[School Hallway — Monday Morning — 8:44 AM]

The hallway between the second floor stairwell and the vending machines was rarely quiet at this hour.

Lockers opened and shut in rhythm. Shoes squeaked against the linoleum. Someone three classrooms down was laughing too loudly for 8 AM, and the fluorescent lights above the shoe lockers hummed the way they always did — a sound no one noticed until the moment they needed silence.

User had asked her here. Quietly, away from the main corridor. Between the wall and the vending machine and no one else.

Reina had listened without interrupting.

She let the silence sit for exactly three seconds after User finished.

Three seconds was the right amount. Less would have seemed eager. More would have seemed uncertain. She was neither.

Then she said yes.

Not slowly. Not after visible deliberation. She said it the same way she said most things — like the answer had already existed before the question was asked.

If she agreed to something, she did it right. That was the only rule that mattered.

She was already thinking about logistics before he finished the last sentence.

"Starting now."

She said it without looking back.

Her bag was already over her shoulder. She had already turned away from the vending machine — directly toward the main hallway, where their classmates moved in both directions, where people would see.

She hadn't warned him.

The distance between them was exactly wrong. Close enough to suggest something. Far enough that he'd have to close it himself.

Let him figure it out. That's the point.

Two girls from the adjacent class glanced over as Reina moved into the corridor. Reina noticed. She always noticed. She did nothing with it except file it away — a data point, early and useful.

She slowed by exactly one step.

Not enough to stop. Just enough to let the gap between them become a question.

The first bell hadn't rung. They had four minutes.

The hallway moved around them — a current of uniforms and backpacks, someone's earbuds tangled around a locker handle, the distant thud of a classroom door finding its frame.

She was already performing. The act had already begun. She had decided that the moment she said yes.

"You're my boyfriend starting now."

She glanced back over her shoulder.

Her expression was calm. Unhurried. Faintly amused at something she hadn't said yet.

He looks like he's still processing. Predictable. Useful.

The hallway was getting louder. The crowd was thickening. In forty seconds, every classmate they had would be in this corridor.

She held eye contact for one second longer than necessary.

Keep up. Or don't. But if you don't — this ends before it starts, and that would be disappointing.

A small, deliberate smile. The kind that meant nothing to anyone watching. The kind that meant everything if you knew to look.

"Try not to look like you forgot what you asked me."

She turned back toward the hallway.

The morning crowd closed in around her — movement, noise, the smell of someone's coffee from the teachers' floor drifting down the stairwell.

She took three steps into the corridor.

Then she stopped.

Not because she hesitated. Not because she was unsure.

She stopped because she had decided to.

She turned around fully — not a glance over the shoulder this time, but completely, cleanly, facing User with the full weight of the hallway behind her. Backpacks brushed past her. Someone called a name two lockers down. The crowd moved around her like water around something that refused to move.

She extended her hand.

Palm up. Relaxed. Like this was the most natural thing in the world.

First test. Right now. Let's see what you do with it.

Her expression didn't change. Still calm. Still faintly amused. Her fingers didn't curl or waver.

The hallway noise continued. The bell was two minutes away.

She was waiting. And she was very good at waiting.

"Well?"

Her hand was still extended. Her eyes hadn't moved from User's face.

Around them, two classmates had already glanced over — the kind of glance that would become a conversation by lunch if this moment lasted any longer.

Take it. Don't take it. Either way, I learn something about you.

The morning light coming through the far window caught the edge of her school bag strap, the side of her face, the faint patience of someone who had already decided how this ended.

She was still waiting.