Haruka did not disturb the other person’s rest.
She quietly pulled out a chair and sat down to organize her schoolbag.
Perhaps hearing the sound, the person lying nearby stirred.
She lifted her head sleepily, her gaze drifting vaguely toward Haruka.
The next second, her eyes snapped wide open.
Haruka met her gaze.
Her deskmate was a girl of modest height, about 155 cm.
She had soft short hair with straight bangs covering her forehead.
Her features were delicate, with a slim, cute face.
Haruka’s first impression: that face, even among the good-looking students at an entertainment high school, was definitely top-tier.
At that moment, her expression was like a startled fawn—timid, exuding an aura of “Please don’t pay too much attention to me.”
’Maybe she’s the type who is actually good-looking but hard to notice at first glance because of her personality.’
When the girl saw it was Haruka, all sleepiness vanished.
She quickly withdrew her folded arms, leaned forward slightly, and stared at Haruka as if frozen in place.
Looking at those large, bright eyes now filled with tears, Haruka inexplicably thought of a word:
’…Like a dog that waited a long time and finally saw its owner return… uh, a puppy?’
But she felt that word sounded unpleasant, like an insult, so she silently corrected it to “little animal” in her mind.
At the same time, her brain began to race, desperately trying to recall the other girl’s name.
The girl pressed her lips tightly together.
Her eyes were already red, her face anxious, yet she didn’t dare utter a single word.
It was as if she had ten thousand words bottled up inside, but because she didn’t know which to say first, she forced them all back.
All her worry and grievance were stuffed into those reddening eyes.
Seeing her on the verge of crying but not daring to make a sound, Haruka once again felt that genuine, caring warmth.
But she finally matched the girl’s face with a name.
She softened her voice and spoke gently, like coaxing a kitten:
“Sakura, I’m back.”
Fujii Sakura’s lips trembled.
“Haruka-san…”
Her voice was as soft as a mosquito’s buzz.
If they weren’t sitting so close as deskmates, Haruka might have thought she was hallucinating.
“Are… are you okay?”
Haruka looked at her cautious demeanor and sighed inwardly.
She guessed that Sakura had been worried for over a month, but now that she saw the real person, she was so nervous she couldn’t speak properly.
“I’m fine—”
Haruka reached out and gently patted Fujii Sakura’s head.
Fujii Sakura froze.
Then, tears finally fell like beads from a broken string.
But she still bit her lip hard, covering her mouth, holding back sobs.
“You… you went through such a big incident… I was worried every day… but I didn’t dare bother you… and didn’t know what to say… So I could only send a ‘hang in there’ sticker on LINE…”
She wiped tears and sobbed, “But you never replied… I thought, I thought you hated me… Then I became even more afraid to message you…”
Her voice grew softer and softer, until it became barely a whisper, and she curled up into a ball.
“There, there. I’m not dead yet, am I? I can still come to class normally.”
Haruka pulled out a tissue and handed it over, half-jokingly comforting her.
“Stop crying. It won’t look good if others see. You wouldn’t want a rumor on the school forum tomorrow that ‘Famous idol Hoshino Haruka just returned and acted like a diva, bullying a regular classmate,’ would you?”
Hearing this joke, Fujii Sakura finally couldn’t help it and laughed through her tears.
She took the tissue, nodded vigorously, and began wiping her eyes.
Fujii Sakura. First-year in the Acting Department, sixteen years old, profession: actress.
She wasn’t very famous, but she had quite a few roles.
Most of the characters she played were “timid supporting girl,” “quiet deskmate,” “the background girl who doesn’t stand out”—all typecast to her true nature.
And it was precisely that naturalness that gave her a bit of fame in small circles, but not much.
Haruka had gathered this information while scrolling through LINE chat logs on her hospital bed.
Haruka’s closest friend at school was this deskmate, followed by a third-year senior.
Their chat logs were mostly trivial daily matters, but the intimacy between the lines definitely marked them as good friends.
That Fujii Sakura and Hoshino Haruka ended up as deskmates was purely random assignment.
At first, Fujii Sakura didn’t dare talk to Haruka at all.
A top-tier idol who was always on TV sitting next to her—the pressure was more than an ordinary social anxiety could handle.
But Hoshino Haruka was precisely the type to “on the third day of sitting next to you, already link arms and ask if you want to have lunch together.”
After passively receiving about two weeks of friendly bombardment, Fujii Sakura was finally assimilated.
The first words she spoke to Haruka were:
“Um… Haruka-san… could I borrow your eraser…?”
After that, the two became friends.
Their relationship wasn’t at the “tell-each-other-everything besties” level, but they formed a wonderful complement.
When Haruka was at school, she would actively chat with her, share snacks, pat her back and say “It’s okay” when she was nervous about auditions.
When Haruka was away, Fujii Sakura would quietly sit in her seat, eat her lunch box alone, and silently guard this little corner.
On the surface, it seemed like the dazzling Haruka was unilaterally looking after this wallflower.
But Haruka remembered one message clearly when scrolling through her chat logs with Ritsu:
[Manager-san! My deskmate at school is super cute! She’s really shy but super nice! Today she secretly put my favorite chocolate on my desk! There was even a sticky note that said “Haruka-san, great work today!” I’m so moved, boohoo!!]
So, it was probably a mutually needed relationship.
Seeing Fujii Sakura still crying, Haruka reached out and patted her back.
“I didn’t mean to ignore you.”
Haruka looked at her, her tone extremely gentle.
“When I was hospitalized, my phone was with the manager, and I didn’t check LINE much. I really didn’t ignore you on purpose.”
“Really…?”
Fujii Sakura looked up.
“Really.”
’I can’t exactly say it’s because I’m not the Haruka who knows you, so I didn’t reply.’
“Then… are you really completely fine now?”
“I’m really fine. See—”
Haruka stood up straight, spread her arms and spun around in front of her seat.
“Full health restored, good as new!”
Fujii Sakura finally completely relaxed and let out a relieved smile.
“That’s great…”
Haruka sat back down, her eyes falling on the slightly rough-looking paper crane on the corner of the desk.
“Did you fold this?”
Fujii Sakura’s face turned bright red.
“Um… I didn’t fold it very well… I originally wanted to fold a thousand, but I’m too clumsy. After folding one, I thought it was too ugly, so… so I only placed this one…”
“I really like it.”
Haruka carefully picked up the paper crane and gently placed it in the most visible spot in her pencil case.
“Thank you, Sakura.”
Fujii Sakura’s face grew even redder.
She turned her head away, her chin down, not daring to look at Haruka anymore.
Haruka nodded in satisfaction.
She could give herself a 90 for that round of interaction.
’Little girls are easy to please, much easier to fool than the adults in the workplace.’
She glanced at the paper crane in the desk box.
’A thousand… but I think one is enough.’
—
The afternoon classes were Japanese and English.
Haruka sat upright in her seat, opened her textbook, and looked at the extremely familiar characters.
The Japanese class was covering a passage from Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human.
Perhaps to test Haruka’s study status, the teacher proactively called on her to answer a question: “What does the author want to express in this passage?”
Haruka instinctively prepared to rattle off a long string of professional thesis analysis she had memorized in university literature appreciation class, then she shut her mouth.
Luckily, she braked in time, forcibly swallowed those advanced terms, and put on an innocent high school student look:
“Hmm, I think… probably the protagonist feels he’s different from everyone around him? And then he’s very pained inside?”
The teacher nodded in satisfaction.
“Not bad, Hoshino. Though you missed a month of classes, your reading comprehension ability is still there.”
Haruka secretly wiped her sweat under the desk and silently sighed in relief.
The next English class was even simpler.
The difficulty of first-year high school English was about the equivalent of reading children’s books for a university graduate who had even returned the knowledge to the teacher.
So she started slacking off with a clear conscience.
On the surface, she sat in her seat pretending to listen earnestly, but in reality, she was frantically scanning her classmates with her peripheral vision: observing everyone’s behavior patterns, speech styles, and small group relationships… working hard to gather intelligence on this class.
Next to her, Fujii Sakura was completely different.
She sat up straight, meticulously taking notes.
The characters in her notebook were very small but extremely neat and elegant.
Haruka glanced at Sakura’s densely packed notebook, then looked down at her own blank textbook, which was cleaner than her own face.
’I should at least act like a high school student…’
So she reluctantly picked up a pen and began scribbling in the textbook, “highlighting key points,” drawing a few circles for show.
The two classes ended quickly, and the school dismissal bell rang melodiously.
Immediately, the corridor filled with the scraping of chairs and the noisy chatter of students being liberated.
“Haruka-san—”
Fujii Sakura, while packing her schoolbag, asked softly, “Will you come tomorrow too?”
“Mm, I should come. But if there’s a job, I’m not sure…”
“It’s fine!”
Fujii Sakura quickly waved her hands, as if afraid to cause trouble.
“Don’t push yourself if you’re busy with work. I just… if you come… I’ll be really happy.”
Seeing those expectant, fawn-like eyes, Haruka couldn’t help but smile.
“Then I’ll try my best to come.”
“Mm!” Fujii Sakura nodded vigorously.
Just as she finished packing her schoolbag and was about to leave, a female classmate hurriedly ran up to her.
“Hoshino-san, there’s a third-year senior at the entrance looking for you.”
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