I heard the door open at 6:42 PM.
I was lying on my bed scrolling through the academy app, specifically the section labeled STUDENT DIRECTORY that let you look up anyone in your house if you knew their na. Useful for stalking. Less useful when you didn’t know who you were looking for yet.
The sound of the lock disengaging made sit up.
Roommate ti.
I got off the bed and walked out into the living area just as the door swung open.
The person who walked in made stop breathing for about three full seconds.
Holy shit.
Androgynous didn’t begin to cover it. This person looked like soone had taken the concept of beautiful and sharpened it until it could cut. Chin-length black hair. Sharp features. High cheekbones. A jawline that could have belonged to either gender depending on the lighting.
And the eyes.
Red. Actually red. Not brown with reddish tones. Not hazel. Bright, vivid, arterial red that looked like soone had photoshopped the irises in post.
The uniform fit perfectly. Tailored blazer. Crisp shirt buttoned all the way to the collar. Black tie with the Obsidian trim. Everything about the presentation scread control.
The person looked at .
I looked back.
"You’re my roommate," the person said.
The voice was low. Quiet. Carefully neutral in a way that felt practiced.
Male, then.
Except.
Oh.
Oh.
My brain made the connection in about half a second and I had to physically resist the urge to smile.
Hikaru Tanaka.
The character from the novel. The one with the secret. The one who was actually a girl pretending to be a guy to escape an arranged marriage back in Japan and claim her birthright from a family that didn’t think won could inherit.
The one who in the original story eventually gets found out by Javier, the main character, and slowly becos comfortable enough in her own skin that she drops the act and reveals a body that the novel described in absolutely obscene detail across multiple Chapters.
Top five sexiest bodies in the entire story.
36E bust that she bound flat every single day with compression bandages.
I was looking at a lottery ticket and a death trap at the sa ti.
Because her ability was Phantom Edge. Invisible cutting force. Silent. Instant. Deadly.
She could bisect before I finished a sentence if I fucked this up.
"Yeah," I said. "Jace Monroe."
Hikaru walked further into the room and set down a single black duffel bag by the couch. Everything about the movent was economical. No wasted motion.
"Hikaru Tanaka."
"Cool. Which room do you want?"
"The one you didn’t take."
Fair.
Hikaru walked past toward the bedrooms. Looked into the one I’d claid. Then walked to the other one and disappeared inside.
The door shut.
Not slamd. Just shut. Quietly. With finality.
I stood in the living room processing.
Okay.
First: jackpot. Absolute jackpot. This was the kind of lucky break that didn’t happen in real life.
Second: extrely dangerous jackpot. Hikaru hated n. The novel made that very clear. Years of being dismissed and controlled by her grandfather and male cousins had left her with exactly zero patience for anything that slled like masculine bullshit.
Third: I had sixty-eight hours left to live and my roommate was secretly a Gold-tier extraction target with one of the best abilities in the entire academy.
But she thought I was just so random lottery kid. And she clearly wanted nothing to do with .
Which was fine.
I didn’t need her to like .
I just needed proximity.
I walked back to my room and shut my own door. Sat on the bed. Pulled up the system interface.
Snake Eyes worked on everyone. Gender didn’t matter for the identification part. The charm effect only triggered on people who could be attracted to , but the information display was universal.
If I made eye contact with Hikaru, I’d see the asurents.
Which would confirm what I already knew.
But I couldn’t do it yet. Too obvious. Too soon. She’d just walked in the door and she was already radiating fuck off energy so intense it was practically visible.
Pushing now would be stupid.
I checked the ti. 6:48 PM.
House eting at seven.
I opened my phone and scrolled through the student directory again. Typed in Hikaru Tanaka.
The profile ca up.
Year: First
House: Obsidian
Ability Classification: Offensive
Nationality: Japan
Ergency Contact: [REDACTED]
That was it. Bare minimum information. No social dia links. No profile picture beyond the default academy logo.
Ghost mode.
Smart.
If you were trying to disappear from a powerful family, you didn’t leave a digital trail.
I put my phone down and looked at the door to my room. Then at the wall that separated my space from Hikaru’s.
Sowhere on the other side of that wall was a girl who’d cut her hair, stolen docunts, forged identification, and crossed an ocean to escape an arranged marriage.
A girl who trained harder than everyone. Who was better than her male cousins. Who got told it didn’t matter because tradition said won couldn’t lead.
A girl who was now trapped in a performance she couldn’t drop for three years because getting caught ant expulsion and deportation and a life she’d already rejected once.
I understood that.
Not the gender thing. But the performance. The lie you had to maintain because the truth would destroy you.
I was doing the sa thing.
Just with a death tir and a system that required to convince won to let drink from their tits.
We were both fucked.
Just in different ways.
I heard movent from the other room. Footsteps. A door opening and closing. The bathroom, probably.
The apartnt had two bathrooms. One attached to each bedroom. Hikaru wouldn’t have to worry about walking in on anything.
Good for her.
Bad for .
Because that ant fewer opportunities for accidental discovery.
I checked the ti again. 6:53 PM.
I got up and walked out into the living area. Grabbed a glass from the kitchen and filled it with water from the tap. Drank it. Refilled it.
The door to Hikaru’s room opened.
She walked out.
Still in uniform. Still perfectly composed. Hair still immaculate.
She looked at .
I looked at her.
"House eting starts in seven minutes," I said.
"I know."
"You going?"
"Yes."
"Cool. I’ll walk down with you."
Her eyes narrowed. "You don’t need to."
"I know. But I don’t know where the common room is yet and I’d rather not get lost again."
"There are signs."
"I’m bad with signs."
She stared at for a long mont. Like she was trying to figure out if I was serious or if this was so kind of play.
I kept my expression neutral.
Finally she turned toward the door. "Fine. Let’s go."
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