April 3.
The start of a new school year.
Same old cherry blossoms lined the gates of Sakura High School—too perfect, too soft, like someone pressed "repeat" on the season. Only this time, the air carried an edge. An unspoken tension. New faces arrived, and old ones returned, taller maybe, but still carrying that same spark in their eyes. Or dullness, in some cases.
My black shoes clicked against the stone path as I passed through the front gates, surrounded by chatter. Everyone talked like they hadn't seen each other in years. I quietly walked among them, alone but not lonely. Not really.
My name is Akiyo Nakahara. Eighteen. Second year. Just another girl with black eyes and straight black hair—naturally straight, actually, which no one believes. In a world where every other head is scorched by hair straighteners, I guess mine seems fake. Like everything else around here.
But the smell... no one talks about it, but my hair naturally carries the scent of cycylia flowers. You'd have to be dangerously close to notice. No one gets that close. Not yet.
This year is going to be weird. I can already feel it.
And maybe it's because they're still here.
Zay Harukawa.
Nineteen. Second year.
Black hair, but with this messy streak of silver across his forehead like it's a lightning scar or something. Red eyes—seriously red. Not warm or tired or sleepy red. No, like "look at me and combust" red.
He's the kind of person you don't need to hear to feel. When he walks into a room, the temperature shifts. The girls lose it. The boys… act like they don't care, but they do. The attention he pulls in is magnetic, and he doesn't even try.
And he's not alone.
Kiro Yamakaze, his best friend, is a year younger—eighteen like me. Snow-white hair and these piercing blue eyes that look like they could read your diary just by glancing your way. And then there's Ryusuke Endo, or Ryu, as people call him when they think he isn't listening. Red-haired, orange-eyed, always smirking like he knows a joke you're too slow to get.
Together, they're impossible. Unapproachable.
And yet, people try.
Some girls—three in particular—never leave them alone. There's a blonde with jet-black eyes who's practically glued to Kiro. Rumor is she's from a high-society family. Rich, pretty, and terrifying. Her two sidekicks worship Zay and Ryu like they're gods. Or collectibles. Honestly, it's kind of creepy.
But Zay and his group don't seem to care. Or they're just really, really good at pretending.
No one calls them by their first names. Not unless you're in. That's the rule. A dumb rule, but one that everyone somehow follows. Except their closest friends—some of whom are girls, surprisingly.
And there's that stupid nickname some people gave them:
"The light of Angels."
It's a whole thing. The girls think it sounds cool and tragic. The guys hate it. "What does that even mean?" they'd grumble in the back of the class. I don't blame them. It sounds like an edgy band or an underground cult.
They live on the other side of the social map, where things are louder and heavier and far more complicated than I care to deal with.
But something tells me this year, I won't have a choice.