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It had become a routine. Instead of going to the library or staying in his own classroom, Ushijima Wakatoshi, the "Miracle Boy," brought his books to Satori’s classroom in his free time. His own classroom (Class 3) was right next door, which meant dragging a chair over required minimal effort.
The result still looked ridiculous. Ushijima, tall and broad-shouldered, had pulled his chair from his classroom to Satori’s desk. Not in front of it. Not behind it.
Beside it.
Which meant he was sitting sideways in the aisle, blocking the entire row. “Wakatoshi-kun…” Satori said slowly. “You’re blocking the walkway.”
Ushijima didn’t look up from his English textbook. “The lighting here is good,” he said. “It’s easier to concentrate.”
In reality, Ushijima was so close he had practically claimed half of Satori’s desk.
He carried a clean scent that made Satori’s inner Omega far too aware of him, which was very inconvenient for someone trying to study chemistry. Every time Ushijima turned a page, his arm moved close enough to brush Satori’s shoulder. Satori stared at his notes, pen hovering above the paper.
Studying had become much harder.
“You find it helpful, huh?” Satori teased, leaning back to study Ushijima’s sharp profile. “Is that code for ‘I wanted to see Satori’s beautiful face’?”
Ushijima turned his head. From this close, Satori could see the detail of the ace's eyes. “Your presence helps me focus, Satori,” Ushijima said. “Like on the court. Studying here is efficient.”
“Efficient for you, maybe! I’m over here losing my mind because the ‘Miracle Boy’ has decided my desk is his personal lounge.”
“If the teacher walks in, I’m telling them you’re holding me hostage,” Satori whispered. If anything, he shifted just enough for their knees to brush. Ushijima didn’t react. He simply placed his hand on the corner of Satori’s notebook to keep it from sliding.
“They would not believe you,” he said. “You are smiling too much for a hostage.”
They spent the rest of the period in a quiet, cramped silence. Every time Ushijima reached for a highlighter, his arm brushed Satori’s. The space beside the desk was narrow, and neither of them moved away. Satori sighed more than once, trying to focus on the numbers in front of him. Ushijima’s scent lingered in the air, making it harder than it should have been to think.
By the end of the period, Satori hadn’t solved a single math problem. He had, however, memorized the way Ushijima’s hand rested on the desk; Satori didn’t want it to move.
.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅
The bell rang, sharp and loud, and Class 2 immediately filled with noise. Chairs scraped. Students rushed to their seats. Someone shouted across the room about homework.
In the middle of it, Ushijima suddenly remembered one important detail. He was a Class 3 student currently sitting in a Class 2 desk. Which meant he was not supposed to be there.
Ushijima stood, but he had underestimated how tightly he had wedged his chair beside Satori’s desk. When he tried to pull it back, the chair leg caught on the metal frame of Satori’s desk. A loud screech of metal against tile cut through the room. Half the class turned.
The chair tipped backward.
CLANG.
Ushijima reacted instantly, but even he couldn’t recover smoothly. He had to take an awkward hop-step to avoid tripping over the fallen chair, his shoulder bumping into the next desk with a hollow thud.
For a brief moment, the entire room went quiet.
Then there was Ushijima Wakatoshi—the unshakable ace of Shiratorizawa—standing in the middle of the aisle, staring down at the chair on the floor as if it had personally betrayed him. “Did the Great Ushijima just lose a fight to a chair?” someone whispered from the back row.
A wave of quiet laughter spread across the classroom. It wasn’t every day anyone saw the “Perfect Alpha” looking even slightly wobbly like that.
Satori, meanwhile, was shaking because he was trying very hard not to laugh.
He failed.
“Wakatoshi-kun!” Satori chirped, eyes bright with amusement as Ushijima stood in the aisle beside the fallen chair. “The chair is down! The chair is down! Should we call a medic for the furniture?”
Ushijima didn’t blush—he was far too composed for that—but his ears turned a noticeable shade of pink. He bent down, lifted the chair with one hand as if it weighed nothing, and tucked his workbook under his arm. “The floor,” Ushijima said with complete seriousness, “is unexpectedly slippery today.”
“Oh, totally,” Satori agreed, leaning across his desk and resting his chin on his palm. “Definitely the floor. Nothing to do with a giant trying to live inside a tiny Class 2 ecosystem.”
Ushijima gave a single nod to the room, ignoring the lingering laughter, and started back toward Class 3. But instead of carrying the chair normally, he simply grabbed the backrest with one large hand and began to walk.
The chair dragged behind him.
Screech—thud.
Screech—thud.
The heavy wooden legs bumped along the tile like stubborn luggage. He reached the doorway just as the teacher was about to enter.
For a moment, both of them stopped.
The teacher stood at the threshold, watching Shiratorizawa’s star ace dragging a full classroom chair behind him down the hall.
Ushijima gave a short, polite nod and continued past her.
Screech—thud.
Screech—thud.
The teacher watched him go, then simply shook her head before stepping into the classroom. Students in the hallway had already parted out of the way. No one wanted to be the person to tell the prefecture’s top ace that he currently looked like a weary traveler dragging luggage through an airport.
Except the “luggage” in question was a classroom chair.
From inside the room, Satori watched everything with his chin still resting in his palm. He followed the retreating thud-thud of the chair until the sound faded down the hallway.
Great. His body was doing that thing again. Satori glanced down at his untouched notebook, then at the spot where the chair had fallen.
He sighed.
“Well,” he muttered. “So much for math.”
Satori couldn’t help himself. He leaned out of his seat, watching the broad line of Ushijima’s back disappear into the flow of students in the hallway. “Wakatoshi-kun!” Satori called, his voice bright and teasing. “Don’t forget to check your luggage at the gate! Class 3 terminals are that way!”
Ushijima didn’t stop.
But Satori saw his shoulders stiffen for a brief second. He didn’t turn around, yet the thud-thud-thud of the chair dragging behind him suddenly sped up just a little like a quiet acknowledgment that he was aware of how ridiculous the situation looked.
Satori slowly leaned back in his seat. “He’s so weird,” he whispered to himself, a helpless grin spreading across his face.
“The weirdest person I’ve ever met.”
He rested his chin in his palm again, staring at the empty space where Ushijima had been sitting. “I think I’m going to die.”
.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅
Satori stopped at the doorway of Class 3, his gym bag slung over one shoulder, ready to perform his usual ritual of “kidnapping” the ace for practice. Normally, he expected a familiar sight, Ushijima standing by his desk, calm and prepared to head to the gym.
Satori nearly dropped his water bottle.
Most Alphas at Shiratorizawa treated cleaning duty like a personal offense. They rushed through it, pushed it onto someone else, or half-heartedly moved dust from one corner to another. Ushijima Wakatoshi, however, appeared to be conducting a full-scale operation. He stood at the back of the classroom, beating a chalkboard eraser outside the window with the same focus he used when facing a triple block.
The outfit was the real problem.
Ushijima was wearing a bright Shiratorizawa-purple cleaning smock tied tightly around his waist. It looked tragically small against his broad shoulders, the strings pulled tight across his back. A white-and-purple bandana was tied neatly over his hair to keep chalk dust away.
The overall effect was bizarre. The legendary volleyball ace looked like a very muscular housewife preparing for war.
Satori stood frozen in the doorway for a second, staring.
“…Wakatoshi-kun,” he finally said slowly. “…what happened to you? Oh… I didn’t know we were auditioning for Shiratorizawa’s Top Homemaker today.”
Ushijima stopped mid-wipe. He turned his head slowly, the tail of the bandana shifting slightly. He looked completely unbothered by the fact that he was wearing a frilled apron over his school uniform.
“Dust is a respiratory irritant, Satori,” Ushijima said, his voice as serious as ever. “Chalk particles are difficult to remove from a blazer. It is better to protect the uniform.”
“Right! Of course!” Satori wheezed, clutching his stomach as he started to laugh. “But the apron, Wakatoshi-kun? It has a little pocket on the front! Is that where you keep your extra power?”
“I look like a person who values cleanliness,” Ushijima replied, completely missing the sarcasm. Then he turned back to the window and sprayed it with glass cleaner. The most feared Alpha in the prefecture was quietly humming under his breath while wiping dust from the windowsill.
“You’re actually enjoying this, aren’t you?” Satori asked as he stepped into the room, sidestepping a broom left in the aisle.
“It is a task with a clear beginning and end,” Ushijima replied, already moving to the next window. “It is satisfying to see the progress.”
Satori shook his head, though his eyes drifted to the way the apron strings pulled tight across Ushijima’s back. Okay. Okay. Get it together.
“Fine, fine! Mr. Perfect even cleans perfectly,” Satori chirped, hopping onto a nearby desk, carefully avoiding the wet patches on the floor. “Hurry up, Cinderella! The coach will have our heads if the ‘Miracle Boy’ is late because he was busy polishing the classroom.”
Ushijima untied the purple apron and folded it neatly, smoothing it flat before setting it aside. Then he moved to the classroom sink. He washed his hands thoroughly, scrubbing them with intense focus, as if preparing for surgery rather than volleyball practice. “Done,” Ushijima said once he finished, drying his hands.
He picked up his gym bag, his expression settling back into the familiar, steady seriousness he wore on the court.
“Speedy as ever, Wakatoshi-kun!” Satori chirped, pushing himself off the desk he’d been lounging on. “The classroom is practically sparkling. I think I’m going blind from the reflection.”
As they stepped into the hallway, Satori noticed it immediately. The purple apron was gone. The sleeves of Ushijima’s uniform were rolled back down. But the purple-and-white bandana was still tied firmly over his hair. The small knot at the back bobbed slightly with each step as Ushijima walked down the hallway. The contrast was incredible.
From the shoulders down, he looked like the same towering, intimidating ace who could crush opponents on the court. From the shoulders up, he looked fully prepared to clean another classroom.
Satori walked a step behind him, biting his lip to keep from laughing out loud. He knew he should tell him. That was the responsible teammate thing to do. But watching the most feared player in the prefecture march toward the gym still wearing a cleaning bandana was too good to end.
As they passed the first-year hallway, a group of underclassmen quickly pressed themselves against the lockers to let the captain pass. They bowed politely. The moment Ushijima walked by, their eyes widened.
“Did… did Ushijima-san join a cooking club?” one of them whispered.
“Shh! He’ll hear you!”
Satori’s shoulders shook as he tried to keep a straight face. “Hey, Wakatoshi-kun,” he said, his voice tight with suppressed laughter. “Do you feel… different today? Like your head is particularly protected?”
Ushijima hummed softly. “I feel normal,” he replied. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, no reason!” Satori said quickly. “You just look… exceptionally well put together.”
“I prefer to be prepared,” Ushijima said as they reached the double doors of the gymnasium.
.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅
Ushijima pushed open the gym doors. The sounds of squeaking shoes and volleyballs hitting the floor faded as the team turned toward the entrance to greet their captain.
Then everyone paused.
Ohira Reon blinked. Semi Eita, who had been taking a drink from his water bottle, immediately choked.
“Ushijima—” Semi coughed, wiping his mouth. “Are you… planning to clean the net today, or are we practicing?”
Ushijima stopped. Slowly, his hand rose to the top of his head. His fingers brushed the bandana.
Behind him, Satori finally lost the battle he’d been fighting the entire walk to the gym. He doubled over, clutching his gym bag, laughing so hard he could barely breathe.
“He’s the Miracle Cleaning Boy!” Satori wheezed between breaths. “Heaven’s most hygienic ace!”
Ushijima walked to the large mirror by the equipment room, his hand still hovering near his forehead. He looked at his reflection.
The sharp face of the prefecture’s top scorer stared back at him—now topped with a neatly tied purple bandana. The gym was quiet for a moment, except for Satori’s wheezing laughter somewhere behind him.
“Oh,” Ushijima said. He didn’t tear it off in embarrassment. He didn’t rush. He simply untied the knot, removed the bandana, and folded the cloth neatly in his hands.
Satori finally managed to breathe again. He wiped the corner of his eye and stepped closer, leaning comfortably into Ushijima’s space now that they were inside the familiar rhythm of the gym. “I don’t know, Wakatoshi-kun,” Satori murmured, his voice low enough that only Ushijima could hear over the sound of balls being gathered. “I think you should’ve kept it. It really brought out the miracle in your eyes.”
Ushijima looked down at him, the folded bandana resting in his palm. "If you like it, Satori," he said simply,
"I can wear it during our next study session."
"Don't say things like that—"
Ushijima tucked the bandana into his bag and picked up a volleyball. “Warm-ups,” he said. “Ten minutes.”
The team moved immediately. They ran their laps around the court, shoes squeaking softly against the polished floor. Satori kept half a step behind Ushijima, watching the steady rhythm of his stride. The bandana was already forgotten by everyone else. But the image stayed firmly in Satori’s mind.
By the time warm-ups ended, the team gathered near the benches to grab their water bottles. Across the court, Semi Eita rubbed the bridge of his nose. “So the cleaning was so fast you skipped the step where you take the bandana off?” he asked.
Ushijima nodded once. “I proceeded to the next task.”
Semi sighed.
“Wakatoshi… you can just say you forgot.”
.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅
The sun was beginning to dip behind the Shiratorizawa dorms, painting the sky in warm evening light. They had stopped at the convenience store just outside the school gates. Satori, feeling generous (and still riding the high of the “Bandana Incident”), had insisted on buying.
He handed Ushijima a matcha cone while keeping a double-chocolate one for himself. “Here you go, Wakatoshi-kun! A miracle flavor for a miracle boy,” Satori chirped, peeling the wrapper off his chocolate ice cream.
He had barely gotten the paper off. He was just about to take that glorious first lick of chocolate when a shadow suddenly fell over him.
He didn’t even have time to blink.
Ushijima didn’t ask, didn’t suggest a trade, or even say excuse me. He simply leaned down, his tall frame dipping forward with the same speed he used at the net and took a huge bite out of the top of Satori’s chocolate ice cream. Then he straightened again, chewing slowly and thoughtfully.
The once-perfect swirl of chocolate was now completely gone. Satori stood frozen on the sidewalk, staring at the damage.
His brain stalled for a full second.
“Wakatosh—” he started, voice cracking. “Did you… did you just eat half my ice cream in one bite?”
Ushijima swallowed, his expression calm as ever. He glanced at his own perfectly intact matcha cone, then back at Satori’s now-lopsided chocolate one. “The cocoa appeared stronger than the matcha,” Ushijima said, his voice slightly muffled by the cold. “I wanted to compare them.”
Satori looked at the matcha cone. Then he looked up at Ushijima’s steady eyes. “You’re unbelievable,” Satori muttered, though a grin was already spreading across his face. He leaned forward and took a much smaller, much more polite bite of the matcha.
The flavor was earthy and sweet, but Satori barely noticed. He glanced down at his ruined chocolate cone and then back at the “Perfect Alpha,” who was licking a smear of chocolate from his thumb.
“Next time,” Satori warned, pointing his plastic spoon at him, “I’m buying you plain vanilla so you won’t be tempted by my superior choices.”
“I cannot promise that,” Ushijima simply started walking again. “Your choices are usually… greener than mine.”
He glanced at the matcha cone in his hand.
Satori blinked.
“…Did you just make a joke?”
Ushijima looked at him, expression unchanged. “I made an observation.”
Satori felt like he might actually float off the sidewalk. “You could have asked!” Satori complained, even though his face was heating up. “Normal people say, ‘Hey Satori, can we swap?’ or ‘Can I try a bite?’ They don’t just… ambush my dessert!”
“Asking would have delayed the sampling process,” Ushijima replied. Then he held out his own matcha cone, offering it directly to Satori with complete seriousness.
“You may take an equal portion of mine if you want,” he said.
.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅
Satori stood frozen, his half-eaten cone hanging loosely in his hand, watching the spectacle unfold. Ushijima practically inhaled his own matcha cone in the process. When he finally pulled back, the result was… messy.
A streak of green matcha sat on his upper lip, while a smear of Satori’s dark chocolate clung to the corner of his mouth. “Wakatoshi-kun,” Satori managed, pointing weakly toward his own face to signal the problem. “You’ve got… well. Everything. All over your face.”
Ushijima didn’t reach for a napkin. Instead, he looked directly at Satori.
Then his hand reached out.
Before Satori could react, Ushijima grabbed Satori’s forearm and lifted it, pressing the sleeve of Satori’s uniform against his own mouth. He wiped once, leaving a thick streak of green and brown across the fabric.
Satori’s brain stalled. “You just—” he choked. “You just used my sleeve—”
But Ushijima wasn’t finished. “You also had a remnant,” Ushijima said. Still holding Satori’s wrist, he brought his own sleeve up and brushed it across the corner of Satori’s mouth in return.
The rough fabric dragged lightly against Satori’s skin. When Ushijima finally let go, both sleeves were marked. One with chocolate and matcha, the other with the same messy combination.
Ushijima glanced between the stains and gave a satisfied nod.
“Now it is even. There is no longer a problem.”
Satori stared at him. Then at their sleeves. Then back at him. “…You’re unbelievable, Wakatoshi-kun.”
For the first time in his life, the “Guess Monster” had no guesses left. Satori stared at his ruined sleeve, then at Ushijima’s, then back at the Alpha’s calm, handsome face.
“I’m… I’m actually in heaven,” Satori whispered to himself, his brain finally melting along with the ice cream. “I’ve been defeated. This is how I go.”
Ushijima tilted his head slightly. “You are being quiet, Satori. Did the chocolate give you brain freeze?”
“Brain freeze?” Satori burst out. “Wakatoshi-kun, you just used our uniforms as napkins!” A laugh bubbled up despite him. “The laundry ladies are going to hunt us down! We have matching evidence of our crimes!”
“Matching,” Ushijima repeated.
The word seemed to satisfy him. He started walking again, his stained sleeve swinging lightly at his side.
“I do not mind,” he said. “It shows we shared the meal.”
.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅
The afternoon sun in the Class 2 wing felt different today.
Soft spring light filtered through the windows, catching small dust motes drifting in the air. Satori’s pen had stopped moving minutes ago. He was supposed to be conjugating verbs, but his attention had wandered to the person sitting beside him.
Ushijima didn’t look up. His eyes were still scanning a paragraph about the Industrial Revolution. But he could feel Satori staring.
Normally, Ushijima would ignore it. At most, he might offer him a piece of protein bar or remind him to keep studying. But the warmth of the sun and the quiet classroom made him pause.
He stopped reading. Slowly, Ushijima turned his head.
Instead of the usual teasing grin or playful look Satori often gave him, he found Satori watching him with quiet curiosity. The sunlight from the window caught the side of Ushijima’s face, tracing the line of his jaw.
The thought came to him suddenly. Ushijima was Shiratorizawa’s ace. His serves could decide entire matches. Yet the thing that caught Satori off guard was much simpler.
This boy, the so-called “Perfect Alpha,” who could sit anywhere with anyone, had dragged a chair into a cramped Class 2 classroom just to sit beside him.
Ushijima stared back, his expression unreadable for a moment. Then the corner of his mouth twitched. A quiet chuckle slipped out of him.
Satori blinked in surprise.
“Satori,” Ushijima's voice lower than usual.
“If you keep staring like that, none of the English vocabulary will enter your mind.”
“Waka—Wakatoshi-kun! You’re laughing!” he protested. “That’s unfair! You can’t be handsome and have a nice laugh!”
Ushijima didn’t look away. Instead, he leaned a little closer, his knee lightly brushing the side of Satori’s desk. “I am simply returning the attention you are giving me,” he said.
Satori immediately dropped his gaze to his notebook, his heart beating far too fast.
The sun was warm on his back.
.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅
When the bell rang, the quiet moment in the classroom broke.
Students immediately started talking, chairs scraping as people shifted around during the short break. Ushijima closed his English textbook. For a moment, neither of them moved. Then Satori glanced at the chair Ushijima had dragged over earlier.
“You know, Wakatoshi-kun,” Satori slipping back into his familiar teasing tone, “if you keep coming down here, people are going to start thinking the great Ushijima Wakatoshi has a favorite spot in the school.”
Ushijima paused, one hand resting on the back of the chair.
He glanced once at the cramped desk. Then he looked back at Satori. “I do have a favorite spot,” he said simply.
His gaze settled on Satori. “It just happens to move between Class 2 and the volleyball court.”
Satori blinked. “Fine, fine,” he muttered, though a crooked smile tugged at his mouth. “But if I fail this test because your face is too distracting, you’re buying me more ice cream.”
“I understand,” Ushijima replied. Then he reached down and picked up the chair. Not dragging it this time. He lifted it cleanly off the ground with one hand, holding it easily at his side as if it weighed nothing.
Satori stared.
“Wakatoshi-kun,” he said slowly, “don’t you usually drag the chair?”
“I am improving the method of transport,” Ushijima replied. He turned toward the door. “I will return for the next break.”
Then he walked out into the hallway, carrying the chair with him. Satori watched him go. After a moment, he glanced at the empty space beside his desk and sighed.
“…I should probably get used to that chair.”
The end