Ms. Tanabe was still at the podium explaining the rental process for these official cosplay outfits. Some people were already whispering and discussing which set was the cutest, but those voices felt as if they were filtered through water, reaching her ears only as a muffled hum.
The image on the screen flipped to the next slide, replacing Lightweaver's cosplay outfit with another style, but she was still turning the matter over in her mind.
“Tian Gong!” Rei's voice suddenly exploded in her ear.
Rei had slipped over from her own seat at some point. Bracing both hands on Qiluo's desk, she leaned forward. “That outfit just now! Lightweaver's outfit! Did you see it?!”
“...I saw it.” Qiluo averted her gaze from the screen and looked down to organize the papers on her desk. But Rei knew her too well; this deliberate calmness was exactly what gave her away.
“Don't you think it would look perfect on you?!” Rei held her phone up in front of Qiluo, showing a photo she had quickly snapped.
Qiluo gently tapped the edge of the last sheet of paper against the desk to align it, then raised her eyes to look at Rei.
“No way.”
“Why?!” Rei leaned so far forward she almost fell onto the desk.
“You haven't even tried it on, so how do you know it won't fit? And you have such a great figure, you'd look good in anything! I've been wanting to say this since you wore our gym uniform in PE class last time—your legs are so straight, you'd look absolutely amazing in a short skirt.”
“That outfit is ugly,” Qiluo said, her expression unchanged.
Rei froze, her mouth slightly open.
She looked down at the silver-white cosplay outfit on her screen, then looked back up at Qiluo.
“It's just ugly.” Qiluo stood her textbook upright on the desk, blocking half of her face and leaving only her eyes visible.
“The skirt is too short, the shoulder design is too stiff, the hair accessory is tacky, and the overall color scheme is too plain. Silver-white and gold—it looks like something a designer rushed out right before a deadline.”
In short, Qiluo Tian Gong had absolutely no desire to wear her own transformation outfit.
Having her own clothes put on display and picked apart by her entire class...
That was just too bizarre!
Rei looked down at her phone screen again, and when she looked back up, there was a hint of suspicion in her eyes.
She tilted her head, studying Qiluo for a long moment before suddenly leaning in. In a voice meant only for the two of them, she whispered, “Tian Gong, are you throwing a tantrum? Is it because Lightweaver is so popular that you're badmouthing her outfit on purpose?”
“...No. I'm just telling the truth.”
“Really...?” Rei dragged out the word. “Then why were you staring at the screen the whole time? From the moment Ms. Tanabe flipped to that page, you didn't take your eyes off it.”
She gently pulled the textbook away from Qiluo, exposing her expression before she had a chance to fix it. “You stared for so long. Tian Gong, are you jealous of Lightweaver because she's just too perfect?”
Jealous of myself? She probably thinks I'm just being a typical teenage girl...
Qiluo fell silent for a moment. She realized she couldn't even find a proper way to refute it.
“...You're overthinking it. I just honestly think that outfit looks bad.” She reached out to grab the textbook Rei had taken, but her fingers swiped through empty air.
Rei clutched the textbook to her chest and leaned back with a grin, looking like a little animal guarding its prize.
After homeroom ended, the classroom turned into a stirred-up beehive, buzzing with discussions everywhere.
Rei was called away by the class president to help compile the cosplay outfit sizes, but she didn't forget to return the textbook before she left.
Leaving behind a parting shot of “I'll make sure to reserve a Lightweaver set for you!”, she ran off before Qiluo could even protest.
Just as Qiluo was preparing to slip out of the classroom amid the chaos, Ms. Tanabe's voice drifted in from the doorway: “Tian Gong, please come to the office for a moment.”
The air conditioning in the office was running much stronger than in the classroom. Ms. Tanabe was already seated behind her desk. She gestured for Qiluo to sit and pulled a document out of her drawer.
“It's nothing major. We're having a new transfer student join our class next week. Just like you, she's transferring in from elsewhere.”
Ms. Tanabe slid the document over to her. It was a photocopy of a transfer registration form.
In the name field, it read “Kizuna Asana,” and the remarks section was annotated with “Long-term leave of absence due to illness, returning after recovery.”
The photo box was currently blank, likely because it hadn't been submitted yet.
“Her situation is a bit different from typical transfer students. She has been on a leave of absence due to her health, so the head teacher asked me to arrange for someone to help her adjust.”
At this point, Ms. Tanabe looked up, peering at Qiluo over the top of her glasses.
This particular transfer student had caught her attention since her very first day of school.
Her grades were average, she didn't join any clubs, and she went straight home after school to work a part-time job.
On the surface, she seemed like an incredibly ordinary student.
Yet Qiluo Tian Gong possessed an aura of someone accustomed to handling trouble all on her own.
So when the head teacher asked her to recommend someone who could help Kizuna Asana adjust to the class, the first person she thought of was Tian Gong.
Tian Gong was like a tree—no matter how the wind blew, she stood right there, steady and unyielding.
Kizuna Asana had just returned from a long recovery period. The last thing she needed was to be smothered with overenthusiastic attention or tiptoed around with cautious sympathy.
What she needed was someone who wouldn't look at her differently.
“And that's why I thought of you.”
“Since you're a transfer student yourself, and you've adjusted remarkably well. From the moment you entered the school until now, your grades have been stable, you get along well with your classmates, and while you didn't join any clubs, that was your own choice rather than being excluded.”
“More importantly, you don't have a desk partner yet.”
She turned the seating chart around for Qiluo to see.
She had looked at that seating chart many times. Every time she saw the empty space next to Tian Gong's name, she would think the same thing.
This seat has been empty for too long. It's time for someone to sit there.
Kizuna Asana might just be that person.
Rather than leaving two transfer students—both needing to readjust to school life—to figure things out on their own, it was better to have them sit side by side. At least they could look out for each other.
And if the new student sits next to her, I'll probably get to see Tian Gong smile a few more times during class.
The way she looked when she smiled was far more genuine than her usual calm mask, though she probably didn't realize it herself.
What Ms. Tanabe didn't know was that their “looking out for each other” had already begun long before Kizuna even woke up.
Before ever becoming her desk partner, she had first become her Contract Spirit.
And what was that about her situation being rather special and needing help to adjust?
She had literally jumped off the roof of the inpatient building to fly just a few days after recovering.
Qiluo didn't think she had any trouble adjusting at all.
“I understand. I'll take responsibility for helping her get familiar with the school.”
Ms. Tanabe looked very pleased with this response. She closed the folder, preparing to bring their conversation to an end.
...
Rate on N.U.
