Thursday morning didn't feel like school.
For once, the building wasn't divided by ringing bells or lessons or seat assignments. The corridors were already alive before 8AM—voices bouncing off the walls, cloth being stretched between ladders, paint trays balanced over sinks, clubs dragging tables toward exits with varying levels of supervision.
Someone had pulled all the chairs out of 2-B before Max even arrived.
"Mr. Jin said we're officially off curriculum," a student announced to no one and everyone. "Cultural Exhibition prep takes priority."
That single sentence turned into freedom.
Teachers didn't lecture—they coordinated. Students didn't sit—they built.
Max took all of it in at the doorway, the badge already around his neck without him remembering putting it on. David waved him over with both arms.
"Holloway! Bro, no school today!"
"You mean no class," Priya corrected, already tying back her hair. "We're still doing work."
"Yeah, but it's fun work!" David insisted, pointing at a pile of cardboard swords. "Like child labor but whimsical."
Max blinked. "That's not comforting."
Priya shoved a paintbrush into David's hands. "Paint the props. And don't eat any of it this time."
"That was one time—"
"NO," the entire class chorused.
Max smirked, just barely.
He was about to join them when a committee member popped his head into the room.
"Holloway! Reina needs you in the gym!"
Max nodded once, already moving.
The badge swung against his chest as he walked, students parting automatically when they saw it. He didn't know if they were responding to authority or just avoiding errands—but either way, it felt like a path.
The gym looked like a warzone.
Sound system guts lay open on the stage. Mats were being unrolled. Folding tables were stacked like barricades. Two teachers argued over extension cords like they were drafting ceasefire terms.
Reina stood at the center of it all, hair tied up, sleeves rolled, clipboard in hand like a general surveying a battlefield.
She noticed him instantly.
"Good. You're here," she said without looking up from the checklist. "Take these forms to the art club and tell them I need the final room map by noon."
He took the papers. "Where is the art club?"
"Third floor, end of the hall, follow the smell of acrylic and broken dreams," she deadpanned.
He stared.
She sighed. "Just go to 3-F."
He went.
Upstairs, the art club did smell like acrylic—and maybe despair. Students hunched over giant boards, splattering kanji banners, festival signage, and glue onto canvases that were bigger than their desks.
When Max stepped inside, a girl with paint on her cheek snapped, "If this is about the banner request, we told the council we'd finish—"
"It's from Reina," Max said, holding out the forms.
The girl took them so quickly she nearly ripped them.
"Oh. Takamine." She skimmed the sheet, then yelled over her shoulder, "ROOM MAPS! REINA WANTS THEM IN TWO HOURS!"
A chorus of groans answered her.
"You're Holloway, right?" the girl asked, squinting at him. "From 2-B?"
Max nodded.
She smirked. "Figures. You've got the 'Reina said jump' face."
Max blinked. "…what face?"
"That face," she said, vaguely gesturing at his entire head. "The face of someone who did not expect to become an unpaid intern."
She wasn't wrong.
He dropped off the forms and backed out of the room before they enlisted him to paint something.
The rest of Thursday blurred into tasks.
Music room — confirm the instrument lineup.
Courtyard — check if the tents arrived.
Home Ec — carry boxes of sweets no one should legally sell to teenagers.
Entrance hall — help hang banners without letting anyone die.
He wasn't alone in it.
Classes had dissolved into roles:
Track team carried heavy equipment
Literature club practiced scripts in hallways
Theater club tested microphones and shouted from balconies.
Art department plastered the building in fabric and ink
Teachers organized chaos with clipboards and caffeine
Max was just one piece of the machine.
But he was a piece that kept getting pulled back to the center.
Every so often someone would shout—
"Holloway, help with this!"
"Holloway, can you lift that?"
"Holloway, Reina needs you again!"
By late afternoon, the badge felt heavier around his neck, his shirt clinging slightly from moving between hot rooms and cold hallways. He hadn't sat down once.
Somewhere during delivery of a crate of lighting fixtures, Reina appeared at his side again, breath quick from moving.
"You holding up?" she asked, almost casually.
Max set the crate down. "Fine."
"You're lying," she said.
"Probably."
Reina smiled a little at that.
"You don't have to do everything people throw at you," she said, voice lower now. "Just what I ask."
He raised an eyebrow. "Is that better?"
"It's not about better," she said, adjusting the pen behind her ear. "It's… simpler."
Before he could answer, a committee member sprinted over shouting her name. Reina groaned, shoved her clipboard into Max's hands, and ran off to handle whatever catastrophe had just spawned.
Max blinked down at the clipboard in an odd fashion. It was heavier than it looked, pages clipped together in layers—schedules, lists, maps, names scrawled in different handwritings, Reina's notes attacking the margins in sharp ink.
He stood there for a second, listening to the sounds moving around him—drills buzzing, ladders scraping the floor, someone cursing about tape—and realized everyone else already knew what to do.
They belonged to this moment.
He looked at the clipboard again.
Reina had trusted him with it—not because he was the strongest, or because someone told her to, but because she assumed he could handle it. Because in her head he was already part of this machine.
It wasn't some big heroic role. It wasn't dramatic. It was… normal.
That thought caught him off guard.
Normal.
Something warm pushed up behind his ribs, confused but real. He wasn't used to being given responsibility that didn't end in blood or containment procedures. He wasn't used to being needed for anything that didn't involve danger.
He felt the corner of his mouth pull upward—just a fraction. Barely there. But it was real. A smile.
He set the clipboard carefully on top of a speaker case, checking that no papers
slipped.
Then he rolled his shoulders, flexed his fingers, and got back to work.
For the first time in weeks, maybe months, he didn't feel like a weapon being stored for use.
He just felt like a guy helping set up a school event.
And it hit harder than any praise or apology ever had.
When the sun started dipping, the building finally loosened.
Teachers forced kids to take breaks. Volunteers wiped down tables. Paint water was dumped down sinks with varying levels of regret. The gym was halfway transformed.
Max helped push the last cart of props into storage, then caught sight of the clock—6:48 PM.
He hadn't looked at his phone once.
When he finally dug it out of his pocket, one message waited.
Sera: Hey, don't forget about Friday.
Max stared at it.
Short. Plain. Like she knew his head was full and didn't want to add more weight.
He typed back:
Max: I won't.
He hovered for a moment, then added:
Max: What time?
The reply came almost immediately.
Sera: During the festival. I'll find you.
Sera: So don't vanish.
He closed the chat, pocketed his phone, and picked up the badge again.
Tomorrow was Friday.
The Cultural Exhibition.
No classes. No buffers. No excuses.
Just people, noise, eyes, performances, expectations—
—and one promise he actually cared about keeping.
The badge rested against his palm, warm and heavy.
By the time Max walked home, the building behind him hummed like a fuse seconds before the spark.
Friday was going to be loud.
One way or another.