Nagazora. The place where it all began.
Right now, inside the city's international airport...
"I'll be taking off, then."
A young man with long, dark gray hair was saying goodbye to his best friend.
Su's stint as a short-term international exchange student was over; he was flying back home today.
Naturally, Kevin had come to see him off.
Never mind the fact that Chiba Academy was very much in session today. Kevin had skipped class without a second thought.
Su, of course, was perfectly aware of this fact.
So...
"You really should settle down a bit," Su said. Valuing their friendship as much as he did, he couldn't help but add a word of concern. "If you keep pulling stunts like this, MEI might actually get sick of you."
Hearing that...
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll be careful."
Kevin brushed it off with a seemingly careless response, though he did tuck his best friend's advice away in his heart.
But speaking of MEI...
"Hey, what do you think?"
Kevin suddenly slung an arm around Su's shoulders. Even though there wasn't a single familiar face around, he still acted like a thief, dropping his voice into a hushed, conspiratorial whisper.
To which...
"What do I think about what?" Su was completely lost.
"MEI, obviously!" Kevin glanced around shiftily before leaning right up to Su's ear. "Do you think we've got a shot?"
"..."
"Just so you know," Kevin added, "I really feel like... she's the one. For the rest of my life."
Seeing his best friend acting so uncharacteristically serious, Su had the tact not to tease him. Instead, he smiled and gave him a genuine answer.
"I think you've got a chance."
"Really?!" Kevin instantly lit up.
Truth be told, ever since he transferred from Northern Europe to the Far East a few months ago, Kevin hadn't shown much interest in anything around him. Between his looks and his stellar athleticism, he knew plenty of girls were into him.
He just couldn't bring himself to care.
Until he met MEI...
There was a saying: you never need a reason to like someone, only to hate them.
Kevin felt like that was exactly what had happened to him.
It was love at first sight.
There was no lust, no ulterior motives. He was simply... drawn to her.
So he went out of his way to get close to her. Like an overgrown kid, he teased her, snatching her glasses just to make her chase him in total annoyance—knowing full well she'd never catch him.
He just wanted her attention.
Honestly, if Kevin had been even a fraction more mature, he would've realized that trying to woo a girl like that usually backfired spectacularly.
Thankfully...
Thankfully, MEI was too buried in her books to have much experience in the romance department either. Plus, Kevin knew when to dial it back, and he did have his genuine merits.
And so, despite their polar opposite personalities—the star athlete and the dedicated bookworm—the two of them slowly started to see eye to eye.
MEI started noticing the little things that made Kevin shine.
Gradually, she found herself just as drawn to the big-hearted, sunny idiot.
And now...
"Remember that day the three of us went to Eden's concert?"
"When we were heading in, right after they checked our tickets, you got way too excited and ran off. MEI and I were chatting, and she casually mentioned something—"
Su smiled, looking at his best friend. "'It's exactly that simple purity of his that makes him so much cuter than everyone else.'"
"Huh?"
Kevin launched into a frantic brainstorming session that, unsurprisingly, required zero high-level intellect.
After a long moment of scratching his head, he finally reached a conclusion...
"Cute? Shouldn't it be handsome?"
"..."
Su was left entirely speechless.
That's what you're focusing on?
He shoved off the arm Kevin had slung over his shoulder, adjusting his grip on his suitcase with his other hand, and rolled his eyes. "Please, I know you. Do you honestly like those girls who scream and wave at you, squealing about how hot you are?"
"Besides, having a girl think you're cute is way better than her thinking you're handsome... For you, at least."
"Uh, I guess."
Kevin grinned. "So I do have a shot with MEI, right!"
"What did you think the point of this entire conversation was?"
Su felt mentally drained.
Fortunately, Kevin had finally gotten the point.
It just went to show that even though Su wasn't yet "The Enlightened One" of the future, he still had his own unique methods for getting through to such a thick skull.
Right now, though, Kevin was already thoroughly lost in his own delusions.
He was probably agonizing over what to name his and MEI's future kids.
Su sighed in exasperation.
He reached out and patted Kevin's shoulder. "Alright, alright, wipe that goofy look off your face."
"Save the daydreaming for when you get home. Just try not to walk into a telephone pole on the way."
Not giving Kevin—who had only just snapped out of his daze—a chance to respond, Su continued.
"My flight's boarding soon, so... I'm heading out."
He pointed toward the boarding gate.
"Oh." Kevin nodded. His voice sounded just a tiny bit... crestfallen.
He really didn't want to part ways with Su.
After all, out of everyone he knew, Su was the only person he could truly bare his soul to.
The two of them were always perfectly in tune. Or rather... they complemented each other perfectly?
Anyway...
"Alright, that's enough."
Su obviously caught that abandoned-puppy look in Kevin's eyes.
But he had the tact not to call him out on it. Giving a soft chuckle, he officially made his farewell.
"See ya!"
"Yeah, see you soon."
"Planning to skip class again?"
"Of course... not!"
And so, Su kept walking as they bantered.
Finally, with one last wave at the corner, his figure vanished down the boarding corridor.
Kevin stood rooted to the spot. His own hand was still raised in a wave, lingering in the air as he zoned out for a moment.
Then, as if hyping himself up, he slapped his cheeks with both hands and let out a massive, dramatic stretch.
"Welp~ back to school."
The fleeting gloom of parting with his best friend washed away, replaced once more by that sunny, looking-forward-to-tomorrow grin.
"Hehe, MEI thinks I'm cute!"
Okay, actually thinking that to himself still felt a *little* weird.
But...
"That's MEI for you!"
Kevin couldn't stop the corners of his mouth from curling upward.
Unbidden, the image of a certain purple-haired girl floated to the forefront of his mind—the one always wearing those oversized glasses, always clutching a heavy stack of books to her chest.
Purple hair...
"Huh?"
Kevin blinked, his footsteps faltering.
Just for a second, glancing at the corner of the corridor ahead, he could have sworn he saw a terribly familiar side profile.
It didn't register immediately. The shift in a person's entire vibe with and without glasses could be jarring, even if it was the exact same person.
But Kevin just so happened to know exactly what MEI looked like without hers.
His feet carried him toward the intersecting hallway on autopilot, an intense, baffling sense of dissonance rising in his chest.
Did MEI skip class too?
There's no way!