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Old Planning Room lay stranded at the far edge of the academic building, as distant from administration as the floor plan allowed. Over time it had stopped being a place for work and turned into a comfortable teachers’ den—a makeshift smoking room where birthdays were marked, minor holidays invented, or gatherings held for no reason at all. Drunken jokes, laughter, no trace of formality. Very few students knew about this warm pocket. It was cut off from the main current of school life by a corridor lined on both sides with doors whose plaques alone induced boredom: archive, janitorial room, storage, supply closet, sanitation. Students never wandered here—the risk of stumbling into cleaning duty or the sorting of dusty stacks of waste paper was too high.
The corridor itself, laid out in black and white tiles like a chessboard, was long, empty, and dark. At one end stood a tall, narrow window of frosted glass that let in only a small amount of smoky street light. To the right of the window, in a swollen ceramic planter, crouched a large plant. Shinsou had seen the same kind elsewhere in the Academy—there they resembled trees, heavy with large, bright red flowers and tight, glossy leaves. This one had clearly been forgotten. Its leaves drooped, dulled, filmed with a pale residue, though they still clung to life. On the floor around the pot lay several fallen buds, wine-colored, never opened.
Shinsou prodded the soil with a finger, carefully. Dry. Dusty. In places seized by a hard, lichen-like crust. It hadn’t seen water in a long time. The plant had been shoved too deep into the dark corner, left here in neglect, like a student punished for misbehavior. He wiped his finger on his uniform, hooked the limp buds with the toe of his boot, and nudged them away without care.
He flicked the switch on his mask, tuning it slightly. From behind the metal plates spilled Hizashi’s voice.
“Don’t stand here, kid. Aizawa’s busy. Go home.”
Shinsou repeated it several times, shifting the intonation—first copying Yamada’s relaxed, familiar drawl, then sharpening it, lacing it with bite. The voice came out mocking.
“Go home, kid.”
He pivoted on his heels and headed down the corridor the other way, deliberately stepping only on the white tiles. They surfaced from the darkness in orderly rows and bared themselves at Hitoshi with a phosphorescent gleam, like sparse but sharp teeth in a monster’s mouth.
One, two, three…
Ten white tiles to the door of the methodological office. He couldn’t step on the black ones. He couldn’t step on the seams. Those were the rules. He’d known them since childhood. Otherwise—an immediate loss. The floor would split open beneath his feet and the abyss would take him.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The sound of his steps first shot upward, striking the ceiling with a hollow echo, as if trying to break free, then, finding no escape, slid down the walls and pooled in trembling reverberations at his feet. It seemed to Shinsou that it wasn’t he who was making the noise at all, but the walls themselves grumbling at him—petty, displeased—that he’d dared to violate their mute stillness with his steps.
White. Skip the black. White again.
He stopped in front of the door to the methodological office. In the half-light it lost its contours, looked less like an object and more like a dark rupture in the wall, opening straight into emptiness. His hand moved without thought, lifting to knock. The fist tightened; the scraped skin over his knuckles had already braced itself for the cool resistance of wood.
Laughter exploded from behind the door. Shinsou jerked his hand back from the shapeless void. Whatever was happening inside, the fun was only gaining momentum. It was stupid and useless to try to remind them of his existence when half-drunk teachers were doubled over with laughter. Either they wouldn’t hear him, or they’d tell him to wait—like they already had, twice today.
The first time, Nemuri had poked her head out, slightly breathless from low, chesty laughter. Shinsou had tried to look past her, but she blocked the doorway completely. Behind her he’d caught only Yamada’s hands, flailing with emphatic violence, and the echo of some idiotic joke pouring from his loud throat. Nemuri had looked at Hitoshi, one carefully plucked and dyed eyebrow arching in question.
“Call Aizawa-sensei,”
he’d said dully, without wasting time on greetings.
Nemuri had thrown up her hands and shaken. Shinsou had frowned. She was laughing? Had he said something funny?
“Has anyone ever told you you’re indecently cute, Hitoshi, even though you look like such a grump?”
She’d breathed alcohol fumes into the corridor air and reached for his face, clearly intending to pinch his cheek.
She’d done that once before. Shinsou didn’t want a repeat. He’d stepped back and said, quietly, teeth clenched,
“Please call Aizawa-sensei.”
“Ah, youth.” Nemuri had rolled her eyes to the ceiling, her pretty head swaying in a small, rhythmic arc, as if mounted on a resilient metal spring.
“I’m afraid sensei is a little busy right now. You’ll have to wait.”
Inside the room, Hizashi was shrieking and choking on laughter, building toward what he clearly thought was the funniest part of the joke. The rest of them roared along. Shinsou thought he could hear Aizawa’s voice among it—low, rumbling.
Nemuri had retreated slowly back into the room, and Hitoshi had been left outside, biting his lip and nervously worrying at a white tile with the toe of his boot. With an effort of will, he forced his foot to still. His hand tried to take its place, reaching out of habit for the cowlicks at the back of his head. Shinsou shook it off and curled his fingers into a fist. Nemuri was almost gone from the doorway.
“Wait… tell him I’m waiting,” Hitoshi had dropped at the last moment.
Nemuri had nodded vaguely and shut the door with more force than the situation required. The corridor walls howled, hostile, with the reverberation. As if it were Shinsou’s fault that their sacred silence had been defiled by an ill-timed crash. Hitoshi let out an irritated breath and started, once again, to count the tiles beneath his feet.
Eight tiles across, seventy-nine in length. Six hundred thirty-two tiles in total. White. Skip the black. White again. And so on, to the end. The corridor was long.
He wasn’t going to leave.
At the far end the corridor split, the black-and-white pattern giving way to beige epoxy flooring, scuffed here and there by students’ shoes. The lamps were sparse but lit; it was brighter there.
Shinsou lingered at the corner only a moment before turning back, stubbornly heading toward the door of the methodological office again. Only to be waved off once more. This time—by Hizashi. Carefree, loose-limbed, he was clearly tipsy. Present Mic was smiling, but the urge to be rid of a persistent student soaked his face as thoroughly as alcohol fumes saturated the air of the room.
“Come on, don’t wait for him,” he said, flicking a hand, swaying slightly. “If you need Shouta, then—well. He’s going to be busy for a long time. Go home.”
Shinsou didn’t like Yamada’s thin mustache. Didn’t like his emerald, drunken eyes. Didn’t like the voice that was too loud, the ridiculous puff of hair, the leather pants wrong for his age and wrong for his size. But most of all he didn’t like how familiar Aizawa’s name sounded coming from his mouth.
“I’ll wait,” he said firmly, not taking his eyes off the teacher.
Hizashi froze for a second, then shrugged, let out a heavy sigh, and shook his head.
“Well, well. You’ll be waiting a while,” his tongue smacked unpleasantly as it worked the words around his mouth.
“Honestly… talk to him tomorrow morning. Go. Go home, kid. Don’t stand here.”
He waved again, shooing him away from the door like an annoying kitten, and immediately slipped back inside. For a moment, when the door opened a fraction wider, Hitoshi saw Aizawa. He was sitting at the table, gripping a small crystal shot glass with brown liquid trembling inside it. He wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t speaking. He was just looking into the doorway.
And Shinsou knew that he had seen him.
He swallowed hard and, with a quiet sigh, stepped away from the door as it slammed shut. The hollow corridor collapsed around him again with its disapproving grumble. The next fifteen minutes he spent by the cloudy window, listening to the muffled sounds leaking from behind the door of the methodological office. Sometimes laughter reached him.
Sometimes the muted clink of dishes. Shinsou stared almost without blinking at the plant in the corner, slowly dying of thirst. Appropriate company.
Then he went back to the black door again.
He checked his watch. Training was supposed to have started half an hour ago, and now it was obvious it wouldn’t happen. He hadn’t really hoped for it. He hadn’t even changed into his training clothes—didn’t want to feel like the same idiot he’d been last week, sitting outside an empty gym, waiting.
He looked at his watch again. Less than a minute had passed. He wanted to believe that any second now the door would swing open and Aizawa would step out straight toward him. Calm. Ready to talk. But miracles like that? No. They either don’t happen at all, or they happen wrong.
Shinsou went back to his useless occupation: counting tiles. One, two, three. If you ignore the black ones, there are thirty white tiles to the end of the corridor. Tap. Tap. Tap. Step on white. Skip black. Don’t step on the seams.
He let out a sharp breath and muttered through clenched teeth,
“Enough. This is ridiculous. Like kindergarten.”
The words shook something loose. The forgotten piece of gum surfaced on his tongue. It had long since lost its minty freshness and now just tasted bitter. Irritating. Shinsou spat it into his palm. The bitterness didn’t go away. There should be a trash bin around the corner.
He set off again along the route he’d memorized too well over the course of the evening. Tap. Tap. White tile. Another. And another.
The echo of his footsteps rang in his ears, but it was nothing compared to what was going on in his head. For the second week now, it had been a full-blown frenzy in there. Shinsou tried to picture his thoughts in color; what came out looked like something from Bosch—surreal and merciless. A whole ring of devils, demons, little imps and other petty vermin smeared with soot spun and writhed in a hellish dance over nearly extinguished coals. They were punished, driven deep down, exiled to the farthest margins of his mind, but their nature hadn’t changed for it. They hissed, hooted, and kept whispering the same worn, nagging refrain, breaking through the pulse pounding in his temples: Come on. Come on. Don’t wait. Act.
Above the frenzied demons towered a massive, pale angel. Its cold body was carved from marble. Its voice—resounding, trumpet-clear—filled the entire space inside Hitoshi, seeping into every corner of his consciousness like a sermon.
Strange. It felt as though Shinsou had known this newly invented angel for a long time now, ever since his Quirk had first manifested. The angel had no face—only smooth, polished stone. Its voice was loud, unyielding, alien, like words spoken from a lectern where there is only a verdict and a sentence. The angel was ready to instruct him tirelessly, to deliver demanding admonitions. It knew everything about Shinsou and was severe. Its finger, long and straight like a pointer, hovered in judgment over the cooling coals where the little demons swarmed. Its voice split the silence in his head with an impossible sermon: You must carry light in every step. You must suffer with dignity. Stay away from temptation.
It seemed the angel even controlled Shinsou’s steps, guiding his feet onto the white tiles. It undoubtedly preferred everything white—clean, safe, correct.
Shinsou shook his head sharply and let out a bitter, crooked smile, trying to shake off the weight of the figurative angels and devils dividing space inside his skull. Tell anyone about this, and they’d think he was insane.
It turned out he’d gotten stuck in the middle of the corridor inside his own strange thoughts. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d stopped moving. The gum in his hand had softened and was starting to stick to his fingers, making his skin crawl. He examined his palm, where the gray, tacky lump was spreading. The skin was rough, marked with brownish healing scratches; the tips of his fingers were peeling from training with the binding cloth.
He took a slow breath and headed toward where the trash bin should have been. But around the corner, in its usual spot, there was nothing. Only faint, pressed-in marks under a layer of dust suggested it had ever been there at all. Shinsou stopped, staring down at the empty floor. Of course, he thought. Hero Course. Anything could’ve happened to the bin—blown up, shattered by an ultra move, frozen solid, incinerated.
What was most irritating was the sign asking people not to litter, hanging directly over the absent bin, like a taunt.
Shinsou let out a dry chuckle and, annoyed, flicked the switch on his mask, speaking in Iida’s voice, lending his tone ceremonial severity,
“Do not litter! It is vital for maintaining order in the Academy!”
The voice was absurdly precise. Even his hands had started chopping the air in the class rep’s habitual gestures.
Click.
Now Bakugou’s voice—loud, hoarse:
“Who thought it was a good idea to put this damn trash can here? Morons!”
Hitoshi himself could have believed it was the explosive student tearing the air apart with shouting and sudden accusations at everyone and everything. He took off the mask, inspected it, and shoved it into the backpack on his shoulders, right on top of the binding weapon coiled into neat figure-eights.
A good toy. But useless if he didn’t transfer into the Hero Course.
Shinsou scowled, peeled the gum off his hands, and stuck it straight onto the sign, out of spite, against every instruction posted there. He stepped back a couple of paces and froze. Then, sharply, he turned around, went back, tore the gum off the sign in one motion, and clenched it in his fist. He knew he’d shove it into a pocket and forget about it, stain his uniform later—but he still hid it away in the side pocket of his pants. As always. By the rules. Even in something this small. Because if he let himself go—even a little—it could lead to the most catastrophic consequences. He knew that already.
Shinsou forced down an irritated breath and continued toward the office at the end of the corridor, lifting his feet over the black tiles.
He turned the corner, and the same corridor stretched out in front of him again. How many times had he walked back and forth here already? The aching echo of the empty space rang in his ears. He was tired of the noise. More than anything, he wanted silence. Certainty.
His thoughts slid back, unwillingly, to the training session—the one from two weeks ago. He’d ruined everything then. And now he’d been stuck here for over an hour, trying to make sense of it, to understand where he stood and what he was supposed to do next.
It had all felt strange from the very beginning. Just like today, there’d been an evening drinking session among the teachers. Shinsou didn’t know it for certain, but something had tipped him off—Aizawa had been late. Only fifteen minutes, but Shinsou had known immediately that something was wrong. Aizawa had looked… different. There was something foreign about him. The first thing Shinsou noticed was the fresh—too fresh—smell of his breath, as if he’d just swallowed an entire bundle of mint, washed it down with a liter of toothpaste, and chased it with a kilo of menthol candies.
And the cologne. Shinsou had caught the sharp scent even before Aizawa came close. Something harsh and aggressively masculine, sold under a banal name like Man Sport, the kind that hits your nose from ten meters away. It was completely unlike him. Shinsou was used to very different smells. Usually Aizawa smelled of cats, coffee, cafeteria food grabbed on the run—and something else, elusive, cozy, and familiar.
Sensei first gave a cursory check of how Shinsou had worked through the exercises from the previous session, not lingering on mistakes or imprecision. Then he showed a couple more techniques with the binding cloth—moves that, at first glance, looked simple. Shinsou knew the price of that apparent ease too well for it to fool him. What unsettled him was Aizawa’s behavior: slack, soft, almost drowsy, without the usual sharp corrections or searching, critical looks. It scraped at him like a rusty nail. Aizawa looked as though he’d had a very good evening with someone, and Shinsou was only interrupting it.
There was barely any training to speak of—two laps around the gym, after which sensei said, “Stop. That’s enough.” Hardly counted. They moved on to sparring, which always closed their sessions. Aizawa taught him to defend himself without weapons or a Quirk, like a real pro hero. Shinsou already sensed it would end quickly too, that sensei would leave with a brief goodbye. The thought sparked something strange inside him—a faint, hard-to-name jealousy, and the wanting for Shouta to stay. To linger here, in this gym, not rush back to the cheerful company, not forget him. So he threw himself into the fight with desperate intensity, trying to steal at least a few more minutes with Aizawa.
The suspicion that sensei had been drinking dug even deeper into Shinsou’s mind. Aizawa was relaxed, his reactions slowed—only by fractions of a second, but Shinsou noticed. If that was the case, Hitoshi decided, he would use it to his advantage—and win. Maybe sensei would get competitive, want a rematch, stay longer.
With that thought, Shinsou lunged forward, shooting low and driving into Aizawa’s legs, striking his sides just enough to throw him off balance. Now he saw the opening. Each movement sharpened, grew more precise. Then he executed a clean pickup—a grip at the thigh, a quick rotation to tear Aizawa from his footing. Sensei’s back hit the mat; he didn’t even have time to blink before Hitoshi had his wrists pinned.
Breathing hard, Shinsou hovered over Shouta. He was on top. His first real victory. Adrenaline surged through his chest, tangled with a dizzying euphoria. He even laughed—at the win, at the sudden, intoxicating sense of superiority. All that remained was the final strike, and Shinsou lifted his hand, ready to end the bout.
But at that moment he looked down.
Aizawa lay beneath him, breathing hard. His black hair had slipped free of its usual tie, fallen loose and disordered. A faint flush burned on his cheeks—something Shinsou had never seen on that pale skin before. It was strange. Too arresting.
Hitoshi let out a stunned breath. He couldn’t stop, even if he wanted to. The devils in his head snapped their chains, and he came down on Aizawa—not with a strike, but with a kiss. He wasn’t kissing him; he was drinking his breath, fast and uneven.
Everything happened too quickly, too thoughtlessly. Shinsou kissed him with desperation, as if his mouth had been starving for this moment for a long time. But when his mind finally caught up with his body, he understood it had gone too far. His tongue had already learned the heat of Aizawa’s mouth too thoroughly for it to be an accident. His cheeks had scraped against rough stubble; he’d tasted the sharp, drunken bite of cognac on Aizawa’s lips, so carefully masked by cooling menthol.
Shinsou pulled back sharply. Their lips separated slowly, a thin strand of saliva stretching between them. It felt as though he hadn’t breathed at all; the air in his throat turned icy, sharp. He tried to say something, but the words refused to form.
Aizawa beneath him looked stunned. He didn’t resist. Didn’t even try. He just lay there, his eyes clouded. Shouta lifted a hand and ran a finger along Shinsou’s lower lip, wiping away the damp trace of the kiss. And Hitoshi couldn’t stop himself—instinctively, he drew the finger into his mouth, barely touching it with his teeth.
The next second, everything inverted.
Shinsou was on his back now, Aizawa looming over him. Dark hair brushed his face, and deep in sensei’s eyes—gone frighteningly black—sparks of fire glinted. Without hesitation, Shouta slid a hand into Shinsou’s hair, pulled him closer, and claimed his mouth. It was inexplicable—hungry, yet astonishingly gentle.
With shaking hands, Shinsou clutched at Aizawa, arching under his weight, wanting more, wanting to be closer to that heavy, strong body. A sound slipped from his lips—unbidden, thin, almost a sob.
Shouta jerked, as if coming back to himself.
He stood up quickly and, swaying, made his way toward the exit, rasping something that sounded like “Sorry” as he went. And Hitoshi was left lying on the cold floor, stunned, hollowed out, emptied.
Aizawa hadn’t spoken to him since that day. Two weeks. Two goddamn weeks in which Shouta had seemed to dissolve into air.
Shinsou caught glimpses of him only in passing, somewhere at the edges of the Academy, and every time he tried to approach, Aizawa vanished. Either Shouta was avoiding him with professional precision, or Hitoshi was simply too slow. He looked for him in all the usual places—the teachers’ room, the training grounds, even that same gym where the kiss had happened. But Shouta no longer went there. Their habitual meetings had ceased to exist, and Shinsou felt sickeningly unnecessary.
A joint training session with Class B was coming up soon, important for everyone—but for Shinsou, especially. No one said it out loud, but it was obvious enough: this was his transfer exam into the Hero Course. He knew this was exactly when he should be focusing on preparation, on training, but everything inside him was stuck.
And it wasn’t even about the exam.
It was about Aizawa.
Shinsou hated being intrusive. The idea of forcing himself where he wasn’t wanted made his skin crawl. But the conversation with sensei mattered too much. The weight of not knowing pressed down on him. It interfered with everything. It made walking hard, food tasteless. There was no strength left for training or studying. Sleeping was impossible.
He clenched his teeth, remembering how he’d sat in the training room, waiting for Shouta to come anyway. Waiting as hour after hour dragged on—slow, unbearable. But Aizawa never came. And that infuriated him.
He was angry. Angry at himself for letting it go that far. He didn’t regret the kiss—it was the best moment of his life. He’d done it, and he would do it again with even more want—but he regretted what it led to. He hated this unknown what comes next. And he was angry at Aizawa too. Because it wasn’t only Shinsou who had kissed.
Shouta had kissed back.
Shinsou slowed his pace, stopping in front of the dark office door. He touched his lips with the rough tips of his fingers, and the memory rushed back. Could a single touch really change everything so completely?
“Damn it. Enough.” He clenched his hand into a fist and struck the wall.
A dull echo spread through the empty corridor. Tiny drops of blood welled through the half-healed scratches. Shinsou gave a sharp, crooked grin—as if the world had chosen this moment to mock him once more.
He knocked on the door firmly, then, without waiting for an answer, pushed it open. The first thing he saw was Hizashi’s hand resting on Aizawa’s shoulder. Shinsou tensed, a cold wave of irritation running through him.
Aizawa lifted his eyes to him. Tired. Almost resigned.
“Sensei. We need to talk.” Shinsou’s voice came out steady and cold, less a request than a command.
Shouta’s lips moved slightly, his hand lifting—maybe to signal that he needed more time, that Shinsou should come later, tomorrow, next week, never—but Hitoshi didn’t move. He kept looking straight into Aizawa’s eyes, unblinking.
All conversation in the room stopped. The silence grew dense, awkward. Shinsou could feel their eyes on him—curious, uneasy, irritated—but he’d already decided. He wasn’t leaving. He wasn’t backing down.
Aizawa understood that too. Carefully, he removed Hizashi’s hand from his shoulder. Then he stood and, without a word, walked toward the door, closing it behind them.
In the gloomy corridor, Shouta looked broken, as if someone had been wearing him down without mercy. His face was paler, drier; the shadows under his eyes had sunk deeper, his hair was in even worse disarray than usual. Shinsou noticed all of it. This wasn’t going to be an easy conversation. So he started from a distance.
“What about today’s training?” he asked. “I waited by the gym last Friday. You didn’t come.”
Shouta turned away, clearly avoiding his gaze. His voice sounded worn through.
“I don’t think training is possible today.”
Shinsou gave a short smile, disappointment and bitterness cutting through it.
“Right.”
He paused, then went on.
“Then when? Tomorrow? Monday? Some other day?”
Aizawa hesitated.
“Tomorrow won’t work. The day after… I’m not sure.”
“Sensei, just set a day. A time. A place.”
The words came out louder than he expected—sharp, edged with irritation. Shinsou could hardly believe it was his own voice. He had never allowed himself to speak to Aizawa like this. But now everything was different; the words pushed their way out on their own, and Shouta’s vague answers only drove him further.
The sound rang through the corridor, filling it. Even Hizashi peeked out of the office for a second, so quickly it felt suspicious, as if he’d been listening in. But the moment Mic saw both their faces, he raised his hands placatingly and retreated back inside.
“Sensei, don’t waste your time—or mine,” Shinsou said. “I’m standing here like an idiot while you’re inside having fun and drinking with Hizashi.”
Aizawa lifted his gaze, and for a moment his face became the one that intimidated every student—severe, closed off, capable of crushing with a single look.
“Since when do you behave like this?”
Shinsou didn’t flinch under the cold.
“Since our last training.”
Shouta exhaled. He understood what this was about. The deep lines on his forehead carved themselves even darker under the weight of it. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, exhausted.
“Shinsou,” he began, with visible effort, “what happened… all of this… this problem… situation… it was a mistake—”
He didn’t get to finish.
“Sensei, call things what they are,” Shinsou cut in. His voice was loud now, insistent. He wasn’t going to be silent anymore. He was ready to say it out loud, to the whole world if needed. “It wasn’t a situation. Or a problem. Or a mistake. It was a kiss. A real one. It was a kiss, sensei.”
Shouta looked even more drained, as if every word Shinsou spoke pressed him down further. Finally, he let out a heavy breath.
“So what do you want, Shinsou?” he asked. “To file a complaint? With the principal? With your parents? I assumed you’d already done that.”
Shinsou gave a strained, nervous laugh, his mouth twisting.
“No. I don’t want to complain. I started that kiss. And I wanted it.”
Shouta’s frown deepened.
“Then what do you want, Hitoshi? Continuation? Promises? An apology?”
Shinsou answered quietly, but firmly.
“No. I want clarity. I don’t want to be ignored. If you think that kiss was a mistake and you don’t see me in your plans—in any capacity—then say it to me directly. So I don’t wait for you at training. So I can build my life without looking back at you.”
Aizawa stared at him in silence. Surprised. As if seeing this Shinsou for the first time—this one whose voice carried, whose will was unmistakable.
The silence dragged.
Unable to bear it, Shinsou snapped,
“I take it that’s it, then. Too bad. I thought you’d have the strength to give me at least some kind of answer.”
He turned and walked away down the long corridor, leaving Aizawa alone. He stepped wherever his feet landed, ignoring his own rituals. The floor didn’t give way beneath him, but it felt as though a black, bottomless chasm had opened between him and his sensei. Everything inside him boiled. His thoughts thundered. Had he gone too far? Been too harsh? Ruined things even worse? Maybe. Should he have accepted it? Left everything as it was?
He couldn’t.
He clenched his fists and quickened his pace.
And then, just before the end of the corridor, he heard a voice.
“Tomorrow. Four p.m. Main building gym. Training uniform. Indoor shoes. Don’t be late.”
Shinsou turned, nodded calmly, and kept walking.
Before his inner eye, the surreal Bosch-like tableau unfolded again: a gleeful little devil dancing on hot coals, striking sparks of victorious flame. Of course—his gamble had paid off. The difficult conversation had led somewhere. Sensei had scheduled the training. The imp crowed in triumph inside him: That’s how it’s done, sensei. That’s how it’s done.
The stone Angel was silent. Its sermons were over. And now Shinsou could see its face—tired, sorrowful.
Like Shouta’s.
Hitoshi smirked to himself. Stupid, strange thoughts. This sensei would drive him insane.
And he would drive him insane in return.
That much was certain.