A gentle breeze passed, scattering cherry blossoms like rain. The long hair of the girl sitting under the tree danced in the wind, a scene that froze in the eyes of passersby like a beautiful painting.
The girl looked up, her clear eyes radiating a bright light as she looked at the boy who had approached her.
"What color do you want to become?"
Her voice was like a gentle breeze, so low that one might mistake it for a hallucination if not listening carefully.
"Yellow." Looking at the girl, Sorata's gaze was very clean and pure, lacking the awkwardness and nervousness that someone his age would typically show when meeting a beautiful girl.
"Yellow?" A hint of doubt appeared in the girl's eyes.
Sorata nodded seriously. "Yes, the yellow of golden, a very yellow yellow."
"What about you? What color do you want to become?"
"I haven't thought about it," the girl tilted her head, a blank look in her calm, empty eyes.
"See, you asked me what color I wanted to become, and I answered."
"Now, when I ask you, you say you don't know. That's not proper etiquette for a conversation," Sorata shook his head.
However, knowing the girl's personality, Sorata immediately smiled, looking at the quiet girl.
"I think you're white right now, just like your name."
"..." A look of surprise flickered in the girl's calm eyes.
"Hello, my name is Kanda Sorata. Chihiro-sensei asked me to pick you up. She had something come up and couldn't make it. She should have called you, right?" As he spoke, Sorata showed Shiina Mashiro the photograph in his hand, hoping to convince her.
However, looking at the photo of the five or six-year-old girl, even Sorata couldn't help but mentally complain about the teacher's carelessness.
If Shiina Mashiro's aura wasn't so unique, would anyone be able to recognize her?
Shiina Mashiro looked at Sorata and said in a calm voice without any emotional inflection,
"Sorata, your name is very nice. I like it."
"Thank you for the compliment," Sorata smiled slightly, but felt no particular reaction to the statement of liking.
"Let's go, it's a bit of a distance from here to the Sakura Dormitory." After saying this, Sorata proactively picked up her small suitcase.
"Mmm." Shiina Mashiro nodded quietly and followed behind Sorata.
As for Mitaka Jin, he had vanished unnoticed while Sorata was approaching Mashiro, perhaps wanting to give the two of them some alone time.
The two walked side by side, very slowly, mainly because Shiina Mashiro walked slowly, which also allowed Sorata to enjoy the attention of the passersby.
It was mainly because the girl was too dazzling.
Her tall, slender figure, delicate features with the three-dimensionality of a Westerner and the refinement of an Asian, coupled with her unique aura of detachment from the world, made passersby stop in amazement to take a second look.
On the way back, Sorata didn't try to strike up a conversation with the beautiful girl like most teenage boys would. He pulled the suitcase, his mind already wandering far away.
And Shiina Mashiro was even more so, immersed in her own world, indifferent to the outside, with a quiet personality and no emotional fluctuations.
So the atmosphere between the two was very silent along the way. It took them more than twenty minutes to return to the Sakura Dormitory, just in time to see the moving company's truck leaving.
Opening the door and entering the entryway, Sorata placed the suitcase aside and said to Shiina Mashiro behind him, "Come in, I'll take you to your room first."
However, just as the two entered the living room, Kamiigusa Misaki rushed down the stairs with a fierce momentum, and the party popper in her hand exploded with a bang.
Bang!!
Kamiigusa Misaki shouted happily, "Welcome to the Sakura Dormitory!"
Having anticipated this, Sorata placed his hand over the mouth of the party popper just as it went off, blocking most of the confetti, and then swiftly delivered a hand chop to Kamiigusa Misaki's head.
"Ah..." the beautiful upperclassman cried out in pain, "How can you be so cruel to such a cute and beautiful girl like me?"
"Are there many cute and beautiful girls like you who often sleep in my room?" Sorata retorted irritably.
"What's wrong with that? I haven't even had my first kiss yet, a genuine, brand-new cute girl from head to toe!" Misaki boasted proudly while crouching on the ground.
"Hehe..." Sorata replied with two simple words, but Misaki took it as Sorata being speechless and became even more smug.
Behind them, Shiina Mashiro quietly watched the two bickering, a hint of curiosity in her eyes.
"Alright, alright, no more fooling around. Let's take little Mashiro to her room first," Misaki stood up.
"That sentence doesn't sound convincing coming from you at all."
"Ah ha! I finally have a neighbor! Junior, do you think she'll come to my place to stay the night? Will she discuss her love troubles with me in the future? Just thinking about it makes me so excited!"
Shiina Mashiro quietly followed behind. Sorata carried the luggage upstairs, while Kamiigusa Misaki, walking beside him, had already fallen into a fantasy, looking extremely excited and agitated.
However, Sorata understood this quite well. Those who surpassed ordinary geniuses were often lonely. In the two years she had been in the Sakura Dormitory, Kamiigusa Misaki had actually been quite alone.
So, after Kanda Sorata moved in last year and got along very well with her, Kamiigusa Misaki dragged him around to play every day, their close relationship making Mitaka Jin, who liked her, very jealous and annoyed.
Stepping on the creaking wooden stairs, the three of them had just reached the top floor when they saw a sign with cartoon drawings hanging on the door of room 202, next to Kamiigusa Misaki's room. It read "Mashiro's Room."
"Ta-da! I made this last night!" Misaki stepped forward proudly and was about to open the door and go straight in.
Sorata called out to her, placing the luggage on the ground, "Senpai, I'll leave the rest to you. I'll go downstairs first."
"Eh? Junior, aren't you curious about little Mashiro's room? Don't you want to go in and take a look? I had the moving company arrange everything neatly!" Kamiigusa Misaki leaned over, looking like she wanted Sorata to go in and praise her.
Sorata shrugged. "You said the moving company already arranged everything neatly, it wasn't you who did it. Besides, that's a girl's room, how can I just go in?"
After saying this, Sorata nodded to Mashiro, and then, without waiting for Kamiigusa Misaki to speak, he went downstairs to avoid any suspicion. He wasn't particularly curious about girls' rooms.
"Ah... I feel like since this afternoon, junior hasn't been as fun as before. I even prepared so many things to say," Kamiigusa Misaki said with a displeased look, watching Sorata's decisive departure.
"I'm just busy and don't have time to play with you. Also, I ran into Jin-senpai at the station today. Hasn't he come back yet? Did he go to that beautiful woman's place again for the night?"
Sorata replied lazily from downstairs.
"Hey, hey... I just went to the supermarket to buy ingredients for hot pot, to welcome the new member of the Sakura Dormitory. Don't talk nonsense!" Just then, the front door opened, and Mitaka Jin, wearing his glasses, walked in carrying two large bags.
"It seems you all knew Shiina Mashiro was coming a long time ago. I'm the only one who was kept in the dark," Sorata said from the doorway, a look of suspicion on his face.
"You're playing games with Misaki all day long. Do you have the energy to pay attention to anything else?" Mitaka Jin's tone revealed his displeasure.