The homeroom teacher, Mr. Endo, stood at the front of Class 1-B with a list in his hand. "For the final history project before exams, you'll be working in pairs," he announced. "I've paired you based on your last test scores. The goal is mutual support."
A ripple of interest went through the room. People whispered, hoping to be paired with their friends or with someone smart.
Mr. Endo began reading the names. "Yamamoto with Ito. Suzuki with Watanabe."
Each pair got a nod or a smile from the two students. Then, Mr. Endo's eyes scanned the list and he adjusted his glasses. "Sato."
Everyone looked at Kaito. Of course, he would get a good partner. He was the top student.
"You will be paired with… Tanaka."
For a second, there was total silence. Then, the class erupted in hushed, shocked chatter.
"Tanaka?" whispered Yui, a girl with a neat ribbon in her hair, from two seats over. Her eyes were wide with disbelief.
"Poor Sato-kun," said her friend, Mari, shaking her head. "He'll have to do everything. She probably doesn't even know which book is for history."
At the next desk over, a boy named Kenji leaned toward his friend. "What a punishment for being first in class. He's basically doing the project alone."
The girls who usually sighed over Kaito shot looks of pure jealousy toward the back of the room. "Why does she get to work with him?" one muttered. "It's so unfair. She won't even appreciate it."
Kaito kept his face perfectly still. He looked down at his notebook, as if noting down the assignment. Inside, his heart was beating fast, but not from dread. A strange sense of quiet satisfaction settled in his chest. The invisible wall between him and the girl from the music room was about to come down.
At the very back of the class, Hikari Tanaka didn't groan or put her head down. She just stared out the window, her expression blank. But her hand, resting on her doodle-covered notebook, tightened just a little. This project was different. She had gotten the last warning from the faculty office. One more failing grade in any subject, and she would be suspended from all club activities. All of them. No more afternoon escapes to the old music room. No more violin. This time, she had to pass.
When the bell rang, the usual noise filled the room as everyone gathered their things. Kaito moved slowly, watching from the corner of his eye.
Kenji clapped a sympathetic hand on Kaito's shoulder. "Hey man, tough break. Want me to ask Mr. Endo for a switch? That's basically extra work for you."
Kaito shook his head politely. "It's the assignment. It will be fine." His voice was calm, giving nothing away.
Near the door, Yui and Mari were whispering, glancing back at Hikari, who was shoving her books into her bag. "She's so ungrateful," Yui said, just loud enough to be heard. "She'll just drag him down."
Hikari walked past them as if they were air. She stopped at Kaito's desk, not looking at him directly. "When?" she asked, her voice flat.
Kaito looked up. This close, he could see the faint shadows under her eyes, the same as his. He could see a tiny ink stain on her finger. "The library. After school today?" he suggested, his tone carefully neutral.
She gave a short, single nod. "Fine." Then she turned and walked out, leaving the whispers behind her.
As Kaito walked to his next class, the words of his classmates swirled around him—poor Sato-kun, what a punishment, she'll drag him down. But their words felt distant and wrong. They saw a problem. They saw a trouble-maker.
He didn't see that at all. He saw the girl with the violin. He saw a chance, handed to him by the teacher's list, to finally step out of the shadows of the hallway and into the same room as her. Not to watch from a distance, but to know the person behind the music.
He wasn't sorry. He wasn't burdened. For the first time in a long time, Kaito Sato felt a spark of something that felt like hope. He was going to meet her, and he was going to listen, not just to her words, but for the echo of the melody that had changed everything in him.
(End of Chapter 3)