Important Content Warnings if you are sensitive about heavy subjects
(Include Spoliers so if you aren't sensitive don't read the warnings)
This story is a crossover between My Teen Romantic Cody SNAFU and the psychological horror visual novel Magical Girl Witch Trials.
Please be advised that this fic adopts the dark, psychological horror tone of the latter. It contains heavy subject matter, including SPOILER: bullying, trauma, and suicide.
Reader discretion is strongly advised.
If you are sensitive to these thes, please prioritize your well-being and skip this story.
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Prologue: As Expected, Hikigaya's Valentine's Day Featured No Confession
The after-school bell had rung a long ti ago.
Hikigaya put the chalkboard eraser back on the teacher's podium and clapped the dust off his hands.
Today was his turn for cleaning duty. Normally, there would be another unlucky soul assigned with him, but that person hadn't shown up from start to finish.
He waited for a few minutes, and by the ti the hallway had gone completely silent, he realized the other party most likely wasn't coming.
It was Valentine's Day, after all. Who would keep cleaning duty in their heart?
By the ti he finished tidying up alone, the sky outside the window had begun to turn orange.
Hikigaya picked up his school bag and sluggishly walked out of the classroom.
The entire corridor was empty, leaving only the sound of his own footsteps. The setting sun shone diagonally through the windows, dyeing the floor into distinct square patches.
Then, he saw the scene.
A girl stood in the middle of the hallway, holding a ticulously wrapped gift box in both hands, lifting it toward another boy. Her dium-length brown hair hung down, gilded with a faint golden edge in the sunset.
"Senpai, this... isn't giri."
Hikigaya stopped in his tracks.
He recognized that silhouette. A girl from his class, Orimoto Kaori.
The reason he rembered her so clearly was because she was the object of the first—and only—confession in his life.
In the winter of his first year in middle school, he had spent three nights drafting an email, deleting and rewriting, rewriting and deleting, until finally only one sentence remained: "I've always been concerned about you." His hand was shaking when he pressed the send button.
She saw it. The email status changed to "Read."
And then, there was no "then."
No reply, no follow-up, nothing at all.
But the matter didn't end there. The next day, the contents of that email spread throughout the entire grade. He didn't know who leaked it, but by the ti he found out, people were already shouting at him in the hallway: "Hey, Hikigaya, I heard you confessed?"
He still rembered those laughs.
Orimoto never ntioned it afterward. When she passed him in the hallway, her steps might falter for a mont, but she never stopped.
Hikigaya looked at her back and thought of the person who was supposed to be on duty with him today but never showed up.
'I guess they're busy here.'
He shifted his bag to the other shoulder.
The boy remained silent for a few seconds.
"I'm sorry, I can't accept this."
Orimoto lowered her head; her expression was unreadable.
"I have soone I like."
"...I see."
She withdrew her hands and stuffed the gift box back into her bag. Turning around, she took two stiff steps and then stopped.
Her shoulders were shaking, and the sound of suppressed sobbing leaked out.
Then she ran down the stairs, the sound of her footsteps quickly fading away.
Hikigaya stood in place, looking in that direction.
Ignored by her in the first year; witnessing her being rejected in the second year.
Ti really is fair.
Walking to the shoe locker area, Hikigaya pulled open his cubby, preparing to change out of his indoor shoes and head ho.
Then, he froze.
A pure white, square envelope was lying quietly in the shoe locker.
Using two fingers, he gingerly picked up the white envelope as if he were handling a piece of hazardous waste.
It was light, almost weightless. During the specific period of Valentine's Day, this thinness actually made it seem even more suspicious.
Hikigaya flipped the envelope over. Aside from the faint reflection of the sunset, there was nothing on it.
No recipient, no sender, not even a heart sticker. The flap was simply sealed with glue.
The whole thing radiated a slapdash aura of "whatever works."
After confirming no one was around, he carefully sliced open the seal.
Inside was only a folded slip of paper, the edges still bearing the irregular jagged teeth from being torn out of a notebook.
[Co to the rooftop after school.]
No signature, no date, no address like "To Hikigaya-kun"—only that single line of text, like a concise and cold command.
...It's a prank, right?
And the most sophisticated kind at that. You wait until the target takes it seriously, walks to the designated spot, stands still, waits for Cupid's arrow to hit, and just as their heart rate starts to quicken...
The laughing crowd surges out from all directions, nailing you to the cross of "self-conceit," sacrificing you to the delusions of adolescent pining.
During his middle school years, he had already used up a lifeti's quota of "self-conceit."
"…"
Hikigaya stuffed the note back into the envelope, preparing to toss it into the nearby trash can.
His hand stopped mid-air.
Precisely because there was no signature, a certain thought darted into his mind—
What if this was a letter placed in the wrong locker?
What if this letter also represented soone's "entire strength"?
Hikigaya thought of Orimoto's back just now, the suppressed sobbing as she ran downstairs. He rembered himself in his first year of middle school, staring at his phone screen waiting for a reply—waiting until the battery died, waiting until dawn, waiting until he understood that "Read" was the only answer.
He held the envelope over the trash can. As long as he let go, he could return to his usual life.
"Tch."
Hikigaya withdrew his hand and put the envelope into his pocket.
Even if there was only a 0.1% chance that soone was actually waiting on the rooftop...
The news that person received wouldn't be any worse than what he had waited for in his first year.
Hikigaya shifted his bag to the other shoulder.
He set off in the direction opposite of ho.
The sound of his soles rubbing against the concrete steps was exceptionally clear in the empty stairwell. With every step, his heart beat a little faster; this unfamiliar palpitation made Hikigaya feel slightly irritated.
Fourth floor, fifth floor, until the rooftop door was right before his eyes.
It was a rust-stained iron door, usually secured by an equally ancient lock, but now it was ajar, leaving a narrow gap. The evening wind squeezed through that gap, carrying the slight chill unique to early spring.
Although no other sound ca from behind the door, his mind had already begun simulating various scenarios:
The laughter of a collective prank, an ambush from so dark corner, or the classic, awkward scene of "I'm sorry, I've got the wrong person"...
The envelope in his pocket seed to be silently urging him to attend this ill-fated appointnt.
Hikigaya put his hand in his pocket; his fingers brushed the envelope, the folded corners stinging his fingertips.
He took a deep breath, like a soldier preparing for a battlefield, took two more steps upward, reached out, and pulled open the heavy, cold iron door.
Creak—
The evening wind imdiately found an outlet and poured in violently, tossing the hair on Hikigaya's forehead into a ss.
His vision suddenly opened up.
The setting sun dyed the entire expanse of empty concrete into a blurred orange-red.
An empty rooftop... no, it wasn't entirely empty.
Away from the water tower, near the edge of the western railing, a figure was sitting with her back to Hikigaya. She was facing outward, perched on the narrow ledge beyond the waist-high railing.
The evening wind swept across the rooftop without obstruction, causing the hem of her dark school skirt to sway gently like waves. A head of waist-length silver hair lifted a few loose strands in the slanted glow of the sunset, shimring with an unreal luster.
The iron door behind Hikigaya slowly closed with a dull "thud," as if blocking out all his previous wild thoughts and isolating all the clamor of the world.
Perhaps hearing the sound of the door closing, the silhouette moved.
She nimbly stood up from the ground and then, slowly, turned around.
Hikigaya's heart skipped a beat. By any aesthetic standard, that face could be called flawless.
Her skin was so white it looked as if it had never touched the sun, almost rging with her silver-white hair. In the afterglow of the sunset, that layer of white was dyed with a faint gold, giving it a hint of human vitality. Her pupils were light gray, so pale they were almost transparent, yet so clear they could reflect a person's image; however, there wasn't much
turbulence in those eyes—they were as calm as a pool of stagnant water. The bridge of her nose and her small lips were perfectly matched, like a fine doll in a display window.
Standing at the edge of the rooftop, the red light of the setting sun outlined her silhouette like an angel bringing the end of days in a religious painting. She was so beautiful it felt unreal.
A faint smile hung on the girl's face.
In that smile, there was neither the surprise he expected from seeing the unfamiliar Hikigaya, nor the playful smirk of a successful prank. There was only a layer of almost transparent, inscrutable calm.
Her gaze was direct, frank, and even a bit too sharp.
"Hikigaya Hachiman."
She addressed him by his full na using formal honorifics (keigo). Her voice was ethereal, each syllable articulated clearly, as if she were confirming sothing.
The wind blew between them, bringing a bit of a chill.
She paused slightly, her light gray eyes staring at Hikigaya without blinking, as if minutely observing every tiny expression on his face.
The next second, on this rooftop filled with the sunset, the evening wind, and the lingering scent of Valentine's Day, the silver-haired girl threw out a sentence in a flat voice that had absolutely nothing to do with anything before them:
"Dost thou wish to destroy humanity?"
"…"
Ah, of course.
Hikigaya thought to himself:
My Youth Romantic Cody is Wrong, As I Expected.
April—the season of school entrance ceremonies and fluttering cherry blossoms.
For most, it's a new beginning brimming with hope. For Hikigaya Hachiman, however, it's rely a season where he's destined to be shoved into a classroom with a fresh batch of strangers, forced into aningless social activities.
The school gates were packed with freshn and their excess of youth. Groups of three to five, having just discovered their class assignnts, huddled together exchanging LINE IDs—a thod of acquiring a cheap sense of security.
The entire space was filled with this pointless enthusiasm, a clamor so loud it made Hikigaya feel nauseous.
Class shuffling, at its core, is nothing more than a reshuffling of interpersonal relationships. Those guys who say things like "We can still see each other during breaks" or "Let's walk ho together" actually know better than anyone else; those words are just temporary bandages applied to relationships that are already disintegrating.
Despite being separated by only a single wall, it might as well be the Mariana Trench in a social sense. That's how humans are: once the physical distance stretches by even a dozen ters, the priority of "friends" in the brain automatically updates.
After all, maintaining relationships consus energy, and human instinct always leans toward choosing the visible, tangible warmth right in front of them. Forr companions are quickly replaced by new roles assigned by the new environnt.
It isn't about being cold-hearted; it's simply an adaptive trait evolved by social animals to reduce survival stress. Of course, Hikigaya wasn't in any position to criticize others—after all, he didn't have any "friends" to begin with.
Hikigaya stood on the periphery of the crowd, hands in his pockets, waiting for the tide of people to disperse.
Cherry blossoms landed on his shoulders; he didn't bother to brush them off.
The crowd in front of the bulletin board began to loosen. So left after checking the lists, while others were still squeezing in. Hikigaya took two steps forward.
Then he stopped.
He saw a familiar back.
Bright blonde hair, the ends curling into natural waves, half-tied into a high ponytail at the crown. Her signature black ribbon swayed gently with her movents.
"Saeki... Saeki... where is it..."
That hair color, that voice, that surna.
"Ah, found it. Class F." Her voice carried a sense of relief.
"Hikigaya..."
Hikigaya's breath hitched for a mont.
Her finger moved along the list. After finding her own na, she didn't stop; she continued moving down.
"Hikigaya... Hachiman..."
That na escaped her lips, very softly, nearly drowned out by the surrounding noise.
But Hikigaya heard it clearly.
"Great."
Saeki Miria gave a small, quiet celebration.
Then she turned her head and froze completely.
Hikigaya was standing right in front of her, looking at her.
"—Eh?"
Her eyes widened instantly. Her cheeks turned red at a visible speed, the flush spreading from the base of her ears to her neck. Her lips moved as if she wanted to say sothing, but nothing ca out.
One second, two seconds, three seconds.
The surrounding crowd and the falling cherry blossoms seed to be partitioned off by sothing. It was just the two of them, as if soone had pressed the pause button.
Saeki Miria: "…"
"...What a coincidence," Hikigaya spoke up.
"...Y-yeah, quite a coincidence," Saeki Miria twirled a strand of her hair, forcing a smile. "You ca to see the class lists too, haha..."
She decided to pretend that everything just now hadn't happened.
"Yeah," Hikigaya grunted. Tacitly, he didn't press her about that "Great" from a mont ago. He simply walked to her side, looked at the bulletin board, and began to search for his na with great feigned seriousness.
Standing beside him, Saeki Miria watched his poorly acted profile, the corners of her mouth curving up slightly.
'As expected, he's still so kind.
Always able to look after my feelings and my embarrassnts, just like before...'
Naturally, Hikigaya couldn't hear the sighs Saeki Miria was making in the depths of her heart.
He just stood before the board, his eyes scanning the dense clusters of nas, maintaining a "searching diligently" expression on his face.
Hikigaya could feel her gaze. Because she thought he was focused on finding his na, she stole glances quite shalessly. Having that gaze land on his face felt sowhat itchy.
"Found it." Finally, he pointed to his own na. "Class F."
"Eh?" Saeki Miria lightly covered her mouth, letting out a small exclamation of surprise. "What a coincidence, I'm in Class F too."
Hachiman: "..."
'What terrible acting.'
"Then we'll be classmates from now on," Saeki Miria said, extending her hand.
Hikigaya looked at that hand.
Slender fingers, neatly trimd nails painted with a faint, transparent polish. The nail on her right thumb was a bit blunt—a habit she had of biting her nails when nervous. He knew. During that month he spent living in her body, he had seen himself subconsciously put his finger to his mouth in the mirror countless tis.
Now that hand was extended before him, waiting for a response.
He thought this scene felt familiar. On that night last sumr, on the pedestrian bridge, he had held these hands just like this.
"Um..." Saeki Miria's hand retracted slightly, her voice a bit wavering. "Is it too sudden?"
Hikigaya looked at her face. The tips of her ears were red again, her eyes were fixed on the ground, but her hand remained stubbornly extended.
"...Not really."
He reached out and took hers.
Saeki Miria's fingers trembled slightly in his palm, and then she gripped back firmly.
One second, two seconds, three seconds.
Nothing happened.
Just two hands held together amidst the April cherry blossoms.
"...A normal handshake," Saeki Miria whispered.
"Yeah."
"No body-swapping."
"Yeah."
"That's good."
Saeki Miria's expression was complex—there was the relief of a sigh, but also a little sothing she couldn't quite na.
Was it regret? Was it a sense of loss? It was the kind of contradiction that suggested, "Actually, swapping wouldn't have been so bad."
She was still holding his hand.
"That's enough," Hikigaya said, releasing his grip.
"...Eh?" Saeki Miria blinked, startled. "What's enough?"
"Confirmation is done. We won't swap," Hikigaya said.
"You can rest easy. The condition for the swap is still that it requires mutual consent; that ti with must have just been an accident."
Saeki Miria opened her mouth as if to say sothing, then swallowed it back. Her expression looked like she wanted to laugh and sigh at the sa ti.
"Th-that's good then..." she said softly.
Hikigaya nodded and turned to walk toward the gymnasium.
The sound of hurried footsteps ca from behind him as she caught up to walk side-by-side.
"Hikigaya-kun, wait a mont."
"Is there sothing else?" Hikigaya stopped and turned to face Saeki Miria.
The scent of flowers was striking.
She reached out, moving past his shoulder.
Hikigaya's gaze fell on her profile, which was inches away. She was standing slightly on her tiptoes with a focused expression; a few petals drifted down from her fingers.
"...There." She withdrew her hand and patted it. "Done."
"...Thanks."
"It's nothing." She smiled, tucking a strand of hair blown ssy by the wind behind her ear. "We're classmates now, after all."
'We're classmates now.'
Hikigaya repeated the phrase in his mind. Then he turned and continued toward the gym. She followed, walking beside him.
The gym grew closer. Crowds began to gather as freshn filtered inside in small groups.
"Um..." Saeki Miria stopped. "I'm going to go find my parents first."
"Okay."
"See you in the classroom later."
"...Yeah."
Saeki Miria turned and took two steps before looking back again.
"Hikigaya-kun."
"What?"
"Just now... thank you."
"...For what?"
"Just..." she paused. "For not pretending you didn't know , for not dodging when we shook hands, and for not asking why I ca to this school."
Hikigaya looked at her. Her expression was so earnest it was hard to know how to respond.
"...It's nothing to thank for," Hikigaya looked away.
"Mhm." She smiled. "But I still want to say thanks."
"See you later."
She ran into the crowd, her ponytail swaying. The black ribbon was soon swallowed by the mass of people.
Hikigaya withdrew his gaze and headed for a different entrance.
'Whatever. I'll deal with it when the ti cos.'
He entered the gymnasium and found a seat in the corner for his class. The seat next to him was empty.
Hikigaya leaned back against his chair and closed his eyes.
The principal's address humd through the microphones, amplified and distorted, a buzzing sound that was quite annoying.
He thought back to that month—the month he had swapped bodies with Saeki Miria.
Every day looking in the mirror and seeing soone else's face. Every day walking and feeling a different center of gravity. Every day eating and tasting the sa flavors—the sense of taste hadn't changed, at least.
And those ssages on the phone.
The ssages saying she "deserved it" or should "just die." The slander spread so casually, the bottomless malice.
What was he thinking back then?
Nothing much. He just felt that those things shouldn't have been in her life.
That was all.
The principal's long-winded speech wasn't over yet. Hikigaya opened his eyes and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling.
"See you in the classroom later."
He sighed.
If she waved at him in class, he'd give a nod. If she ca over to say hello, he'd give a reply.
A normal classmate relationship. That's all.
No need to be intentionally cold, no need to be overly enthusiastic. Just treat her like any other ordinary classmate.
Right. Just like that.
Simple.
It should be simple.
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