White walked toward Shu, clutching Bell's small hand tightly in his own. Waves of nervousness and anxiety crashed through him with every step. I don't even know what I'll say to her, he admitted frantically to himself. If she's still as angry as she was on the roof, she won't even listen to me. But I have to try. At the very least, I want to have a proper conversation with her… to understand her situation better.
Before they closed the distance, he looked down and softly asked Bell to stay quiet for a moment. He knew that even if the little girl spoke, Shu wouldn't be able to hear her—but the extra voice would only distract his already fraying focus. Taking a breath, he called out, "…Hey, Shu."
She turned around at the sound of her name. A flash of sharp annoyance flickered across her delicate features, but it was quickly replaced by the usual, cold neutrality she always wore like armor. Her eyes looked like heavily guarded walls hiding behind glass.
"What do you want?" she asked, her tone clipped and distant, as if merely acknowledging his presence was a heavy burden. "If you're here to try and convince me that you didn't cheat on the test, you're wasting both your time and mine."
White's chest tightened under her icy glare, but he forced himself to stand his ground. "I think… what I said on the roof might not have been a big deal to me, but I didn't consider your feelings at all. I dismissed them, and I didn't realize just how important your achievements are to you. That wasn't right of me. I owe you an apology."
For a brief, fleeting moment, her rigid mask cracked. Genuine surprise flickered in her eyes. But just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished, swallowed up by that cold shell once again.
"If you're sorry, then let's just leave it at that," she said, turning back toward the shelves. She began brushing her fingers along the spines of the textbooks with forced calm. "I don't have time to waste."
The blunt dismissal stung, but it wasn't unexpected. As she moved, White's eyes drifted almost on their own to her wrists, which were half-hidden beneath the long sleeves of her uniform. The memory of the angry red welts he had seen earlier replayed vividly in his mind. No, he thought, hardening his resolve. I can't just let this go.
"Shu…" he spoke up again, determined to press further.
But before he could utter another word, a sharp tug pulled at his uniform jacket. "Papaaa!"
Bell's innocent voice rang out loudly in the quiet aisle as she stared up at Shu with intense, wide-eyed curiosity.
"Bell! What are you doing? I told you to stay quiet for a moment," White whispered frantically, scolding her under his breath as he turned to her.
"But…" Bell pouted, her lower lip trembling just as a loud, dramatic growl echoed from her stomach.
White let out a defeated sigh. "Just wait a little longer, okay? I'll treat you to some pudding after we finish here."
The little girl immediately perked up, jumping in place. "I want two!"
"…Fine, done," he relented with a defeated smile.
"Who exactly are you talking to?" Shu's voice suddenly cut through his whispered negotiation. When White snapped his head back up, he found her staring at him with an expression that said everything.
White's stomach dropped into a bottomless pit. Just as he expected, absolute confusion and judgment filled her face. She couldn't see Bell at all. To her, he was just a boy standing alone in a store aisle, aggressively arguing with the empty air.
He forced a weak, strained smile onto his face to hide his immense embarrassment, but inside, the unease crept even deeper. This isn't a strange coincidence anymore. First Miss Elsa couldn't see her, and now Shu can't see her either. Only I can. The sheer weight of that supernatural truth pressed heavily against his chest.
For the rest of their time in the store, White tried his best to casual chat with Shu. However, she stubbornly kept her distance, giving him short answers or ignoring him entirely, moving down the aisles as if she were actively trying to escape his presence.
It wasn't until they finally reached the cashier that her rigid composure shattered completely.
White watched as her hands began frantically searching through the pockets of her school bag. Her face rapidly turned pale, her movements growing more panicked by the second. "…No… maybe I left it at home…" she muttered under her breath.
Before he could stop himself, White moved. "Did you… forget your wallet?"
Shu stiffened instantly. She turned toward him, her cheeks flushed bright red with a volatile mix of deep embarrassment and stubborn pride. "…I don't want your help," she whispered sharply. "Just leave me alone. I'll manage it somehow."
"You can't manage everything by yourself," he said gently, stepping up to the counter and placing his own basket down. "Let me pay for it. Just think of it as a loan, alright? You can return the money to me anytime you want."
"No." The word was spoken firmly, but her voice was incredibly fragile.
"If I don't help you, you're going to have to leave all these study books behind," White reasoned softly, looking her in the eyes. "You've already come all this way to get them… so isn't it just more practical to accept a little help?"
Silence stretched tightly between them as the cashier waited. Shu's grip on her bag tightened until her knuckles turned white. Finally, she looked away, her voice dropping to a faint murmur. "…Fine. Just this once."
Something tight in White's chest instantly loosened. As he handed his money to the cashier, he realized this wasn't just about the cash. It felt as though a door between them had finally opened, if only by a fraction. Because when someone owes you a favor—whether they want to or not—a thread is spun. They stay connected.
The shopping trip had taken much longer than either of them anticipated. By the time they finally stepped through the automatic exit doors of the department store, the sun had completely vanished, leaving the sky draped in pitch black.
At first, Shu flatly refused when White offered to walk her home, claiming she was perfectly fine on her own. But eventually, using the leverage of the unpaid loan, he managed to convince her to let him accompany her. That, White thought with a small smirk, is the true power of a favor.
Under the dim, flickering glow of the suburban streetlights, they walked in a quiet rhythm. Bell hummed a bright, wordless tune beside him, happily swinging the plastic grocery bag she held in her hand as if it were a hard-won prize.
It still deeply surprised him to see how her anomaly worked. Even the physical items she held became completely invisible to the rest of the world. The grocery bag swinging through the air beside him was entirely lost to Shu's senses.
Shu walked on his other side, clutching her newly purchased notebooks tightly against her chest. The distance between them felt incredibly fragile—not the physical space separating them on the sidewalk, but the heavy emotional chasm that lay between their lives.
Finally, breaking the long silence, Shu spoke up, her voice barely carrying over the evening breeze. "…Thank you. And… I want to apologize for earlier. For how I acted on the rooftop."
White glanced over at her, genuinely surprised by the sudden vulnerability. "You don't need to apologize for that. Are you talking about the part where you yelled at me?" he teased lightly, trying to ease the tension.
"…Yes," she replied seriously, refusing to match his playful tone. "I shouldn't have lost my composure like that, regardless of… what happened with your grades." Her voice trembled slightly beneath the calm façade she was desperately trying to maintain. "But… it's just that…"
She trailed off, her lips pressing tightly together into a thin line as her gaze shifted firmly away to the opposite side of the street.
"…Is it because of your parents?" White asked, the question slipping out carefully before he could overthink it.
Her reaction was instantaneous. Her entire body stiffened into rigid stone, as if he had just violently struck a raw, unhealed wound. "It's not that," she snapped defensively.
But the lie was entirely obvious. It was fragile, transparent, and hollow. White knew she wasn't denying the truth because it was false; she was denying it because the reality was too terrifying to ever voice out loud.
They continued down the winding streets in silence. But this time, the quiet between them felt incredibly loud, heavy, and suffocatingly filled with unspoken truths.
"…Shu," White said softly, breaking the tension once more. "If you don't mind me asking… why do you always distance yourself so much from everyone else in class?"
She looked over at him, her brow furrowed in genuine confusion.
"I mean… unlike me, you're incredibly famous in our school. You're the top student every single semester," White explained, looking ahead at the pavement. "People are constantly trying to talk to you and be near you… but it always feels like you purposefully push them away."
Her footsteps slowed down significantly. When she spoke again, the sharp, defensive edge was entirely gone from her voice. It just sounded profoundly tired.
"…Because it's an absolute waste of time," she said, staring straight ahead into the darkness. "Spending hours on useless things… going to karaoke after class, laughing at meaningless jokes, hanging out without any real purpose… I don't have the luxury of time for things like that. A friend is just someone who steals your time away from you."
Her voice felt completely empty as the words left her mouth, sounding less like a person and more like a wound-up doll. A doll that only knew how to mimic human expressions, even though it was completely shattered on the inside.
White didn't know her well, and they had barely spoken before today. But even with the little he knew, he could see the glaring truth clearly. She was entirely broken. He desperately wanted to ask her more, to demand answers about the marks on her skin, but he knew he couldn't press any further. Not directly. So, he chose to stay quiet.
When they finally reached the corner of her residential street, she came to a halt. "This is where we part ways. I'll repay the money I owe you tomorrow at school."
White looked at her, watching her prepare to step away. He didn't want the suffocating silence to win. He didn't want her to disappear behind that freezing wall of hers again, where no one could reach her.
If I stay quiet right now, his mind screamed, everything will just go right back to the way it was. She'll go back to that house, and I'll be left with that drawing. But what can I even say to her? I'm no hero. I'm not some magician who can wave a wand and fix her life. I'm just a normal, unnoticeable person. At most… I can listen. I can just be there for her. Yeah… that has to be enough.
"…Shu!" he called out loudly before she could turn the corner.
She paused, turning her head slightly over her shoulder to look back at him.
"Spending time with friends isn't a waste of time!" he shouted, his voice trembling with nerves but remaining fiercely firm. "If no one else can do it… then let me be your friend. Let me be your very first friend! Just give me a chance. I'll prove to you that you're wrong about it."
The exact millisecond the words left his mouth, the sheer weight of what he had just loudly confessed hit him like a physical blow. White's face instantly burned a brilliant, agonizing shade of red. Overwhelmed by the sudden, intense embarrassment, his knees gave out and he dropped to the ground, burying his face in his hands to hide his burning cheeks.
Beside him on the sidewalk, Bell tilted her head in total confusion at his sudden collapse, before leaning down and gently, sympathetically patting the top of his head.
White didn't dare to look up fully, keeping his face safely tucked away, but from the narrow gap between his fingers, he watched her intently.
Shu's eyes had widened to the size of saucers. The icy, unyielding mask on her face flickered violently, crumbling away to reveal the stunned teenager underneath. For a long, breathless moment, he genuinely thought she was going to say something in response.
But instead, she quickly spun around and walked away into the shadows of the street, leaving without uttering a single word.
White's chest sank like a stone, a wave of regret washing over him—until he noticed her silhouette passing beneath the final streetlamp.
There was the faintest, briefest curve of her cheeks. The absolute smallest smile was tugging at the corners of her lips. It was incredibly brief, fragile, and almost entirely invisible in the night. But it was undeniably real.
And in that one fleeting smile, White knew. His words had actually reached her.
A profound sense of quiet relief washed over his mind as he slowly stood up from the pavement. Maybe I can't change her entire world all at once, he thought, watching the empty street where she had vanished. But slowly… step by step, I can close the distance between us. And maybe—just maybe—I can save her from whatever is coming. Even if it's just by being the person who listens.