Perhaps one can still feel lonely, even amidst a crowd.

The next day.

After finishing his breakfast, Tsukimi Jinguuji stroked Cocoro the cat before leaving, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and stepped out the door, just in time to meet Sakurakoji Sasa from next door, who was also carrying her backpack. She still seemed to be angry with him and said not a word; so Jinguuji walked behind her, all the way to Jiyugaoka Station, tapped his card at the gate, and boarded the Toyoko Line.

They got off at Nakameguro Station, walked for about ten minutes, climbed a long slope, and arrived at Shinzakura High School, where they both studied.

One after the other, they entered Classroom 2-A. Jinguuji found a seat near the classroom door and began reading, while Sakurakoji Sasa went off to chat with several familiar girls.

No one came to talk to Jinguuji. If this class had to decide who was the “invisible person,” without a doubt, Jinguuji would claim that title.

It was only natural.

The boys’ hostility toward Jinguuji was blatantly obvious—everyone knew he liked to flirt with girls who already had boyfriends. It was clear no boy would want to be friends with someone like that.

But if the roles were reversed, and they possessed Jinguuji’s dazzling good looks, they couldn’t guarantee they’d become paragons of virtue themselves.

Among the girls, there were some who privately thought, “Even if he’s a scoundrel, I’d like to date the handsome Jinguuji,” but social convention forced them to feign disdain: “Who would like someone like that?”

In short, sixteen or seventeen is an age filled with sentimentality and immaturity, for both boys and girls.

As the bell rang, Mr. Hasebe entered the classroom to start the first homeroom session of the second semester.

Mr. Hasebe was a young teacher in his early thirties, with refined features, a gentle manner, and black-rimmed glasses—elegant and much admired by both female teachers and female students.

He taught mathematics, and had been Jinguuji’s math teacher during his first year. Now, in their second year, he was their homeroom teacher.

After roll call, Mr. Hasebe instructed the students to rearrange their seats according to student numbers, different from last semester’s arrangement. Unluckily, Jinguuji was assigned a seat in the back row by the window, causing him to frown slightly.

He disliked sitting by the window.

From her seat in the front row, Sakurakoji Sasa glanced at him. As his childhood friend, she knew all his habits. Jinguuji gave her a slight shake of his head, and she withdrew her gaze.

When it came time for students to give speeches about their summer vacation, Jinguuji, like the others, listlessly applauded after each uninspiring account, a routine unlikely to make any of their supposedly exciting experiences linger in anyone’s memory.

Jinguuji, however, with his remarkable memory, had already engraved every word of their speeches in his mind.

This was a peculiar skill once granted to him by the system he had uninstalled yesterday—anything he heard or saw, he could remember almost perfectly.

Most high schoolers at sixteen or seventeen live by their own prejudices.

That was Jinguuji’s prejudice.

He had developed it because, after sharing his own mundane story, not a single person in the class applauded. The classroom, which could hold thirty people, felt even narrower than he had imagined.

Finally, to break the awkward silence, Mr. Hasebe began clapping, followed by some girls, and the room filled with scattered, pitiful applause.

Though Jinguuji was indifferent to it all.

He propped his chin in his hand and gazed out the window. The clouds resembled bleached bones—thin, pale, much like the cold expression suspended on the boy’s face.

Beyond the disliked windowsill, through the glass, the sky was a striking blue.

Let us unravel some of Jinguuji’s past.

His junior high school record need not be discussed for now. In his first year at Shinzakura High, Jinguuji was relatively well-behaved, and only dated once.

It was a relationship that would never be accepted in any era.

Her subject was classical literature—she should have known better, and yet she succumbed.

Or, perhaps, it was Jinguuji’s own depravity that compelled her.

Her official boyfriend stormed into the school, causing a scene that nearly turned violent.

Afterward, she was expelled; it was unlikely she would ever work in this field again, forever marked by an indelible stain.

Jinguuji himself was suspended for half a month, right before final exams, yet still managed to rank first in the entire year.

Had he exercised a little restraint and chosen peers his own age, perhaps his affairs would not have become public knowledge.

And to make matters worse, Jinguuji arrogantly claimed the top spot in the grade, further irritating everyone.

In his second year, Jinguuji set his sights on the student council president—the “flower on the highest peak.”

She was the most beautiful girl in Meguro, from a wealthy family, with both talent and intellect. She had already secured a recommendation to Keio University, and for ordinary students, was an existence from another world.

Yet, this very girl was seen more than once dining with Jinguuji in the school cafeteria, driving the boys mad with jealousy.

As for his ex-girlfriends outside school, their number was too many to count, and need not be discussed.

But now, it seemed Jinguuji could no longer genuinely fall in love with anyone—a gap in his heart that would never be filled.

Of course, recounting these matters now was meaningless.

Jinguuji had turned over a new leaf. Without the constraints of the system, he would never again steal someone’s lover.

He only wanted to experience an ordinary high school life, earn a recommendation to a national university with excellent grades, avoid burdening his parents, erase his past, and welcome a new life.

Until then, he wished only to live quietly.

...

...

At lunchtime, Jinguuji bought a drink from the vending machine for seventy yen. The school’s vending machines always sold peculiar drinks, and Jinguuji always chose the cheapest. Occasionally, his luck would net him something both cheap and delicious.

On his way back to the classroom, he happened to meet Sakurakoji Sasa alone.

“Tsukimi, come to my house for dinner tonight.”

“What’s going on?”

“Just now, Aunt Yuko sent a message. She’s going out with friends tonight and asked me to take care of you.”

The Aunt Yuko she referred to was Jinguuji’s mother.

Jinguuji was puzzled. “Which friend?”

“My mom.”

The girl opened her phone, displayed the LINE chat screen, and waved it in front of Jinguuji. It was just as she said.

“Why didn’t she tell me?”

“Who knows.”

Jinguuji nodded. Going to Sakurakoji’s house for dinner was no different from going home. The benefit of childhood friendship, after all, was that when you quarreled with your family, you always had a place to eat and sleep. Whenever Sakurakoji Sasa had a fight with her parents as a child, she’d sneak over to his house at night and crawl into his bed.

Once, she even wet his bed—and Jinguuji took the blame. The sheets hung in the yard brought him ridicule from the neighborhood boys for quite some time.

Jinguuji’s father and Sakurakoji’s father were not only close friends since their student days but also business associates after graduation. Both were currently on business trips in Europe, so when either mother was away, it was common to eat at the neighbor’s house.

And when both mothers were out, the task of cooking naturally fell to Sakurakoji Sasa.

“Never mind, I’ll come to your house and cook. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Cocoro—you’re lucky to have that cat.”

Her tone was less than pleasant, yet she was willing to cook for him.

Even after countless romances, Jinguuji still couldn’t fathom his childhood friend’s feelings.

It didn’t matter. They were just childhood friends, after all. In the end, they were outsiders.

He pretended that’s what he thought.

At three fifteen in the afternoon, Mr. Hasebe returned to the class for homeroom. The students on duty stayed behind to clean, while those in clubs headed off together to the club building.

Jinguuji was the only member of Class 2-A in the “go-home club.”

Shinzakura High was a school that placed great emphasis on club activities. In principle, every student had to participate, and special circumstances required written application and approval from the homeroom teacher and student council.

But Jinguuji, as the top student, had been granted a special privilege—he did not join any club, claiming he didn’t want to waste time on anything other than studying.

Simply put, it was a right reserved for the top student.

After returning his indoor shoes to the locker, the boy left school alone. Facing September’s dazzling sunlight, the sound of a baseball being struck echoed from the direction of the field—a youthful clamor.

Walking along the empty slope, the cherry trees on either side now bore only dark green leaves.

The fragrance of spring’s cherry blossoms was long gone. The sunlight stretched the boy’s shadow into a long silhouette, lonely and aging, like a sea cucumber clinging to the rocks at the ocean’s floor.