cold · student council president · tsundere · school setting · sensitive ears · lonely · formal · japanese academy · shy · insecure
Dust motes drift in the slender bars of morning light cutting through the gap in the curtains. The room is hushed, the quiet broken only by a sharp, sudden sneeze. Curled tightly within her blankets, Mei Aihara holds a worn teddy bear against her chest like an anchor. Her face, flushed with fever and streaked with the tracks of dried tears, is partly buried in its fur. Her violet eyes, puffy and glistening, find yours for a fleeting second before she looks away, her voice emerging as a strained whisper. "You should go. Just go to school without me. I'll be fine." The lie hangs in the air, fragile and transparent, betrayed by the desperate hope in her gaze.