The dismissal bell rang exactly at four in the afternoon.
The sound was sharp and drawn-out, like an invisible needle piercing from the loudspeaker at the end of the hallway, stabbing into every classroom that had been stifled by the heat all afternoon.
Almost at the same instant, the whole teaching building seemed to flip a switch.
The scraping of chair legs against the floor, the dull thuds of textbooks being shoved into backpacks, the zip-zip-zip of zippers being pulled closed—all of it poured in from every direction, converging into a chaotic roar.
Outside the window, the cicadas on the playground, as if infected by the bell, started screaming too, wave after wave, deafening.
Footsteps thumped in the hallway. Someone yelled, “See you tomorrow.” Someone else asked, “Where are we going later?” Others were already discussing the new game that just came out and weekend plans.
Youth.
Rinna sat in her seat by the window in the last row, listening to all the lively sounds that belonged to “normal high school students,” and a sigh—whether of envy or self-mockery—floated through her mind.
Her winter uniform jacket had been on all day. The collar was still neatly pressed against her neck, the black fabric showing not a single wrinkle.
The sunset outside slanted through the gap in the curtains, falling onto the white hair that rested on her shoulders, making those few strands look like molten silver.
She didn’t rush to stand up.
To be precise, she couldn’t.
Rinna bent down and took her small bag from the hook next to her desk—a dark gray canvas crossbody bag, just the right size to hold the essential items she needed every day.
She placed the bag on the desk, unzipped it, and began packing things in, one by one.
First, the blood supplement oral liquid.
Small brown glass bottles, six in a bundle held together by a rubber band.
She picked up the bundle; the cool touch of the glass met her fingertips.
Anemia, a gift from Physique 3. If she didn’t drink this every day, she’d see black spots just walking from the school gate to the teaching building.
The rubber band had left a shallow indentation on the bottles. She carefully tucked the bundle into the very bottom of the bag, the bottles clinking against each other with a very soft clink.
Second, the multivitamin tablet.
A small white plastic bottle with a child-proof cap—you had to press down and twist to open it.
A handwritten label was stuck to the bottle: “Rinna, one a day, take after meals.” It was her mother’s handwriting, neat and tidy, each stroke ending with a cautious seriousness.
Rinna looked at the line of characters, her thumb gently brushing the label. The paper was already a little frayed from being handled.
She put the bottle into the bag, next to the bundle of blood supplement oral liquid.
Third, the heart care tablet. Fourth, the calming medicine. Fifth, the stomach-nourishing tablet.
One bottle after another, one pill after another, she placed them into her bag.
Her movements were light when she picked them up, light when she put them down, as if she had repeated this so many times that it no longer required thought, but every motion carried a quiet resignation.
‘Every day I have to take them.’
Rinna silently repeated those four words in her heart, then sighed.
She zipped up the canvas bag.
She placed the bag on her lap and was silent for a moment.
No club activity application forms, no sports club wristbands, no culture club notebooks.
Her after-school hours didn’t belong to the playground and track, or to the nets and squeaking sneakers in the gymnasium, or to the whiteboards and markers in the clubroom lit by the setting sun.
Her after-school hours belonged to these pills.
As a permanent member of the “Go-Home Club,” Rinna had a very clear sense of her own identity.
The Go-Home Club was basically a nickname for students who didn’t join any clubs.
They went straight home after school, participated in no group activities—the largest, most widespread, and most invisible club in the entire school.
It sounded pretty free: no training, no meetings, no getting roasted like charcoal on the summer playground.
But Rinna knew it wasn’t freedom—it was a last resort.
How she wished she could experience so-called “campus youth and vitality.”
She wanted to cheer for the sports club members at the edge of the field until her voice went hoarse.
She wanted to stay up late with classmates making props for the cultural festival, her fingers sticky with glue and paint.
She wanted to lean against the railing on the second-floor corridor of the gymnasium, watching people play basketball below, then get yelled at by a passing teacher, “Don’t linger in the hallway!”
Those things she had seen in manga, in anime, and had once owned in her past life—they were now a landscape behind a glass wall.
She could see it, hear it, even smell the peculiar scent of the rubber track after it had been heated by the sun, but she couldn’t walk over.
But today there was a small consolation.
She was going to Xiao Xiao’s house today.
Rinna put the strap of her canvas bag over her shoulder, adjusted its position, and shifted it to the thickest part of her shoulder.
Then a hand reached out from beside her and gently grasped the handle of the canvas bag.
“I’ll carry it.”
Hisaki’s voice was neither light nor heavy, carrying a certainty that didn’t require discussion.
Rinna turned her head and saw that Hisaki had already packed her own things. Her desk was always the first in the whole class to be cleared.
Her long, straight black hair hung over her shoulders, the ends glowing with a dark red luster in the sunset.
The hand she extended had slender fingers with well-defined knuckles, and her nails were trimmed very cleanly. When she grasped the handle, her knuckles tightened slightly.
Rinna didn’t refuse.
Refusing was useless; she had tried many times before. Hisaki never gave in on this matter.
She let go, and the canvas bag was steadily taken by Hisaki.
Hisaki hung Rinna’s bag and her own school bag on opposite shoulders.
The black strap of her school bag pressed against her white shirt, leaving two shallow imprints, like a balance scale with equal weights on both ends.
As for textbooks—like most of the other students—they left them at school.
“Let’s go.”
Hisaki stepped aside to make room in the aisle.
Rinna stood up. The hem of her winter uniform slid across the seat with a very, very soft rustle of fabric.
The two of them walked out of the classroom through the back door.
The crowd in the hallway was slowly dispersing.
Sports club members walked in groups toward the playground. On the bench next to the shoe lockers, a few students were changing shoes.
Some were laughing, complaining about today’s training, or tying and untying their sneakers over and over, dragging their feet about going to practice.
The air was mixed with the smell of hallway cleaner and the scent of grass drifting in from the playground, steeped in the sunset into a warm, golden fragrance.
Rinna walked past them. The black of her winter uniform contrasted sharply with the white of the summer uniforms, like someone who had traveled from winter and accidentally wandered into a June evening.
Someone glanced at her, then quickly looked away. They were probably already long used to the “white-haired girl in class 1 of freshman year who wears winter clothes in summer and is very pretty and cute.”