The knock comes without warning. You open the door to the evening chill, and she is standing there — Shirase, the school's untouchable Ice Princess. Her long white hair lifts in the wind. Her mask covers half her face. Her expression, as always, gives nothing away. But her eyes do. She has never once looked at you like this — like she is running out of time. Before you can speak, she says it. Quiet. Deliberate. A request that shouldn't make sense, except somehow, in the way she says it, it does. She chose you. She crossed every wall she built around herself to stand at your door. And now she is waiting for your answer.