By now, the girl is completely numb. Her body’s all but shut down. That crushing tension that’d had such a hold on her, all this time… gone. Or perhaps she’d merely acclimated to it. Her expression remains flat and her head fills with static. As if every one of her thoughts has become smoke, intangible and impossible to get a grasp on, slipping through her fingers whenever she reaches out. But if this keeps up, how much longer before… empty. Here, with this boy in front of her, on the verge of falling to pieces, her mind goes utterly blank.

Then she notices. The rest of the world is back, the white void replaced by the bustling super city beyond the window. Reggie takes a breath and forces himself to stand upright. “We… should all get back to class! I must… consult with the great old gods. See that the power of my Evil Eye can change this grim fate.” There’s the grandeur. The theatrical, melodramatic persona. But this is all wrong. It’s manufactured, forced… fake. Even so, he’s off with that, leaving Mio and Kou there in the hall to let the silence wash over them.

Kou shoves his hands into his pockets, still not turning around. He simply tips back his head, casting his somber gaze to the ceiling with a deep breath and a sigh of just… “Damn,” on his tongue. “I figured it was him. Honestly, I just hoped you turned him down and he was too heartbroken to show his face. At least that I could do somethin’ about. Cheer him up a little. But after hearin’ people talk about what happened yesterday… I dunno. I just got a feeling. That room is gonna feel a whole lot emptier, from now on.”

“Gomen’nasai…”

Kou glances over his shoulder. Seeing her hugging her own arm and looking to the floor again, something about it all makes him laugh to himself. “So it was you.” But just when he turns around, he’s given pause. What is this girl doing? With her head bowed, her arms outstretched and, in her hands… an orange scarf he’d come to know well. “That’s…”

“Jun-kun left this for me. But I don’t really think I should have it, since it was my fault. You were closer to him than I was. You should have it.”

That’s right. This is the best thing to do. She and Jun barely knew one another. Why else would he give this to her? If he maybe couldn’t face his friends, she could at least do this much to make up for… wait. Her head still bowed, Mio realizes Kou’s squatting down in front of her to get into her field of view again. “You’re a really silly girl, aren’tcha? Morioka-chan?”

Mio blinks. “Eh?”

Kou stands himself up before Mio and takes her hands, pushing them, and the scarf held in them, back to her. When Mio looks up at him… why is he smiling at her with such kind eyes? “You’re right. I was way closer to Jun-kun. That’s why I’m sure this belongs to you.”

“But… I don’t…”

“I bet he asked you to win, right?” Mio’s heart stops in her chest. How could he possibly know that? Then, as if able to read her mind, the boy pokes out his tongue. “Right again. See?” A wistful luster sweeps over his eyes. The look of someone whose vision has become unfixed from time, tuned to the channels of nostalgia. “That’s just the kind of guy he was. Always thinking of other people first. Even if they were against him. I’ve known him since we were little. And I bullied him ‘til right before the end of Junior High. But he never once wished anything bad would happen to me. And when it did, there he was… with a hand reached out.”

Mio clutches the scarf tighter, her mind replaying the whole ordeal. The way Jun begged her to win, even though he knew what it’d mean for himself. That wasn’t just because it was her. He’d have done that for anyone. And just a bit earlier, all Mio could bring herself to think about was… what? What people might say or do if they found out? “Still… I don’t get it. How you can say something like that.”

One look at this girl’s pouty little face, matched with those cool, distant eyes of hers and Kou can’t resist. His arm reaches out and, to Mio’s surprise, he rests a hand atop her head. Gently. A quietly ecstatic “Kawaii na” under his breath. What… is this for? Mio can’t think of a single thing. Yet, as much as she goes over it in her mind, not once does it occur to her to move. “Sorry, Morioka-chan. I really don’t mean to keep making you uncomfortable. For a second you made a really adorable face and I can’t help myself with cute stuff.” Something about his voice. Both light and heavy, all at once, joined by such a warm, almost motherly smile. “But I see why Jun-kun started liking you.”

Right. That was the start of all this, wasn’t it? Jun was interested in her. Liked her. Yet her head won’t clear up. The static persists. And it gets louder with every passing moment. Why? She’d barely spoken to him at all, before that day. She’s not especially pretty or smart or funny. She’s hardly what you’d call personable. And she’s certainly not as selfless and as he was. So then, what was it? A little snicker above her halts that train of thought, then and there. “I guess he never told you? In that case, I’ll let you figure it out on your own.”

Her pout returning, Mio lightly shoves Kou back. “Bully…”

“Ahaha! Gomen, gomen!” But when that jovial laugh of his stops, Mio tilts her head up to find him staring down at her. “You know, you’re… actually a lot like him, Morioka-chan. Thinking about others, when it matters most.”

Mio shrinks away from Kou, turning her back to him. “That’s not really…”

“You told me and Reggie the truth. Because you were worried how we’d feel if we had to find out some other way, right?” Mio sits and ponders. Is that why she’d told them? And even then, how would he know that? She doesn’t hear it from her perch, up in her own head, but Kou approaches her from behind, his footsteps echoing in the still-empty hall. “That’s why it belongs to you.” Then…

It happens so fast. A quick flutter of orange fabric as it unfurls and, before Mio has a chance to process what’s going on, it’s around her own neck, Kou having wrapped it himself. Jun’s scarf. “Eh?”

“Voila.” Kou holds up his Link and the wrist-mounted multi-tool projects a holographic image of Mio in the garment. “It looks good on you, Morioka-chan!”

Mio stands and stares at this perfect mirror image of her, her hand reaching up to touch the wrap around her neck. It’s… large. But she doesn’t hate it, or even dislike it. That’s when she notices. Beneath her foot. The envelope. Still unopened. She picks it up, Kou nodding for her to open it when she glances over to him. One broken seal later, out slides a holo-chip. Plugged into the port on Mio’s Link, a projection of Jun pops up between her and Kou. “Jun-kun?”

The hologram waves with Jun’s bighearted smile. “Ah… yo! Ahaha… ah… that was pretty lame, wasn’t it?” Kou can’t keep himself from smiling as Jun’s recording rubs the back of his head, fumbling over his words. Yup. A dork to the end, that boy. “I… don’t really have a lot of time, so I’ll make this quick, okay? Oh! Sorry about the holo-chip. I… realized I never got your Link Contact. But I’m really glad Kou convinced me to grow a spine and actually talk to you. It’s too bad how things turned out, though. So… listen. I don’t want you to feel bad about what happened. Got it? You absolutely shouldn’t blame yourself. There wasn’t anything we could do about it, right? Right. And I made my own choice, so there. I really want you to survive. That’s why I asked you to win. And you did, so now… I’m counting on you to win the whole thing!” ...What? Win the whole thing? Outlast 10,000 other Espers? Had this boy gone insane?

“I’ll even give you my favorite scarf! Then you can carry it all the way to the end and it’s like we both got to be there! I know it sounds like I’m asking a lot. Maybe even the impossible. But the way I see it is… Just as much as anyone else, you matter too, Morioka-san.” Those words strike straight through Mio like a spear. Dull though her reaction is, Jun’s assertion leaves her stunned. Matter? Her?

“Ah. My family wants to spend some more time with me before I leave, so I better go. Oh! Tell Kou and Reggie not to cause trouble, now that I’m gone! Okay. Well… this is it. Thanks for listening. Sayonara… Mio.”

When the projection cuts, Mio gets a straight look at Kou’s face, across from her, puffy red eyes and all. “Kou-chan…”

“Heh. See? It was meant for you,” Kou says, wiping his cheeks with the sleeve of his jacket, still wearing that sweet mask on his face to hide all the bitter underneath, slipping though it may be. “I know the Royale’s gonna be pretty tough. But ya gotta do me and Jun-kun a favor, ‘kay? Don’t ever forget about the people on the other side. Got it?”

Mio’s face remains perfectly straight. But that sight… She doesn’t know where it comes from or what does it but, at that sight, something compels her to step forward, stunning the clown completely with a gentle hug and leaving a crack in that mask he wears so well. She nods and, in her quiet little voice, assures Kou. “I promise.”

Such simple little words. But then, oftentimes it’s such simple little words that carry the endless weight of a crashing waterfall. A weight that Kou hasn’t the strength left in him to hold himself together beneath. His head dips and he rests it atop Mio’s. “Morioka-chan…”

She doesn’t understand it. Why she says it. But she decides that, for once, maybe she’d be fine with that, and allows herself to open her mouth on pure instinct with a soft “Mio.”

Even as he stands over her, letting his emotions flow out of him, that response gets a chuckle and Kou nods. “Ah. Arigatou ne. Mio,” he says, his voice cracking.

---

The humming is back. The tightness in her stomach, joints, and chest? Those are gone. But now, as she stands in front of the door to her classroom, that buzzing feeling from just the other day strikes again, laying claim to every bone, every cell in Mio’s body. Maybe letting Kou tell her to go ahead was a mistake. But, then, would entering with him have been that much better? Given her circumstances… Mio reaches up, touching the tips of her fingers to this big, orange thing around her neck. Several moments pass by. Finally, just as the class bell tolls, she takes a breath, a hand reaching out. The door slides open and in she walks.

Oh, the humming doesn’t stop. Quite the contrary. For the remainder of the day, alarm bells of all volumes sound off in the back of her mind. But she keeps her head down, focusing in on her sketchpad. The next time she looks up, the room is empty. Really? Where had the day gone? No one’s around, at least. She’d felt them the instant she walked through that door after lunch. The eyes. So many eyes, all aimed straight at her. Joined by a chorus of whispers. But she’d made it. And here she now sits, with a completed illustration in her sketchpad. Three distinct characters in a style reminescent of her favorite Shounen manga. One boisterous and loud character, a cheerful and mischievious one… and a timid, sweet one at the center. Before she gets up, she takes her pencil to the top of the page to inscribe a title to this masterpiece. And what else would she call it? “The Three Idiots.”

But something doesn’t feel… right. As Mio sits there, a tickling sensation flutters in the back of her neck. As if someone’s… “Oooh! That’s pretty good!”

“Guh!” Mio springs up from her seat and swings herself around. What on Earth? Bleached blonde hair, a too-short skirt, colorful nails and a jacket tied around her waist… no mistaking it. “K-Kikuchi-san?” How long had she been standing there, hovering over Mio’s shoulder? She was watching Mio draw?

Ragyou laughs the whole thing off and waves her hands in front of her. “Hey, that’s the most lively I ever saw you, Micchin!”

Mio blinks, still waiting for her heart to un-flip itself. Mic...chin? Moreover, why is this girl, who exists in an entirely different universe from Mio, talking to her? “W-was there something I could help you with?”

Then, in a move Mio would never have foreseen in any reality, the Number One Gyaru thrusts forwards, clasping her hands around Mio’s and looking her dead on with big, beady eyes that’d make any self-respecting puppy writhe with envy. “I had this totally awesome idea for the Royale! D’you wanna form an alliance with me?!”

What follows is the sound of confusion. An excruciatingly long pause. The kind that should come with a 404 Error warning. When, at last… “Eh?”