The rest of that first day back at Meisei Magic Academy was a tightrope walk over a chasm of anxiety. Every corridor felt like a gauntlet, every shared glance a potential judgment. Emi and Rika maintained a calculated distance, their presence a cold pressure at the edge of my awareness. I saw them watching me during lunch, their expressions unreadable but undoubtedly malicious, and I quickly retreated to the relative anonymity of a crowded corner of the library, my appetite gone. The fragile seed of hope from the morning's group meeting felt very small indeed under their chilling scrutiny.
Thursday and Friday unfolded in a similar vein – a tense tapestry woven from hyper-vigilance and small, guarded interactions. I kept my head down, my communication with anyone outside my festival group limited to curt nods or the briefest of written notes when absolutely unavoidable. The fear of another confrontation was a constant, bitter taste in my mouth. Yet, the bullying, for now, remained a cold war of glares and whispered comments just out of earshot, perhaps because I was seldom truly alone, usually hurrying between classes or finding refuge with my thoughts until the bell for our festival group meeting rang.
Those meetings became the unlikely focal point of my days, a small island of tentative safety in a hostile sea. Aya, with her boundless enthusiasm, was a warm and welcoming presence. Kenji, though still buried in his research, had started to direct his more obscure folkloric questions to my drawings, seeking to align his ancient texts with the "emanating protective flows" I was trying to depict.
And Haru… Haru continued to be a quiet enigma, yet increasingly, a reassuring one. He watched, he listened, and he understood things I didn't say, things I only managed to convey through the hesitant dance of my pencil on paper.
During our session on Friday afternoon, we were trying to figure out how to visually represent the sustaining of a protective ward, not just its initial formation. Aya had sketched a beautiful, static shield, but it lacked the dynamism we were aiming for.
"It needs to feel like it's constantly being… renewed," she said, tapping her pencil thoughtfully. "Like a living thing."
My mind went to the flowing, repetitive hand movements in certain JSL signs for 'continue' or 'maintain,' the way they cycled and looped, suggesting an ongoing process. Hesitantly, I took the festival notebook – our notebook, as I was slowly, cautiously beginning to think of it – and on a fresh page, I began to draw. I sketched a series of interlocking, spiraling patterns, a visual rhythm of lines that folded back on themselves, feeding into new expressions of the initial arcing shield. I tried to imbue them with a sense of perpetual motion, of self-sustaining energy.
As I drew, concentrating fiercely, trying to translate the silent language of my hands into something they could see, I felt a prickle of frustration. It was so hard to explain the nuance, the inherent feeling behind the movements, with just static lines. I wanted them to see the way a hand could carve resilience in the air. Without thinking, my left hand, the one not holding the pencil, lifted slightly from the table, fingers beginning to curl into one of those looping, sustaining JSL gestures I was envisioning.
It was only a half-formed thought, an instinctive twitch, but as my fingers moved, the air around my hand seemed to thicken for a bare instant. A faint, almost invisible shimmer, like heat rising from summer asphalt, pulsed around my knuckles. The cheap plastic pen lying beside Kenji's elbow vibrated with a distinct, audible buzz against the wooden table. Buzzzz. Then silence.
My blood ran cold.
I snatched my hand back as if burned, slamming it into my lap, my heart hammering against my ribs. My face went hot, then icy. No, no, no. It happened again. That… thing. And this time, the pen. It had made a sound.
Aya blinked, looking at Kenji's pen with a slight frown. "Did you feel that? Was that an earthquake tremor? So small."
Kenji, startled from his book, looked around, bewildered. "A tremor? I didn't notice anything." He poked his pen. It lay still.
My gaze darted to Haru. He wasn't looking at the pen. He was looking directly at me. His expression was unnervingly still, his blue eyes narrowed in that thoughtful, analytical way, but this time, there was something more – a flicker of intense curiosity, a focused scrutiny that seemed to pierce right through me. He'd seen something. I knew he had. Or if not seen, then sensed. His gaze dropped to my hand, still clenched tightly in my lap, then back to my face.
Terror, pure and unadulterated, flooded me. He knew. He knew I was a freak, that something was deeply, horribly wrong with me. I wanted to bolt, to run from the room, from the school, from my own skin.
"Minami?" Aya's voice was gentle, concerned. "Are you okay? You look very pale."
I couldn't meet her eyes. I couldn't meet any of their eyes. I stared down at my drawing of spiraling, sustaining lines, which now seemed to mock me with their innocent flow. I managed a jerky nod, my throat too tight to even think about trying to write an excuse.
Haru remained silent, but I could feel his gaze on me, steady and unwavering. It wasn't accusing. It wasn't even overtly questioning. It was… observant. Deeply, unnervingly observant.
The rest of the session was a blur of forced composure. I kept my hands firmly in my lap or used them only for the most minimal, essential pencil strokes. I couldn't risk another… incident. The group continued to build on my drawings, Aya and Kenji animatedly discussing how to translate the "perpetual motion" into their exhibit design, but their voices were a distant buzz. My entire being was focused on the terrifying secret thrumming beneath my skin, and on the silent, thoughtful boy who I was increasingly certain was beginning to glimpse it.
When the bell finally rang, I practically leaped from my chair, muttering a hasty, written, 'Have to go,' on a scrap of paper and shoving it towards Aya before fleeing the room.
I didn't look back to see if Haru was watching me go. I didn't need to. I could feel his gaze like a physical weight, a silent question mark hovering in the space between us.
The festival project was taking shape, my ideas inexplicably finding a place within it. I was, almost despite myself, connecting with this small, kind group. But a new, terrifying chasm was opening up within me. My own hands, my own body, were becoming a source of fear. And Haru, the quiet boy who saw so much, was a witness to a truth about me that I didn't even understand myself. The fragile seed of hope was now entwined with a cold, coiling dread.