Chapter 2: The Rules of Survival
It started the way most trouble did—quietly.
Rei Kisaragi sat at the back of Class 2-B, her desk shoved slightly apart from the rest like an unspoken warning. She hadn't asked for the space. It simply formed around her, like instinct. Her gaze was unfocused, trained somewhere beyond the classroom windows where the sky hung low and gray. Rain was coming. She could feel it in her bones.
Shirasagi High was louder than her last school. Cleaner, too. It reeked of artificial order—teachers who smiled too hard, students who laughed too loud. The kind of place where everyone followed rules not out of respect, but fear of standing out.
Rei didn't follow rules. She followed instincts. And instincts told her that peace in this place was thin, brittle. It would shatter soon.
And she would be the hammer.
Homeroom passed in a blur of introductions and timid glances. Rei ignored it all. She had no intention of making friends. Friends were liabilities. Attachments meant weakness. And she couldn't afford weakness.
It wasn't until third period that she noticed him.
Ichika Yamada.
Top of the class. Vice president of the student council. Neat hair. Clean uniform. A face that always smiled, but eyes that never did.
He sat two rows ahead of her and one seat to the left. His posture was perfect, his notes impeccable. The kind of student every teacher adored.
But Rei noticed the tension in his shoulders, the way he flinched whenever someone raised their voice. The way he glanced at her when he thought she wasn't looking.
He wasn't afraid.
He was curious.
Lunch came. Rei didn't go to the cafeteria. She never did.
Instead, she climbed the back stairs and slipped through the rooftop door—the lock still broken, just as she'd left it. The kitten was gone now, taken by a cleaner or maybe worse. She didn't ask. She didn't want to know.
She sat on her usual spot, pulled out her rice ball, and stared at the city.
Then the door creaked open.
She didn't move.
Footsteps. Light. Hesitant.
"I figured you'd be up here," said a voice.
She turned her head slowly.
Ichika Yamada.
She raised an eyebrow. "You lost, honor student?"
He held up a second bento. "Thought you might be hungry."
Rei stared at him. "I'm not interested in pity."
"It's not pity. Just a peace offering." He set the bento beside her and backed away, giving her space.
She didn't touch it. Didn't speak.
He stood in silence for a while, then sat several feet away.
Most people couldn't stand silence.
But Ichika didn't try to fill it.
That earned him a sliver of respect.
The peace didn't last.
...
...
On Thursday, after final period, Rei was stopped at the back gate by three boys in second-year uniforms. Their leader, Takumi Jin, was the self-proclaimed "disciplinary enforcer" of the student council.
"You're Kisaragi, right?" he asked, arms crossed.
She didn't respond.
"You think you're tough, coming in here and throwing punches?"
Still no answer.
"We don't need trash like you at Shirasagi. So here's the deal—you either straighten up or get out."
Rei yawned.
That was enough.
Takumi lunged.
She didn't even blink.
His arm never touched her. One step, one twist, and he was on the ground wheezing. His friends backed away, eyes wide.
She didn't say a word.
She just walked past them.
The next day, the rumors exploded. "Kisaragi beat up Jin!" "She broke his wrist!" "She's part of a gang!"
None of it was true. None of it mattered.
Rei's reputation grew darker. But in the shadows, something else stirred.
Respect.
Not from the teachers. Not from the cowards who whispered behind her back.
But from the silent ones. The quiet observers. The outcasts and loners who saw her not as a threat, but a possibility.
Ichika came to the rooftop again.
"You could've broken his arm," he said, placing his bento down. "But you didn't."
Rei shrugged. "Didn't feel worth it."
"You hold back a lot more than people think."
She looked at him. "What do you want from me, Yamada?"
He smiled, but it was sad. "Maybe I just want to know what's behind all that fire."
"No one wants to know."
"I do."
For the first time, Rei didn't look away. The rooftop became theirs.
No promises. No labels. Just silence and shared lunches. And slowly, the girl who never flinched began to blink. Not because she was afraid.
But because someone, for once, saw her—not just the fists or the rumors, but the person who lived behind the armor.
Rei Kisaragi didn't know what this meant. But for the first time in years, she didn't want to run. And that scared her more than anything.
...
...
Friday afternoon brought the first student council meeting since Rei's arrival. Though she wasn't part of it, the whispers that followed her were loud enough to breach the closed doors.
"She's a delinquent."
"Jin deserved it. He provoked her."
"Maybe she's just misunderstood."
Ichika sat through it all in silence. When the meeting ended, he didn't return to class. Instead, he walked the halls alone, eventually stopping outside the nurse's office. He stared at the closed door for a long moment before knocking once and continuing down the corridor.
Rei, who had been resting inside with a fake excuse of a headache, watched him pass from behind the frosted glass.
A minute later, she slipped out and followed.
Their paths crossed again outside the gym, where Ichika stood staring at the basketball court. The sun had begun to dip, casting golden light across the floorboards.
"I heard what they said," Rei said quietly.
Ichika turned to her. "And?"
She leaned against the wall. "They're wrong."
"I know." He smiled faintly. "But it's not them I care about."
"Then who?"
"You."
She stiffened. "Don't get close to me, Yamada. I don't want to hurt anyone who actually means it."
"Then don't."
Simple. Like it was that easy. She wanted to laugh, but instead she just stared at him, searching for the lie.
But there wasn't one. And that made it harder. Maybe surviving this school wouldn't be about fighting everyone off.
Maybe it would be about letting one person in. And that was the scariest battle yet.