, my cousins remarked. I never saw the point of it, and I never felt the need to defend myself.
I knew how easily infallible a person was to their emotions—and especially to another human.
I found it to be weak.
My love was not for a person. It was for this place. These grounds, these walls, these students who flowed through the courtyard like blood through veins. My love was vast and immutable. I would never have to fear the gray returning, because the school would always be here. It was eternal.
The problem with it, though....
A burst of laughter drew my attention. A group of boys jostled each other by the fountain, their voices too loud, their gestures too wide. One of them shoved another, and the boy stumbled back into the fountain's edge, nearly toppling into the water. The splash of his hand breaking the surface sent ripples skittering across the once-placid pool.
My chopsticks paused halfway to my mouth.
That. That was the problem.
Akademi tended to settle for less, nowadays. My mother had only done one “accident”—of which she lamented, citing that she was “far too young to properly think through it, and really, darling, I wouldn't have done it at all!”—which was enough to tumble the school's prestigious reputation.
Being backed by a megacorp like Saikou was enough for it to be elite.
But clearly anyone with pockets deep enough could enter.
I set my chopsticks down, my appetite plunging. It was frustrating. The shover was tall, with bleached hair that violated uniform code. The others were sycophants, laughing too loudly at his antics. They were disrupting the peace of the courtyard, shattering the peace with their discordant noise. The fountain's water, now disturbed, looked murky.
A weed, I thought. A small, ugly weed, sprouting at the edge of my garden. Disgusting.
But I was a new gardener.
I did not yet have the tools to prune. I did not know the soil, or the pests that might infest it. Patience, I told myself. A gardener must first understand her garden before she begins to pull. Rash action could damage the roots of something so, so precious.
I finished my lunch, frowning. The salmon did not taste as sweet as before, and my stomach tightened. The joy of the morning felt tarnished now, stained by the ugliness of that weed. Was this the price of love? A constant, gnawing awareness of everything that could ruin it?
How awful.
A vibration against my thigh. I pulled out my phone and saw a notification from an unknown number, the profile picture a simple black square. The message was encrypted, a series of characters that resolved into plain text as I watched, as if someone was overriding my phone's security in real time.
Unknown
Hello, Ayano Aishi.
If you ever need tools for your plans, I have a shop.
My services can be used with the app I installed in your phone.
I can help you with your Senpai.
Though you can choose to ignore me if you wish. I'm not one for excessive violence.
Seen
I stared at the screen for a long moment. The courtyard around me remained idyllic. I scanned the windows of the surrounding buildings, the shadows beneath the walkways, the rooftop silhouette against the sky.
The app was in my phone. It had everything I could've ever needed. What was this? A new variable. Unquantified. Potentially a resource, potentially a threat. They offered tools—frankly illegal, and difficult to obtain, and with questionable names—like a shadowy merchant from one of Midori's RPG games. Did they know what I was?
Evidently so.
A Senpai? The nerve. No one could compare to Akademi.
I typed no reply. I would not show my hand so soon. The message quickly disappeared from my phone, but I felt irked. A useful carnivorous plant in my garden, yes. But a carnivore is still a carnivore. Whether they caught flies for me or eventually tried to snare me in their web, I would be ready.
The remainder of the day passed in a blur of new information. Teachers, their faces now distinct and memorable. The layout of the hallways, the location of the library, the student council room, the infirmary, the gymnasium storage closets. I noted every lack of a camera, every lock that looked flimsy or rusted. My mother's training whispered in the back of my mind: Know your territory. Know its weaknesses, so you may protect it.
I would fix all of this, soon.
As the final bell rang, I lingered in the classroom, taking my time to pack my bag. The room emptied around me, voices trailing off down the hallway until only the quiet hum of the air conditioner remained. I walked to the window and looked down at the courtyard. The delinquents were gone. The fountain was still again, its surface a perfect mirror reflecting the orange glow of the setting sun.
I pressed my fingertips to the cool glass.
"I will protect you," I whispered, feeling my cheeks blush. The words felt strange and sacred, a vow I had not known I was preparing to make. My heart hammered, and it felt as if the school itself was alive, alive with me. "I will keep you beautiful. No one will ruin you."
The glass fogged slightly with my breath. I wiped it away with my sleeve, leaving the pane spotless.
I love you.
.
.
.
A figure behind a screen cursed, face twisted into a frown.
Something had gone irrevocably wrong.
But it wasn't all too lost yet.
Not yet.
.
.
The walk home was interesting. The world outside the school gates was still in color, but it was a muted palette compared to the vibrant brilliance of the campus. The school was the sun, and the rest of the world was merely the dim glow it cast upon the surrounding land.
My father greeted me at the door with his usual smile. He was earlier than usual today, though he looked rather frazzled. "How was your first day, dear?"
He usually wasn't this subtle. He could've just asked. He was asking if I had found him. The Boy. The one who would wake me up.
"Eventful," I said, and I let a small, real smile touch my lips.
His eyes widened. I saw the shock ripple through his expression, the way his hand tightened on the doorframe. He knew. He recognized the light in my eyes, because he had seen it in my mother's for decades.
"Ayano..." he breathed, and his voice was a mixture of relief and terror. "Did... you found...?"
I stepped past him into the genkan, slipping off my shoes with careful, precise movements. "I did."
"Oh." He swallowed hard. "Who... who is he? A classmate?"
I thought of the bleached-haired delinquests and their loud, grating laughter. The scuffed shoes of the girl beside me. The dust motes in the gymnasium, the cherry blossoms, the cool stone walls. The fountain and its steady water.
The disgust that filled me. The happiness that I felt. The longing to go back and lie down in Akademi's ground and protect, love it with all my heart.
"No. Well. Something like that," I said.
During dinner, my mother asked me the same question, and I smiled. I dodged all their questions. They wouldn't understand it.
"If you have a question, dear, just ask me anything." And she smiled, proudly, her eyes burning. “I won't abandon you, after all. Trust mama!”
Alright, I thought, my parents have a lot of parental baggage of their own. I almost snorted then and there, but that might've sent them both into a tizzy. The emotional 180° was perhaps far too fast.
When I washed the dishes, she put put her hand on my shoulder.
She never said anything, but it felt electric, a rite of passage.
My father spent a few minutes too long, staring outside.
“Don't worry, Father,” I started off quite strongly, sitting next to him. “I will be nothing like them.”
He looked at me blankly, then scoffed.
“Of course, Ayano. You were never like any of them to begin with.”
Throughout the night, I fended off my mother with any specific questions of hers, and commiserated with my father—on my end—of my mother's rather direct methods.
All of it was far too bloody for my taste. I knew of their tapes. How could I not? All of my maternal relatives had a sadistic streak, which I found distasteful. Particularly my cousin, who almost turned her own elite school into Akademi. Honestly, what school had blood in it's walls? That was just unsanitary.
I shuddered. The school might even shut down. And that? That, I did not want.
I would elimate anyone who would even try.
Day 1. Monday. Akademi High School. 98 students observed. 18 faculty members. 4 floors, 2 courtyards, 1 rooftop (access currently restricted). The……
……
I wrote and wrote and wrote all I could. I couldn't quite trust my tech, considering what that Info-chan could do.
I paused, tapping my pen against the page.
The school is mine. I will learn everything about it. I will map its veins and memorize its breath. And when I am ready, I will begin to prune it.
I must have zoned out, considering the rest of the page were just a clutter of I love you's and hearts, and a rather accurate sketch of the front of Akademi.
.....Well. I'd moon over it some other time.
I closed the notebook and slipped it into my desk drawer, beneath a stack of old psychology texts. Then I went to the window and looked out at the night sky. The stars were pinpricks of silver against black velvet. Even they seemed less brilliant than the shimmer of the courtyard fountain.
Somewhere out there, my school was sleeping. Its hallways were dark, its classrooms empty, its heartbeat slow and steady in the quiet dark. I imagined it dreaming, and I imagined myself as its silent guardian, standing watch over its slumber.
Soon, I thought. Soon, I will make you mine.
My reflection in the window glass smiled back at me, and for the first time, the expression did not feel odd on my face. It felt as natural as breathing.
I went to bed, closed my eyes, and dreamed not of a boy with gray eyes, but of cherry blossoms and pristine white walls, and the sweet, heady scent of freshly turned soil.
I dreamt and dreamt, sleeping away to the grounds of Nirvana.
.
.
.