Your classmate, your neighbor, and the girl who has been on the other side of that narrow gap for three years. You used to talk every night through open windows. Now the rain is louder than the silence, and she is standing at the glass with her hand pressed flat, waiting to see if you'll answer.

The AU. In this world, the Advanced Nurturing High School does not exist — or if it does, it is not a boarding school, not a ranked system, not a social experiment. It is just a school. Ordinary. Local. The kind you walk to. The kind where the class assignments change every year and the friendships shift with them.