In early October—just a handful of days after that fateful encounter with Shiratori Seiya at the start of the school year—Hojo Shione had sat down at her desk, opened her private diary, and drafted a thesis.
The content had nothing whatsoever to do with her university major. She had written its title in careful, deliberate characters across the top of a fresh page: "An In-Depth Investigation into the Baseless Breakups and Frequent Girlfriend Replacements of the Scoundrel Shiratori Seiya."
It was, she knew, a work-in-progress title. Perhaps a touch too emotionally charged for proper academic rigor. But it captured the essence of her inquiry.
Hojo Shione understood, with the clarity of a scientist on the verge of a breakthrough, that to complete a truly great study, one required two essential components. First: a life-burning, relentlessly persistent attitude—the willingness to chase the truth no matter where it led or how much it hurt. Second: the most comprehensive, granular, intimately detailed possible understanding of the subject matter.
Coincidentally—or perhaps tragically—she seemed to possess both of these prerequisites in overwhelming abundance.
Before the breakup, she had felt, with absolute certainty, that she could not live without Shiratori Seiya for the rest of her natural life. Her very blood, she believed, flowed with love for him. Every heartbeat pumped devotion through her arteries. Every breath drew him deeper into her lungs.
After the breakup, this sensation had not diminished. If anything, it had intensified. Deepened. It no longer seemed content to remain merely in her blood vessels, her skin, her bodily fluids. The most accurate description, she felt, was that it had seeped into her bones. Into the marrow. Into the fundamental architecture of her skeleton.
Secondly, although her understanding of formal scientific methodology was admittedly limited, her understanding of Shiratori Seiya was not merely thorough. It was intimate. Preternaturally close. She had catalogued his habits, his expressions, his silences, his evasions. She knew the rhythm of his breathing when he was about to deliver bad news. She knew the precise tilt of his head when he was calculating an outcome.
These two aspects, however, were merely the foundational requirements for conducting the research. The raw materials. To complete the actual proof—to transform scattered observations into a coherent, defensible theory—considerable meticulous logic and concrete evidence were still required.
After repeated investigation, observation, and deductive reasoning, she had compiled the following key questions in her diary:
Question 1: Shiratori Seiya inevitably establishes a new romantic relationship shortly after each breakup. Is this pattern statistically significant, or coincidental?
Question 2: Shiratori Seiya's partners in each successive relationship appear to possess outstanding, perhaps even exceptional, talent in some specific domain. Correlation or causation?
Question 3: Shiratori Seiya dedicates a concentrated, all-consuming portion of his energy to each partner during the relationship's active phase. Does this behavior serve to ensure that the partner falls genuinely in love with him?
Question 4: Each of Shiratori Seiya's breakups seems to occur for a specific, identifiable reason. (Note: Referencing Question 3, it is established through prior observation that he is not inherently ruthless or cruel. The catalyst must therefore be external or circumstantial.)
Sub-Question 4.1: Could the breakup be triggered by the disappearance of novelty? The exhaustion of the initial infatuation phase?
Sub-Question 4.2: Could the breakup be triggered by an inability to adequately bear or reciprocate the partner's intensity of love? A form of emotional saturation point?
She had written several pages of such questions. Branching logical deductions. Arrow-laden diagrams connecting hypotheses to observations. But most remained educated guesses—intellectual scaffolding awaiting the solid bricks of proof. The actual truth, she knew, still required concrete, verifiable evidence. A smoking gun. A puzzle piece that clicked into place with undeniable finality.
And now, standing in this corridor, watching Takahashi Mio framed in the doorway of the break room like a deer frozen in the path of an oncoming train...
Hojo Shione knew—with the quiet, satisfied certainty of a researcher whose hypothesis had just been vindicated—that the question mark appended to her second question could finally, definitively, be changed to a period.
Hasegawa Saori possessed a special, almost monstrous talent in kendo. I myself excelled in singing. My sister Suzune was never Seiya's girlfriend and therefore remains outside the scope of this argument.
And now, as it stands... Takahashi Mio's presence in this professional artist training institute indicates that, at the very least, Shiratori Seiya believes she possesses significant aptitude in acting. The pattern holds. The theory coheres.
In that moment, Hojo Shione was overjoyed. Genuinely, effervescently, almost giddily overjoyed. So much so that the smile spreading across her elegant features grew increasingly radiant, increasingly uncontainable.
She felt like a scientist who had been stubbornly, frustratingly stuck on a particular crux of an argument for weeks—months—and then, in a single flash of serendipitous inspiration, the solution revealed itself. The intellectual relief was intoxicating. Nearly euphoric.
Takahashi Mio stood before her, watching this display with mounting disbelief and outrage. Is she... is she laughing at me? She's practically doubled over with mirth! What is so incredibly funny?!
The expression on Mio's face darkened like a summer sky before a thunderstorm. Her hands, hanging at her sides, unconsciously clenched into white-knuckled fists. If her baseline favorability rating toward Hojo Shione had previously hovered around zero, it was now plummeting past negative one hundred with the velocity of a stone dropped from a skyscraper.
Who exactly are you looking down on?! Is it that absurd that I'm training here? That I want to be an actress? Am I that laughable to you?!
If it weren't for the inconvenient fact that this woman also knew Shiratori Seiya—that their histories were tangled together in ways Mio couldn't fully unravel—her temper would have already detonated. A string of colorful, unladylike expletives sat ready on her tongue, restrained only by the flimsiest of leashes.
She could appear gentle before Shiratori Seiya. Thoughtful. Understanding. Mature. She could swallow her pride and project patience. But that didn't mean she was wired that way with everyone. Especially not with a former girlfriend who had, in ways both subtle and overt, thoroughly disgusted her before they had even met face-to-face.
Hojo Shione's trained peripheral vision caught the dangerous shift in the girl's expression. The clenched jaw. The blazing eyes. The coiled tension in her shoulders. She quickly raised a placating hand and waved it between them, her laughter subsiding into controlled, apologetic chuckles.
"Ah—please don't misunderstand! I'm absolutely not laughing at you. I promise. Cross my heart." She straightened up, pressing a hand to her chest as she caught her breath. A stray tear of mirth clung to the corner of her eye, and she delicately wiped it away with the tip of her finger. "I just... suddenly figured something out. A puzzle I've been working on for a long time. The timing was simply perfect. That's all."
"..."
Takahashi Mio's expression remained sullen. Stormy. Utterly unconvinced. Her lips moved stiffly. "Was there something else you needed? Or are you just here to... bask?"
"Eh?"
The cold, clipped tone caught Hojo Shione off guard. She blinked. Then, after a thoughtful pause, her voice softened into something approaching genuine earnestness.
"Truly—I meant no mockery. What I said is the truth. I really did just figure something out. And seeing you here, training as an actress..." She nodded slowly, her gaze appraising. "It confirms something for me. Seiya wouldn't bring you to a place like this, wouldn't invest in you like this, unless you had genuine talent. Real potential."
She paused. Let the words settle. Then, with a quiet, almost gentle gravity:
"Moreover... you don't need to direct hostility toward me. I've already given up. Truly."
Given up?
The words landed like a pebble tossed into still water. For a moment, Takahashi Mio simply stared. Then, a sharp, incredulous laugh—more a scoff than anything—escaped her lips.
"Do you genuinely take me for a complete fool?"
The question dripped with sarcasm. With bitter, accumulated resentment.
But Hojo Shione's expression didn't waver. She met Mio's glare with steady, unblinking sincerity.
"I never lie. It's a personal policy." She tilted her head, a flicker of something unreadable passing through her dark eyes. "I don't know if Shiratori Seiya has already told you about this, but..."
She stopped abruptly. Her mouth closed. Her teeth clicked together with an almost audible finality. It was the look of someone who had nearly let something dangerous slip past their guard.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Takahashi Mio felt a vein in her temple throb. If there was one thing in this world she absolutely, viscerally despised, it was people who stopped talking mid-sentence. People who dangled information like bait and then yanked it away. Such people, in her deeply held personal philosophy, deserved a special circle of hell reserved just for them.
"Just say whatever you're going to say," she snapped, her patience thoroughly shredded. "Directly. I don't have time for riddles and dramatic pauses."
Hojo Shione hesitated—actually, visibly hesitated—weighing something behind her eyes. Then, with careful, deliberate enunciation:
"This... might not be my information to share. It concerns Hasegawa Saori. Has Shiratori Seiya mentioned anything to you? About his intentions?"
The shift in topic caught Mio momentarily off guard. But only momentarily.
"Ha." The laugh was hollow. Brittle. "You mean his grand declaration? That he's going to marry her? Is that the bombshell you were tiptoeing around?"
"Hmm?"
The verbal riposte seemed to genuinely surprise Hojo Shione. Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly—a reflexive, analytical squint. "And you... don't mind? That doesn't bother you?"
"The future belongs to the future," Mio said, her voice flat. Reciting a mantra she'd repeated to herself a hundred times. "I only live in the present. Right here. Right now."
"Oh." A pause. Then, soft and almost wistful: "What an enviable mindset. Truly."
Hojo Shione's tone carried no detectable sarcasm. She seemed to mean it. Her gaze drifted across Mio's features, cataloguing, analyzing.
Does she genuinely love him? The question surfaced unbidden. The girl's expression was guarded, but the cracks showed—the tightness around her eyes, the slight quiver at the corner of her mouth.
I still don't know exactly how she ended up dating Seiya. The specifics of their origin story remain opaque. But if I reference my third argument—the one about his concentrated, all-consuming dedication to each partner—then unless this girl is utterly heartless or pathologically detached, there's simply no reasonable mechanism by which she wouldn't have been moved. Wouldn't have fallen.
After a contemplative silence, Hojo Shione continued, her voice taking on a lighter, almost conversational tone.
"But I do mind, you see. I mind quite a bit, actually." She offered a small, self-deprecating smile. "Since he's already made his decision—chosen Hasegawa Saori as his... endgame—there's genuinely no need for me to waste any more precious time or emotional energy on him. That chapter is closed."
She shifted her weight, tilting her head to glance past Mio into the empty lounge beyond.
"Speaking of which... didn't he come with you today? To supervise your training?" A note of curiosity crept into her voice. "I remember, back when it was me... or Hasegawa... he would always follow us around like a second shadow. Constant. Inescapable. Wherever we went, there he was."
The words struck with surgical precision.
Takahashi Mio felt the sharp, clean pain of a direct hit somewhere in the vicinity of her solar plexus. But she refused—refused—to let the wound show on her face. Her expression remained placid. Controlled. Almost bored.
"'Shadow' is an excellent word choice. Very poetic." She waved a dismissive hand. "I also find him rather annoying when he hovers like that. So I specifically told him not to come. He just needs to fulfill his basic duties—be a reliable driver and pick me up in the evenings. Nothing more."
"-be a reliable driver and pick me up in the evenings."
"-be a reliable driver and pick me up in the evenings."
The words echoed in Mio's own ears. Hollow. Brittle. A paper-thin shield against a very sharp sword.
"Oh, I see... I see."
Hojo Shione nodded slowly, her expression carefully neutral. But behind her eyes, a complex machinery of deduction was turning. She's lying. Or at least... exaggerating. The defensive posture. The overly casual tone. The way her fingers are trembling slightly at her sides. This woman was stubborn. Fiercely, almost admirably stubborn.
Before the conversation could continue its delicate, razor-edged dance, a voice called out from down the corridor.
"Miss Hojo! The meeting is about to start—"
Fukada Fuyuna, Shione's manager, stood at the far end of the hallway, waving with controlled urgency.
"I'll be right there!"
Hojo Shione's response was immediate and professional. She turned back to Takahashi Mio, her expression settling into something unreadable.
"If you still have some time remaining after your training concludes... would you like to continue our chat? There's more I'd be interested in discussing."
It was framed as a question. But the tone, the timing, the way she was already half-turned toward her waiting manager—it was clear she wasn't actually waiting for an answer. She offered Mio a small, enigmatic half-smile.
Then she turned.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The crisp, rhythmic click of designer high heels against the polished corridor floor faded into the distance.
Takahashi Mio stood frozen in the doorway, listening to that receding sound. Her hands, still clenched at her sides, had gone bloodless and white. She exhaled—a long, forceful, shuddering breath that seemed to drain something vital from her body. It took every ounce of her self-control to suppress the boiling jealousy that threatened to erupt from her chest.
He followed her. Like a shadow. He was always there. With her. With Saori. But for me...
She turned sharply on her heel and stalked back into the lounge, the frosted glass door swinging shut behind her with a decisive click.
The afternoon training session was, by any objective measure, a complete disaster.
Takahashi Mio's mind refused to cooperate. Every time she attempted to sink into a character, to access the emotional core of a scene, Hojo Shione's face surfaced behind her eyelids. That knowing smile. Those analytical eyes. The way she had said "I've already given up" with such serene, almost pitying confidence.
Her timing was off. Her line deliveries were wooden. She missed cues. She fumbled blocking. Director Araki—never one to suffer incompetence gracefully—scolded her with escalating sharpness. Three times. Four times. By the fifth correction, the instructor's voice had taken on the particular, clipped iciness of a teacher whose patience had been fully exhausted.
Only through sheer, gritted-teeth force of will did Mio manage to claw her focus back to something approaching functionality.
When the clock finally struck five and training was dismissed, she retreated to the lounge like a soldier crawling back from the front lines. She collapsed into the chair, pulled out her phone, and began mindlessly scrolling through short videos. A dancing cat. A cooking tutorial. A travel vlog.
Her eyes registered none of it.
Her gaze kept flicking—compulsively, obsessively—to the time displayed in the upper left corner of the screen. 5:07. 5:12. 5:18. Each glance was followed by a reflexive, involuntary look toward the glass door. The corridor beyond remained stubbornly empty.
No familiar silhouette. No calm, steady footsteps approaching.
A cold tendril of abandonment curled around her heart. The feeling was irrational—she knew it was irrational. He had sent her a message earlier explaining he couldn't come. She had read the words herself. And yet, the weight of disappointment pressed down on her chest with suffocating force.
Normally, it would be fine. Normally, I wouldn't care this much. But today...
Today, with that woman here—with Hojo Shione practically radiating smug, pitying superiority—I just wanted... I needed... I needed him to be here. To prove to her. To prove to myself. That what we have is real. That I'm not just... a substitute. A placeholder. The next entry in some clinical thesis.
Her thumb hovered over Shiratori Seiya's contact. Maybe she should call. Just to hear—
Ding-ding.
The notification chime cut through her spiraling thoughts. A LINE message. From Shiratori Seiya.
Takahashi Mio's heart performed a sudden, traitorous leap. Her eyes lit up with desperate hope. She tapped the notification—
And the smile that had begun to bloom across her face instantly froze. Crystallized. Then shattered.
"I can't make it tonight either. Something urgent came up. Take the train home. —Seiya"
An unspeakable, acidic sense of betrayal burned through her chest like swallowed poison. Her vision blurred. Hot, stinging pressure built behind her eyes. She swallowed hard—a rough, painful lump in her throat—and sucked in a ragged breath, preparing to steady herself, to push the hurt back down where it belonged—
The lounge's frosted glass door swung open.
Hojo Shione stepped inside, still immaculate, still poised, her handbag draped elegantly over her forearm. A pleasant, almost warm smile graced her features.
"Sorry to have kept you waiting, Miss Takahashi."
Her gaze swept the room with casual, unhurried ease. The empty corners. The vacant chairs. The conspicuous absence.
"Has Seiya still not arrived to pick you up yet?"
The question was light. Conversational. Almost gentle.
And it hit with the force of a freight train.
Takahashi Mio felt her heart lurch—a second, deeper stab in the same wounded place. She forced her facial muscles into a smile, the expression feeling like a mask carved from brittle porcelain.
"I found him too annoying," she said, her voice remarkably steady. "So I didn't let him come. I told you earlier, remember?"
"Oh. Right. Of course."
Hojo Shione nodded with calm, placid acceptance. But inwardly, she released a quiet, almost sad sigh. This woman is truly, exhaustingly stubborn. Impressive, in its own way.
No matter how perfectly one controlled their expression—no matter how skillfully one arranged their features into a mask of casual indifference—tears that had already welled up in the eyes could not be hidden unless they were physically wiped away. And Takahashi Mio had not wiped hers. They clung to her lower lashes, tiny crystalline betrayals. Glimmering. Unmistakable.
A flicker of genuine, unexpected sympathy passed through Hojo Shione's eyes. She pressed her lips together, considering her next words.
"I'll give you a ride home." The offer was simple. Direct. Leaving no room for polite refusal. "We can chat more on the way. There's something I'd like to discuss with you properly."
"..."