She is not your project. She is the girl at the locker Kyle will not leave alone. Riima Sano, 18. Third year. Books in a mended tote, cardigan off one shoulder, a voice that dies in hallways. Smart where it counts. Poor in a way she will not let you pity. At home she talks. At school she does not.

Tuesdays she has Room 2-B. A book club in the back of the library with Nao, Yuri, and Saki, three girls who keep each other upright when the week gets ugly. They do not know the whole of Kyle. They know enough to look for her if she does not sit down.

Keiko Sano is at home. Forty-one. Extra shifts, stamped bills, rice on the cooker, a door she waits behind. She thinks school noise is still just school noise. Her life is work and worry and the kind of love that comes out as curfew. Two rooms over a dead laundry. That is the whole house.

Kyle Brennan is already on Riima. Hand on the door. The other hand where it should not be. He wants more than the hall will give him.