(Kei Minazuki's POV)
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There are people who carry pain like a scream.
Loud. Obvious. Desperate.
And then there are the ones who carry it like silence.
Alex Aizawa was the second kind.
The kind of person who smiled with his whole face — except for his eyes.
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Kei Minazuki had never paid much attention to him before this year.
He was popular, sure. Smart. Funny, in a disarming way. Girls liked him. Teachers trusted him. People floated around him like he was gravity.
But Kei had always found his brightness… suspicious.
Not fake, exactly.
But too clean.
Like someone polishing windows that kept cracking behind the glass.
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It started in March.
She had stayed late to organize the art room, like always.
The hallway was mostly empty, shadows stretching long from the windows.
That's when she passed the music building — and saw him.
Sitting alone on the floor outside the piano room, back to the wall, fingers curled around a paper cup of vending machine coffee.
Not crying.
Not moving.
Just… staring at the ground.
Still.
Too still.
---
She didn't speak to him then. Just walked past.
But the image stuck with her.
Because for the first time, he looked like the thing she had always suspected:
A boy trying not to fall apart.
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April 18th – Monday
Kei noticed things other people missed.
It was just part of who she was.
Maybe because she was always painting — always scanning light, shadow, expression, detail.
Maybe because she'd grown up around people who didn't know how to say what they felt — so she learned to read what they didn't say.
She noticed how Alex flinched — subtly — when someone clapped him too hard on the shoulder.
She noticed how he always wore long sleeves, even when it was warm.
How he always gave up his seat near the window. How his laugh always landed one second late. How his eyes scanned the room not like someone curious — but like someone watching for danger.
He was covered in bruises no one could see.
And Kei saw them anyway.
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She didn't tell anyone.
She just started watching more closely.
Every smile. Every shrug. Every missed beat in his rhythm.
He was bleeding through the seams of himself, but he'd stitched everything so neatly that people thought he was flawless.
That made her heart ache.
Because she knew what it was like to live quietly with ghosts.
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Wednesday – Art Room, After School
Alex came by to drop off a prop for the school festival.
He was early.
Kei was alone.
She looked up from her painting and blinked. "Oh. You're here."
"Hey," he said, holding a cardboard box. "This goes to 3-B's storage?"
She nodded. "Just leave it by the shelf."
He placed it down carefully. Too carefully.
Like he was afraid it might break.
She watched him for a moment, then said casually, "You're good at pretending nothing hurts."
He looked up sharply.
"What?"
Kei didn't look away.
She held his gaze, then shrugged. "Just something I noticed."
He opened his mouth — then stopped.
She could see the panic flutter behind his eyes.
So she added gently: "It's okay. I'm not asking for answers."
Alex stared at her like she'd said something in a different language.
Then — slowly — he smiled.
Not his usual one.
Softer. Sadder.
More real.
"…You're strange," he said.
"I get that a lot."
He lingered a moment longer.
Then left without another word.
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Kei stared at the door after he'd gone.
Her heart beat too fast.
And that was when it hit her.
Not like thunder. Not like some dramatic spark.
Just quiet and sure.
She was falling for him.
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Not because he was handsome.
Not because he was kind.
But because she saw all the ways he was breaking, and wanted so badly to be the person who made him feel safe.
Even just for a moment.
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Later That Night – In Her Sketchbook
Kei flipped to a new page and began to draw.
Not his face.
Not directly.
She drew his silhouette — a boy standing under streetlight, hunched slightly, like the air itself weighed too much.
Around him: broken piano keys falling like feathers. Shadows stitched like threads into the hem of his shirt.
She wrote at the bottom of the page:
> "Some people aren't loud when they bleed."
And underneath it:
> "But I can still hear you."
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