Smile!

“I LIKE YOU!”

Those were the words of Hatsune, a girl I had only met a few weeks ago while going out with some of my friends and some of her friends.

In the school garden, after classes, a spring breeze was blowing, and cherry blossom petals were slowly falling around us, carried by the wind like little fragments of a moment that seemed to have come straight out of the beginning of a romantic story.

At those words, all I could do was smile. Not because I was happy, nor because I had expected something like this. I simply thought about how much courage it must have taken to get to that moment. Preparing yourself mentally to confess your feelings to someone you had known for such a short time couldn’t have been easy.

Especially when that person was me.

It was almost too perfect. It seemed like the kind of scene you see in anime: the protagonist receives a confession from the girl he loves, and the two of them get together.

Except I wasn’t the protagonist of that kind of story.

Hatsune lowered her gaze slightly. For a moment, she seemed to be searching for the right words.

“I know we’ve only known each other for a short time.” Her voice was quieter than before.

“When you arrived at this school, you were someone I didn’t know. And yet…”

She stopped.

The wind continued to move the branches of the trees above us, making more petals fall onto the ground.

“And yet, you managed to make me feel comfortable around you from the very beginning.”

Hearing those words, I remained silent, not because I didn’t have an answer, but because I had too many.

I had spent the last month trying to adapt to this new city, this new school, and the people I hadn’t known until recently. I had smiled, joked, and spent time with them. I had done everything a normal person would have done. Maybe that was exactly why she had seen something in me.

“I like you.”

She repeated it, this time more quietly and with a voice more trembling than before.

As if those words had been harder to say a second time, so I looked at her and smiled.

A real confession in the school garden, after classes, during our final year of high school. It was the kind of scene many people would have wanted to experience at least once in their lives.

A shy girl who had found the courage to confess her feelings wasn’t something that happened every day. And on top of that, it was happening on such a perfect day, at such a perfect moment.

But inside, I didn’t feel that sudden sensation I had imagined so many times.

No racing heartbeat.

No uncontrollable emotions.

Just a strange calm.

There was only one question on my mind.

“What am I supposed to do now?”

Because the problem wasn’t understanding how she felt.

For that, I already knew what I should say or do.

The problem was understanding how I felt.

⸻

Looking back, if we had ended up in this situation, it was because of a crush one of my classmates had on a friend of Hatsune’s.

⸻

—FLASHBACK—

Exactly one month earlier, during the second week of April, I began my third and final year of high school at Hoshizora Academy, located in Tokyo Prefecture.

It was a fairly competitive school that prepared students well to make the right choices about their future, whether they wanted to continue studying or enter the workforce directly.

Since it was an important day, I arrived at school about twenty minutes before classes started to appear as punctual as possible.

It wasn’t something new for me. I had always believed that the first impression you gave was the most important one.

That day, there was a pleasant spring breeze, and there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. On an important day like this, having such nice weather gave me confidence and security.

Or at least, that’s how I appeared on the outside.

In reality, the tension inside me wasn’t going away.

I could feel my heart pounding in my throat. I tried to calm myself down, but I couldn’t.

As soon as I entered the school, I headed toward the teachers’ office. As I walked through the corridors, I caught the eyes of several students my age and younger who were staring at me. As I passed by, I heard some students whispering things like:

“Is he the new transfer student?”

“I think so. I expected him to be shorter.”

“I’ve never seen him here before, so it has to be him.”

“He looks fit. I think he plays sports.”

After wandering around almost the entire school looking for the teachers’ office, I finally found it.

I mentally prepared myself, knocked, and entered.

The office was fairly messy, with a lot of teachers inside working and many papers and folders scattered around. It was clear that they were quite busy, even during a period like this.

As I entered, a fairly young woman who looked to be around twenty-five to thirty years old said to me:

“You must be Ren, the new student.”

“Yes,” I replied. “I’m Ren Kagami. Nice to meet you!”

And I smiled.

Smiling was the easiest thing to do. People trusted someone more easily when they appeared calm.

“I’m Tachibana Shiori, your homeroom teacher. It’s nice to meet you.”

The teacher stood up from her chair and shook my hand as a greeting.

She was shorter than me, probably around 165 centimeters, while I was exactly 173 centimeters.

The teacher had long black hair that fell loosely to her shoulders and large brown eyes. On the desk, I noticed a box that looked like it contained contact lenses, which gave me the impression that she wore contacts during the day and glasses at night.

“Class will start in five minutes, so I’ll take you to your new classroom. That way, we won’t be late.”

“Okay, thank you,” I replied.

Immediately afterward, we headed toward the classroom, and when we arrived, she said to me:

“Now I’ll introduce you to your classmates. When I tell you to come in, enter and introduce yourself.”

“Okay,” I replied.

The teacher entered the classroom and closed the door behind her.

I remained outside waiting, but through the door I could hear her voice as she called the students’ attention and explained that, from that day onward, they would have a new classmate.

While I waited for the moment to enter, I mentally went over the introduction I had prepared during those days.

Simple.

Short.

Effective.

There was no need to say too much. First impressions were important, and I had learned that it only took a few seconds for people to form an opinion about you.

Then, for an instant, a memory from the past crossed my mind.

An unpleasant sensation ran through my body, making my stomach tighten.

The nausea came suddenly, as if my body remembered something my mind was trying to forget.

I lowered my gaze and took a deep breath.

I couldn’t afford to lose control right then.

Fortunately, the hallway was empty.

After a few seconds, I managed to calm down.

“Everything is fine.”

I repeated it to myself mentally.

I just had to go inside.

I just had to act like a normal person.

When I finally heard the teacher’s voice coming from the other side of the door:

“You can come in.”

I took one last breath.

Then I opened the door and entered the classroom.

As I walked toward the blackboard to write my name, all of my new classmates’ eyes were on me.

At that moment, some memories came back to me.

Good memories, and memories I would have preferred to forget.

For an instant, I felt that same feeling of discomfort I had experienced many times in the past, but I couldn’t let it show.

Not there.

Not in front of people who were meeting me for the first time.

So I continued walking with a calm expression, as if nothing had happened.

When I reached the blackboard, I picked up the chalk and wrote my name.

Ren Kagami.

Then I turned toward the class.

“I’m Ren Kagami. It’s nice to meet you all. I hope we’ll get along.”

A simple introduction.

Short.

But effective enough.

There was no need to tell people too much about yourself during the first meeting. People only needed something on which to build their first impression.

And that was exactly the impression I wanted to give.

Confidence.

Normality.

After the introduction, the teacher pointed toward the desk where I would spend the rest of the year.

“Your seat is over there. Now you can go sit down so we can start the lesson.”

I nodded and headed toward my seat.

As I walked between the desks, I quickly observed my classmates’ reactions.

No one seemed to have a bad impression of me.

A few curious looks, a few smiles.

Nothing more.

I had made the right choice.

I sat down, and shortly afterward, the teacher began the lesson.

⸻

At the end of the lesson, however, I was immediately surrounded by a series of questions.

“Where did you transfer from?”

“Why did you change schools?”

“What do you like to do in your free time?”

“Do you play any sports?”

Simple questions.

Questions that probably every new student would receive.

I answered all of them, trying to be as natural as possible.

Sometimes I shifted the conversation toward them, asking questions in return.

Not because I wasn’t interested.

But because I had learned that people liked feeling listened to.

And showing interest was the easiest way to build a good relationship.

⸻

After about two weeks, I had already become “friends” with some of my classmates, both boys and girls.

They had invited me out several times: karaoke one afternoon, a quick dinner after school, or simply going for a walk around the city center.

For the moment, everything seemed to be going well.

It was during this period that Hirata, one of the guys I had gotten along with the most, suggested another outing.

“It’ll be me, Kenta, and you. But… could you invite Hatsune and her friends too?”

The request seemed strange to me.

For a few seconds, I didn’t understand why.

Then I only had to look at Hirata’s embarrassed expression to figure it out.

He wasn’t organizing that outing for me.

He wanted to use my presence as an opportunity to naturally get closer to Hana, the model student in our class.

As the ace of the basketball club, Hirata certainly wasn’t the kind of person who had trouble attracting other people’s attention. He was known by many students and, probably, if he had wanted to invite Hana out alone, he would have found the courage sooner or later.

And yet, he had chosen a different approach.

A group outing.

A simpler situation where he could talk to her without feeling all the pressure of an actual date.

Of course, he didn’t tell me this openly.

But there was no need.

From the way he talked about Ai, and from the times he tried to approach her only to back out at the last moment, it was fairly easy to understand what he was thinking.

He wanted to use me as a connection.

The ironic thing was that, probably, part of his intentions was also to help me integrate better into the class.

Inviting the new transfer student to an outing with other classmates was certainly an effective way to help me get to know everyone better.

Despite this, I had already understood the real reason.

I didn’t blame him.

After all, everyone looked for a way to get what they wanted without taking too many risks.

And I was no different.

So I agreed to organize the outing.