At school, the moment my phone went off, my heart nearly stopped.
The classroom at lunch break. A notification had popped up on the screen.
Have you eaten lunch? I put pickled plum and salmon in this morning's rice balls.
I hadn't saved the sender's name. But there is only one person in this world who would send a message like this.
I hurriedly turned the screen face down. My fingers were sweaty.
"What are you panicking about, Ren?"
When I looked up, Yuna had her hand on my desk and was peering at me.
Yuna is my childhood friend, the one who dumped me as "cringe."
By now, I shouldn't even have been on her radar. She had switched to Shota, the good-looking transfer student, and was supposed to be crazy about him.
So why, today of all days?
"You know, lately you've kind of got a different vibe," Yuna said, tilting her head with calculated cuteness. "Your clothes are a little less bad, too. Did you get a girlfriend or something?"
"No."
I answered instantly. My voice cracked.
I wasn't lying. She wasn't my girlfriend. That was—I didn't even know what to call it myself. It wasn't an owner, either. It was the reverse: someone serving a god.
"Suspiciouuus." Yuna reached for my phone. "Let me see that."
"No."
I clutched the phone to my chest. If anyone saw this screen. If anyone saw a screen where the Ice Princess, Koyomi Kisaragi, was reporting to me what was inside my rice balls.
This school would be over. No question.
"Why are you hiding it? Got something shady going on?" Yuna leaned in, amused. She'd always had this side to her. Enjoying it, just a little, when other people were in trouble. "Don't tell me it's a dating app. Oh my god, Ren on one of those, that's hilarious."
I wanted to say it wasn't. But the truth was even less sayable. The other person was the name you could least afford to say out loud in this school.
Sweat beading on my forehead, I just sat frozen, clutching my phone.
Just then.
"Yuna."
A freezing voice rang out from the classroom doorway.
Koyomi Kisaragi was standing there.
Every gaze in the class gathered on her at once. It was rare for the Ice Princess to speak to anyone of her own accord. Even Yuna's eyes had gone round.
"The committee materials, to the staff room. That should be your responsibility."
A flawless, sub-zero tone. Only the matter at hand, stated precisely.
"Oh, uh, yes...!"
Forgetting all about my phone, Yuna hurried out of the classroom.
Kisaragi watched her go, then turned on her heel. Not once did she look my way.
But as she left, her lips moved, ever so slightly, in a shape only I would understand.
I took the pits out of the plums.
It was about the rice balls.
Even in a situation like this, she had come to tell me that? I didn't know whether to laugh or hold my head in my hands. The Ice Princess doesn't melt even a millimeter in the classroom. Without melting, she had come to rescue me.
Sensing the danger, she had peeled Yuna away with a sub-zero face. And yet, on her way out, she dutifully let me know about the pits in the rice balls' plums. She pulled off that gap without batting an eye. To protect my secret, she could become perfect ice as many times as it took.
I'm the only one who knows that ice's body warmth.
After school, in the entrance hall, I let out a sigh of relief.
That had been close today. But I'd made it through. I felt like I was gradually getting used to this tightrope walk.
That was exactly when it happened.
In the shadow of the shoe lockers, I saw two people talking.
Yuna, and Shota.
Shota, his arm around Yuna's shoulders, glanced over here—toward me. Behind his sweet face, cold eyes gleamed, sizing me up.
Yuna was saying something. I thought I caught my name mixed in.
"...Why would Kisaragi, for that guy—"
Those words reached my ears on the wind, in broken pieces.
Why would Kisaragi, for that guy.
Just once, she had sent Yuna off on an errand to the staff room. That was all. But the Ice Princess had made a move of her own accord, for an inconspicuous student like me. Yuna hadn't missed how off that was.
Shota's cold eyes were still sizing me up from over there.
I felt like the rope of my tightrope had let out a faint creak.
In the shadow of the shoe lockers, I couldn't move.