Prologue: [Yuri Friends] I Am Being Blackmailed.

I am being blackmailed by her.

…No. If I’m being honest, I know.
Pretending to be the victim — that’s not fair of me.

I was the one who let that scent get to me.
That much, I know. It hurts to know it, but I do.

I know. And yet.

I am the discipline committee chair.
Every morning I stand at the school gate, making students fix their sloppy uniforms.
The teachers pile their expectations on me, heavy and relentless — “We can count on you,” “You’re the obvious choice for the recommendation next year.”

No tardiness. No slacking off.

“Responsible.” “A model student.” “Has her head on straight.”

That’s what I was.
…Until I met her.

All of it, something I brought on myself.
I have no right to play the victim with talk of being “blackmailed.”

And yet — I want to say it anyway.
I am being blackmailed.

◇◆◇◆◇

After school, without fail, a message arrives on my phone.

“You’ll be there today, right?”

The moment I see the name on the notification, my heart lurches.
The blood drains from my fingertips all at once, leaving them cold.
I’ll never get used to it. I know I shouldn’t, but I always end up sending the same reply.

“I’m in the discipline room.”

She — Asahina Hiyori — knows.
My weakness. The ugly, exposed parts of me. All of it.

Ash-grey hair, carefully kept.
The powdery, sweet musk that lingers beneath the citrus.

A creature who is my complete opposite.
Someone I should only ever have clashed with. Someone our paths were never meant to cross.

Now, on her phone, there is a video that could end my life as I know it.
If anyone sees it, everything I’ve built — all of it — gets painted over.
So I have no choice but to do as she says.

The after-school discipline room, where the evening light bleeds through the gap in the curtains and scorches my committee armband.
A time-limited game. Three months.
Blackmail, with a video as the weapon. The worst, most contemptible arrangement imaginable.

“Been waiting long~?”

The heavy sliding door clattered open and Hiyori drifted in, languid as ever.
Her shirt open at the collar, her white collarbone on show.
Her tie loosely knotted.

The very picture of a uniform violation, standing right in front of me.
And yet my throat was dry as paper, the words of reprimand stuck fast, not coming at all.

“…I wasn’t waiting.”

Hiyori stopped in front of me.
The soft pad of her finger traced my lips, slowly, as if she found my trembling amusing.
Her clinging scent wrapped around me, refusing to let me go.

“Heeey, Maya. You’re way too pretty today as well.”

Hiyori’s cold fingertips tilted my chin up.
No way out.
My breathing went shallow.

“Don’t you dar—”

My protest was stopped up, forcefully.
The heavy musk smell, tangled with citrus, was shoved all the way down into my lungs.

◇◆◇◆◇

…In odd moments, I find myself thinking.

If she suddenly got bored of this arrangement and said, “Whatever, I’m done.”
If she walked away as though nothing had ever happened between us.

Would I feel relieved? Would I breathe a sigh of relief?

Or —