"Achoo!"
Hayashi Shuichi let out another sharp sneeze. That sensation...
He immediately turned his gaze toward Akane Koizumi's empty seat. The last time the witch had cursed him, it felt exactly like this—the magic had little effect on him, amounting to nothing more than a few involuntary sneezes.
Between the bizarre behavior of the entire class and the way Akane had just stormed out in a fit of pique, the answer was staring him in the face. Somewhere, tucked away in a hidden corner of the school, that headstrong witch was using her magic to exact a petty revenge on the students.
"That girl, honestly..." Shuichi shook his head with a sigh and hurried out of the classroom to find her.
The campus of Teitan High was sprawling, but Akane had become a local celebrity ever since her dramatic entrance on her first day. It didn't take much searching before Shuichi learned she had headed for the rooftop of the main building.
The moment he pushed open the heavy iron door to the roof, Shuichi froze.
Akane stood in the center of the concrete expanse, surrounded by dozens of paper talismans inscribed with eerie, swirling runes. Under the midday sun, the papers glowed with a sinister crimson light, fluttering gently in the breeze.
The witch's long hair whipped about her face. Her eyes flashed with a burning indignation, and her entire silhouette was shrouded in a faint, blood-red mist.
The scene confirmed his suspicions: the sudden epidemic of stomach aches downstairs was entirely her doing.
Without hesitation, Shuichi lunged forward, reaching out to grab the floating cursed slips. From yesterday's experience, he knew that the moment he touched them, the mana would dissipate and the curse would break.
"Don't you dare touch them!" Akane barked, her voice sharp. "This is the second favor you owe me! I'm making it a command!"
"You're really wasting one of your conditions on this?" Shuichi asked, caught between annoyance and amusement. "Do you think it's worth it?"
"What else would I do?" Akane bit her lip, her voice trembling with a sudden, sharp vulnerability. "It's better than... than having to kiss you!"
Taking advantage of her momentary lapse in focus, Shuichi's eyes darted through the swirling papers until he spotted the ones bearing the names of Eri Kisaki and Kogoro Mouri. He reached out and snatched them.
The instant his fingers brushed the paper, the magic flickered and died. The slips turned into ordinary parchment, drifting harmlessly to the floor.
"You're breaking your word!" Akane stamped her foot, her face flushed with fury.
"I didn't actually agree when you said it," Shuichi countered with a mischievous glint in his eye. "But fine. I'll agree to it now: I won't destroy the rest of them. Does that satisfy you?"
"You...!" Akane's eyes began to well with tears. "Everyone is bullying me... especially you, you jerk!"
"This isn't bullying, it's just—"
Shuichi cut himself off as a single tear tracked down the girl's cheek.
He suddenly remembered that behind the facade of a powerful, haughty witch, she was essentially a shut-in who had never attended a proper school before. Moreover, from what she had let slip, she had been practically exiled to Tokyo by her mother.
"Are you... homesick?"
Shuichi's voice softened instinctively. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of tissues.
"I am not..." Akane turned her face away stubbornly, but her tears began to fall like broken strings of pearls, refusing to stop.
"Here," Shuichi said, handing her a tissue. "It's normal to be homesick the first time you're away from family. When I first left home, I cried about it, too."
"Really?" Akane looked at him skeptically, her nose tipped with red. "You're not just lying to trick me again?"
"Why would I lie about something that embarrassing?" Shuichi laughed helplessly.
"I'm not just crying because I miss home," the witch muttered, dabbing at her eyes.
"I know. What the classmates said earlier was out of line," Shuichi sighed. "But if you keep this up, aren't you afraid of exposing your identity?"
"I don't care! I had to let that anger out!" Akane's fists clenched so tightly her nails dug into her palms. "They don't know anything! How could they say those things... saying that you... that you 'played with me and threw me away'..."
By the end of the sentence, her voice had devolved into a sob.
"That was definitely wrong of them," Shuichi consoled her. "But look at the time. They've been in pain long enough. Why don't you show some mercy and let them off the hook?"
"I won't—" Akane started to shake her head.
Shuichi quickly cut in. "If this keeps going, the school will think it's mass food poisoning. It'll become a huge scandal. It might even make the news... and what if your mother sees it?"
"...Fine."
At the mention of her mother, Akane finally relented. With a reluctant wave of her hand, she terminated the spell. The floating red talismans lost their luster and fluttered to the ground like dead leaves.
Still feeling a lingering spark of resentment, Akane stepped on one of the papers, grinding it into the concrete with her shoe.
Shuichi, meanwhile, had already knelt down to start gathering the scattered slips.
"Don't just stand there, help me," Shuichi said without looking up. "If someone sees these, you can forget about having a normal school life. They'll treat you like a monster."
"School is a horrible place," Akane pouted, though she finally crouched down to help. "No wonder Mother didn't want me to attend."
"You can't hide at home forever. Compared to the complexity of the adult world, school is actually quite simple," Shuichi remarked, shaking his head. Looking at the girl's aggrieved expression, a fragment of a legend he had heard in his previous life—rumors about the Red Witch, Akako Koizumi—surfaced in his mind.
In the legends, a witch must never shed tears. If she does, she loses all her magic power.
"If you cry like that... won't you lose your magic?"
"...How do you know about that?"
Akane's head snapped up, her gaze instantly sharpening into a piercing glare. "That is a secret that only those of our lineage should know!"
"Well..." Shuichi blinked, opting for a mysterious smile. "How do you think I know?"
"How should I know!?" Akane huffed, glaring at him. "Forget it. Even if you told me, it would probably be another one of your lies."
Seeing that she wasn't going to press the issue, Shuichi breathed a mental sigh of relief.
"Only a witch who has accepted the full inheritance is bound by that restriction," Akane explained in a low voice. "If they cry, they lose everything, just like you said."
"And you?" Shuichi asked, surprised.
"I haven't inherited the mantle of the Red Magic yet," Akane shook her head. "The fifteenth-generation practitioner is my mother. Until the succession is complete, I am, at most..." She tilted her head, searching for the word. "...an apprentice witch?"
"Then I hope you never become a 'formal' one," Shuichi said reflexively.
"Why?" Akane blinked in confusion.
"Crying is how humans process their emotions," Shuichi said softly. "If you lose the ability to cry, life becomes a very tragic thing."
"Is it?" Akane's brow furrowed in deep thought. "In my memory, Mother has never cried. She seems fine... though, now that I think about it, she doesn't laugh much either..."
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