The sun warmed the back of Kaito's neck as he slouched against the school gate, a silent statue of teenage ennui. He watched the stream of students pour out, a river of chatter and brightly colored book bags. His gaze, as always, drifted to her.
Yuki was a splash of warmth in the afternoon light, laughing with a friend. Her smile was a tangible thing, capable of softening the hard edges he so carefully maintained. As if feeling his stare, she turned. Her eyes met his, and she offered a small, tentative wave. A flicker of something—annoyance? embarrassment?—made him scowl and look away, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets. Don't look at me like that. Like I'm something to be fixed.
---
Inside, in the pristine, air-conditioned silence of the student council room, Ren finished initialing the last of the festival budget forms. The numbers were perfect. The logic was sound. He allowed himself a small, satisfied breath. Order from chaos. It was his purpose.
His vice-president, a bubbly girl named Aimi, leaned over his desk. "You're a lifesaver, Ren! I was so worried about the funding for the fireworks. You always know how to make it work."
"It was a simple matter of reallocating resources from the less-attended poetry reading," he said, his tone even. He didn't look up, but he could feel her admiring gaze. It was… inefficient, but not entirely unpleasant.
---
Haru wiped his brow with the back of his hand, leaving a smudge of rich, dark soil on his skin. The community garden was his sanctuary. Here, things made sense. You planted a seed, you watered it, you protected it, and with patience, it grew. It was a quiet, honest kind of magic.
He gently staked a drooping sunflower, its heavy head bowing towards the earth. "There you go," he murmured. "Just a little support." He glanced towards the school gates, his heart giving its usual, familiar ache as he saw Yuki. He'd known her since they'd traded crayons in kindergarten. He'd loved her just as long. He just needed to find the courage to tell her. Maybe when these sunflowers bloomed.
---
Yuki hugged her books to her chest, the familiar weight a comfort. Her walk home was a daily ritual. Past the school gates where Kaito always lingered, a beautiful, stormy puzzle. Past the student council window where she'd sometimes catch a glimpse of Ren's focused profile. Through the community garden where Haru would always look up, his face lighting up with a smile that felt like coming home.
Three different boys, three different kinds of flutter in her stomach. It was confusing, and wonderful, and perfectly, ordinarily complicated. She paused by the bakery, the warm, sweet scent of Mr. Higashi's famous apple turnovers wafting out. He waved from behind the counter, his kind face crinkling into a smile. She waved back, making a mental note to buy one tomorrow.
It was just another perfect, sunny afternoon in Maple Creek.
---
In his hidden lab, Leo watched the multi-screen display. It was like watching the most boring slice-of-life anime ever conceived.
"Pathetic," he muttered, the word echoing in the sterile silence.
He watched Kaito's brooding, a performance for an audience of one. He watched Ren bask in the shallow admiration of his peers. He watched Haru pour his heart into a patch of dirt. He watched Yuki, the central cog in this mundane machine, blissfully unaware that she was the prize in the most cliché dating sim ever coded.
This wasn't a story. This was a snooze fest.
His fingers, long and pale, danced across the holographic keyboard. The schematics for the "Manifestation Shards" were complete. They pulsed with latent energy: crimson, azure, amber, verdant. He had spent days perfecting them, coding them to respond to specific emotional and biological triggers. They were beautiful.
But a gift needed the right wrapping. A hero needed a proper stage.
His eyes, cold and analytical, scanned the city's infrastructure grid. His gaze settled on the gas main running directly beneath the street Yuki walked down every day. The street where Mr. Higashi's bakery filled the air with the scent of sugar and normalcy.
A plan, clean and ruthless in its logic, crystallized in his mind. He would not just give them power. He would forge them in fire and blood. They would learn that their ordinary world was a fragile illusion, and that true strength was born in the crucible of loss.
He began to write the code. A minor, controlled leak. A single, stray spark from a faulty connection in the traffic light control box he could easily override. It wouldn't be an accident. It would be a opening scene. A dramatic inciting incident worthy of the epic he was about to direct.
He set the parameters. The leak would begin just as Yuki reached the crosswalk. The shards, hidden in a delivery-drone backpack in a nearby alley, would activate as the boys, drawn by their pre-programmed routes, converged on the location.
He input the final command. > INITIATE SCENARIO: "FIRST SPARK" IN T-MINUS 60 SECONDS.
On the screen, Yuki hummed a tune from the school festival, completely unaware. Kaito was trying to light a cigarette, his lighter flickering uselessly. Ren was packing his bag with methodical precision. Haru was brushing the dirt from his knees.
Leo leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. The banter was over. The romance was a fantasy.
"Places, everyone," The Director whispered, a cold smile touching his lips. "It's time for your real roles."