Morning sunlight spilled across the cracked windows of Jeremy High, washing the walls in pale gold. The building hummed with the usual nonsense: Subarashī shouting motivational quotes into the hallway air, Shoehead gnawing on a sandal because "it's breakfast and tradition," and Riyura Shiko sprinting down the corridor with his bow tie streaming like a hero's cape.
It was the kind of morning where the world felt like it could tip into chaos at any moment — but today, something was different. Something quieter. Like the pause before thunder.
The Arrival
When Letace Brain stepped through the classroom door, the air itself seemed to recalibrate. She wasn't loud. She wasn't flashy. She didn't announce herself with confetti or flying shoes. She just walked in — calm, composed, and so steady that the chaos around her began to feel… fragile.
Her voice, when she introduced herself, was smooth — not soft, but precise. "Letace Brain. Transfer student. I hope to learn efficiently here."
That last word — efficiently — hit Jeremy High like a philosophical riddle. A few students actually stopped mid-chew of cafeteria bread to process it. Even the ceiling fan seemed to pause.
Riyura blinked, trying to gauge her. She had this stillness about her, a quiet gravity. Her gaze sharp as glass, her posture flawless — like she'd been drawn inside a textbook and somehow escaped into real life.
It wasn't just her calm. It was her silence — the kind that made noise embarrassed to exist.
Subtle Foreshadowing
As homeroom began, Letace took her seat near the window — that spot, where sunlight paints half your face and every glance feels cinematic.
She listened. She wrote notes. She absorbed.
When the teacher called on her for a math question, she stood — her tone calm, her explanation so clean and logical that even Cartoon Headayami's brain nearly short-circuited.
Riyura, sitting a few desks away, leaned toward Shoehead and whispered, "She's like... a human Wi-Fi connection. Efficient signal, zero lag."
Shoehead nodded sagely, mouth full of shoe leather. "She's not one of us."
Goofy Contrast #1: Riyura's Tragic Juggling
At break, Riyura did what Riyura always did when faced with mystery: he overcompensated with confidence.
"Observe!" he declared, climbing atop a desk. "The master of entertainment welcomes our new intellectual overlord with a performance of unmatched elegance!"
He grabbed three pencils and started juggling. The class cheered. Letace watched, unreadable.
Then, predictably, disaster struck. One pencil launched upward, ricocheted off the ceiling fan, and shot directly into Principal Jeremy's coffee mug.
A moment later —BOOM. Steam. Shrieks. The unmistakable sound of someone yelling,"COFFEE TASTES LIKE DRUGS!"
The principal burst through the hallway — once again chibi-sized and trembling with caffeine-induced enlightenment — sprinting past classrooms at impossible speed.
Riyura froze mid-juggle. "...Okay, I'll admit. That wasn't in the plan." Letace blinked once, expression unchanged. "You have... unusual precision with chaos."
Goofy Contrast #2: Subarashī's "Training Offer"
By lunch, Subarashī had convinced himself that Letace was secretly a martial arts prodigy. He approached her dramatically, planting one foot on a desk like an anime protagonist about to announce destiny.
"Letace Brain!" he boomed. "I can sense your dormant power! Allow me to train you in the sacred art of Spirit Combat Aesthetics!" Letace calmly placed her chopsticks down. "I prefer logic over theatrics."
"Logic?" Subarashī blinked. "Can you weaponize that?" "No," she replied, returning to her lunch. "But it can dismantle bad logic in seconds." Somewhere behind them, Miyaka whispered to Riyura, "He's been defeated with vocabulary."
Goofy Contrast #3: Shoehead's 'Welcome Gift'
Meanwhile, Shoehead was hatching what he considered a flawless plan. He would welcome the new student with a gift — his lucky spare shoe, of course. He crept toward her backpack like a cartoon burglar, one shoe in hand. Riyura spotted him immediately whispered in his ear after leaning towards Shoehead like a cartoon character. Even using a whistle for the effects from Subarashi himself, after asking him to do so. "Don't do it, Shoehead."
But Shoehead was already halfway there, whispering, "It's the thought that counts, even if it smells."
Letace turned just as he slipped the shoe into her bag. Their eyes locked. A long silence. Then, instead of yelling, Letace said softly, "Next time, you can just say hello."
And just like that, everyone knew — Letace Brain wasn't cold. She was just careful.
Quiet Shifts
Over the next week, something subtle began to change at Jeremy High.
The usual noise didn't stop — Subarashī still shouted life lessons to passing pigeons, Headayami still lectured vending machines about "proper posture," and Riyura still accidentally caused at least two minor catastrophes a day.
But whenever Letace entered a room, the tone softened. Her calmness had weight. Her words made people listen. Even Headayami — the school's resident rule-stickler — found himself hesitating before interrupting her.
It wasn't fear. It was respect.
And yet, Riyura couldn't shake the feeling there was something underneath it all — a quiet grief she carried like a second shadow. He'd seen eyes like that before. The kind that had seen too much too soon.
A Strange Conversation
One afternoon, Riyura found Letace alone in the library. The rain had started outside — a heavy rain, silver and endless, sliding down the glass like unspoken thoughts.
She was reading quietly, posture perfect, as if even the storm outside respected her concentration. Riyura leaned against the shelf beside her. "You know, most people at this school would've started talking to the books by now."
Letace looked up, eyes faintly amused. "And yet, you're here instead."
He smiled. "I don't do well with silence. Makes me think too much." Her gaze lingered on him for a moment, then she closed her book gently. "Thinking isn't bad. It's running away from thoughts that hurts."
Her words hung in the air like the rain outside — steady, quiet, heavy with something unspoken. Riyura hesitated. "You talk like someone who's already been through a few storms."
Letace's expression didn't change, but her voice softened. "Some scars aren't visible. But they shape everything we do. Sometimes... facing them is the only way forward."
There was a pause — the kind that made time feel suspended.
Riyura wanted to ask more, but didn't. He saw it in her eyes — that invisible line between curiosity and intrusion. So he just nodded, smiling faintly. "Then maybe... this school's chaos isn't the worst place to start facing them."
She looked at him for a long second, and then — just barely — smiled.
Rumors
Rumors began to ripple through the school like whispers through tall grass. Some said Letace had been expelled from her last academy for hacking their security system. Others claimed she was part of some secret government project. Shoehead suggested she might be an alien who disguised herself as human to learn "shoe technology."
No one believed him. (Mostly.)
But behind the laughter, a quiet tension hummed. Letace moved through it with grace — never denying, never confirming. Every now and then, Riyura caught her looking at him across the courtyard, expression unreadable. It wasn't care or suspicion. It was recognition.
As if she saw something in him that even he didn't want to see.
Rooftop Reflections: The Calm Before the Storm
It happened one evening after class. The sky was melting into gold and violet, the city below flickering with early lights. Riyura stood on the rooftop, leaning against the railing, lost in thought.
Letace joined him silently, footsteps light.
For a while, they said nothing. The world stretched before them — infinite, unreachable. The clouds moved slowly, like the breaths of giants.
Subarashī popped up from behind them, holding a bag of chips. "Is this the part where we reflect on life while eating snacks?" Letace blinked. "That's... surprisingly accurate." Riyura laughed. "Welcome to Jeremy High, where even epiphanies come with side dishes."
They stood there — three silhouettes framed against the bleeding horizon.
Then Letace spoke, voice barely above a whisper. "Do you ever feel like you're living two lives at once? The one people see... and the one that's quietly breaking apart inside you?"
Riyura turned to her. The sunset caught her eyes — and for the first time, he saw it clearly: the sadness she kept behind every precise movement, every calculated pause.
He didn't answer right away. The wind tugged at his bow tie. The city pulsed below like a heartbeat. "Yeah," he finally said. "But maybe... meeting people who understand you... makes the cracks a little smaller."
Letace's expression softened. For a heartbeat, the calm mask slipped — revealing something fragile and human. "Maybe," she murmured. "Or maybe it just reminds us what we've been avoiding."
Subarashī, halfway through a mouthful of chips, looked between them and said, "...Is this emotional tension? Should I give you two space?"
Riyura groaned. "You kill every moment, you know that?" Letace actually laughed — a small, clear sound that surprised even her. The sound drifted into the evening air, light and warm, carried away by the wind.
Closing Scene
As night fell, the rooftop lights flickered on. The city below shimmered like a thousand tiny mirrors. Riyura leaned against the railing again, watching the stars bloom one by one. Letace stood beside him, her hair catching the faint glow.
He thought to himself — not with words, but with that quiet ache that hides in every heartbeat —Maybe Letace is the key... to understanding what I've buried for so long.
Somewhere deep down, he felt the shape of something shifting — not just curiosity, but recognition. Like two lost melodies starting to intertwine.
Letace looked out at the horizon, her voice almost a whisper. "Storms don't always announce themselves, Riyura. Sometimes... they arrive looking calm."
The wind blew through her hair, carrying her words into the deepening night. Riyura didn't reply. He didn't need to. In that stillness, the world felt like it was holding its breath — waiting for something to change.
The calm before the storm.
TO BE CONTINUED...