People love to say high school is where friendships bloom, memories are made, and you "find yourself."
Sure. And I'm the tooth fairy.
In reality? High school is just a theater.
Everyone's auditioning for a part. Smiling when they don't want to, agreeing with things they don't believe, pretending to be someone they're not.
All to win a little approval. A few fake laughs. Maybe a seat at the lunch table.
It's not charming.
It's not "youthful."
It's exhausting.
But adults call it normal.
They say, "These are the best years of your life," as if trauma, social anxiety, and crippling self-doubt are a fun little scrapbook waiting to happen.
They tell us lying is okay because it keeps the peace.
Because it "makes you likable."
No, it makes you hollow.
People lie because it's easier than being honest. Because honesty makes you vulnerable, and vulnerability gets you hurt.
So they cover everything in shiny half-truths and call it maturity.
But here's what I've learned:
Lies are not the spice of youth.
They're the crutches of cowards.
And youth?
That's just a bedtime story adults tell themselves so they can forget what being a teenager actually felt like.
Pressure to belong.
Fear of standing out.
Everyone trying to be unique in exactly the same way.
That's why I keep my distance.
Because getting close to people doesn't bring understanding—it just arms them with more precise ways to break you later.
And once is enough to learn that lesson.
So no, I wasn't excited about a new school year.
No hopeful goals, no dreams of reinvention.
Just a simple plan:
Keep quiet.
Stay invisible.
Graduate.
That's all I wanted.
The moment the teacher left the room, the class exploded into noise. Chairs screeched, desks shuffled, people were already trading Line IDs like it was the stock market.
I leaned back in my seat, letting out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.
Voices buzzed all around me—laughing, gossiping, the usual social noise pollution.
I pulled out my light novel from my bag. The cover was half-worn, the edges bent just enough to show it had been read more than once.
A mystery series. Realistic, grounded, a slow-burn romance tucked in the corners of a murder investigation.
No superpowers. No harem nonsense.
Just characters making mistakes, hurting each other, and trying to figure out if trust is ever worth the risk.
In a way, it was the only place where emotions felt real.
Books don't fake smiles.
Stories don't leave you behind when something better comes along.
And even if the characters break your heart, at least they do it honestly.
This was my comfort zone.
A world with rules.
A world I could control, even if just for a few chapters.
As I flipped to the dog-eared page and lost myself in the quiet weight of printed words, I let the classroom fade away.
No whispers.
No stares.
No Misaki Aihara declaring fate with dramatic flair.
Just me, my book, and silence.
For now
Title: The Moon Never Says I Love You
Author: Rei Kanzaki
Blurb (from the back cover):
I was halfway through reading my light novel, the quiet hum of the classroom fading into the background, when I felt it—a shift in the air.
Someone was standing next to me. I didn't look up, too engrossed in the pages, but the silence around me felt off.
Then, without warning, a voice sliced through the stillness.
"Disgusting."
I blinked, slowly lifting my head to find the source of the comment. A girl, with bright yellow hair, wearing the same uniform as me, was walking past my desk. She didn't even glance my way, just muttered the word under her breath as she kept walking.
I stared after her, processing what just happened.
Disgusting?
I wasn't even sure who she was, but I was already being judged. On the first day of high school.
I slumped back in my chair. "Wow. Already hated."
It wasn't even noon, and I was getting unwanted attention. The school year was off to a great start.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, still shaken by the encounter with the yellow-haired girl, and saw that I had a new text message.
From an unknown number.
That was strange. I rarely got messages, let alone from someone I didn't recognize. My fingers hovered over the screen as I unlocked it.
The message was short:
"Can we meet after school?"
I blinked at the screen. My first thought? A prank. Maybe the girl who walked by? Or just another one of those 'randoms' looking to bother the transfer student.
I stared at it for a few seconds, confused. Why would someone want to meet up with me? Was I supposed to know who this was?
I started to put my phone away, but then I noticed something at the end of the message.
"—Misaki Aihara. The café near the park."
My fingers froze, my heart skipped a beat.
What?
Misaki Aihara? The girl who had confessed to me, practically screamed it at the front gate, to be exact. Now she was asking me to meet her after school?
I couldn't make sense of it. Was this really her? Why would she send me a message like this, and why the cryptic unknown number?
It didn't make any sense. I thought she was just messing around—now it seemed like there was something more to it.
I looked at the message again, feeling the weight of the name hanging there. Misaki Aihara.
What a pain.
I sighed, rubbing my temples. The day wasn't even halfway over, and I already had more questions than I knew what to do with.
Well, I suppose I would find out soon enough.
I sighed, rubbing my temples. The day wasn't even halfway over, and I already had more questions than I knew what to do with.
While i was staring at my phone someone else was standing I was thinking
"Now what? Who is it this time?" I muttered under my breath, just as a shadow appeared beside me.
"Yo. You're Sakamoto, right?"
I looked up.
The guy standing there had the casual vibe of someone who could show up late to a fire drill and still get away with it. Slightly messy brown hair, lazy grin, and an open uniform jacket like he'd already given up on rules. A natural extrovert—dangerous.
"I'm Ren. Ren Takeda. Just came to say what everyone else is too scared to."
I stared at him.
"…What?"
He grinned wider, leaned on my desk like we were old friends. "Bro. You and Misaki Aihara? Front gate? The pink notebook? The water bottle explosion? The confession?! That was cinema."
I almost fell out of my chair. "She didn't confess. She just yelled—"
Ren held up a hand. "Nah, nah. Don't ruin it. Let me have this. That scene? You couldn't script it better. Cherry blossoms. Impact collision. Emotional tension. And her?"
He pointed a thumb across the room.
"She's like, the unofficial idol of Shirayuki High. Seriously. Misaki Aihara's not just pretty—she's anime-protagonist pretty. Every guy in this school has had a crush on her at some point. And she confessed to you on day one."
"I think my soul just left my body," I muttered.
Ren nodded seriously. "Understandable. Mine would've too."
He plopped down in the seat in front of me—backwards, of course—arms folded on the chair's backrest like he'd done this a thousand times.
"I mean, look at her." He tilted his head slightly.
I followed his gaze. Misaki stood near the windows with her friend, animated as always. Her black hair was bouncing with every movement, and that ridiculous sparkle in her eyes looked like it had its own light source.
Ren sighed dramatically. "Beautiful, bold, and unreasonably good at causing chaos. She's like a rom-com final boss."
I buried my face in my hands. "I want to die."
"Please don't. That'd make you more famous."
I peeked at him through my fingers. "More?"
"Buddy, people were filming. You're probably trending in the school group chat already. You just unlocked the 'mysterious transfer student' main quest."
I groaned. Loudly.
Ren chuckled. "But hey. I respect the vibe. You've got that whole gloomy, serious aura. Girls eat that up."
"I'm not trying to be anything," I muttered. "I just wanted to graduate in peace."
He gave me a sympathetic pat on the desk. "Too late. You're a legend now."
He stood up and stretched like that was all the socializing he needed to do for the day.
"But hey—if you ever need a break from the madness, come sit with me at lunch. I'm chill. I'll pretend you're invisible if that helps."
I blinked. A normal person? A sane ally?
"…You might be my new favorite classmate."
Ren grinned. "I get that a lot."
As he strolled away, I let myself breathe. Maybe—just maybe—not everyone here was trying to ruin my life.
And then, as if on cue, Misaki turned from her conversation, caught me staring, and—
Winked.
I blinked. Wait… did she just wink at me?
Before I could process what had just happened, I found myself asking without thinking, "How do you know all this?"
Ren's grin turned mischievous. "I don't reveal my resources."
"…What is this? A mystery novel?"
He laughed. "No. It's not. I'll tell you when the time comes."
I stared after him as he walked off. That guy definitely knew something. Or maybe he just enjoyed messing with me. Either way, my life at Shirayuki High had just gotten a whole lot weirder.
I glanced back at Misaki, half-expecting her to be deep in conversation again.
She wasn't.
She was looking right at me.
And then—because of course she would—she raised her eyebrows meaningfully, tilted her head toward her phone, and tapped the air like she was texting on an invisible screen.
Then she pointed at me.
Then at herself.
Then at the classroom door.
I blinked.
She smiled sweetly and gave me a thumbs-up.
My brain short-circuited.
Message. Her. After school. Meet.
This wasn't a prank.
This wasn't a joke.
This was an active situation.
I slumped in my seat, groaning internally as every possible bad ending played out in my mind like a broken slideshow.
"I'm dead."
No, really. There was no way I was making it out of this alive. If the public humiliation didn't get me, the social chaos would. Or maybe Ren was right and I'd just become a school-wide meme by lunchtime.
I looked down at my phone again, the message still glowing on the screen like a countdown to my doom.
"Can we meet after school?"
"—Misaki Aihara. The café near the park."
The words blurred together as my brain overloaded.
This had to be a trap. Or a setup. Or maybe some bizarre student council initiation ceremony I hadn't been warned about.
I peeked back at Misaki.
She was still smiling. Still looking at me.
She waved.
I flinched so hard I dropped my phone.
This was fine. Everything was fine. My quiet first day had gone completely off the rails, but maybe if I just ignored the situation hard enough, the universe would reboot and let me start over.
…Yeah. That wasn't happening.
So instead, I picked up my phone, took a deep breath, and prepared myself for the end of all things.
After school.
The café near the park.
Misaki Aihara.
Lord have mercy.