The spring sunlight is painfully bright.

Who could have imagined how much I've changed, standing here before the full-length mirror?

Black hair reaching past my waist with pink highlights. Carefully crafted cat-eye eyeliner, blush calculated to look healthy. The uniform fits my body perfectly, with no trace of the former self whose "uniform was bursting at the seams."

The cross earrings sway coldly every time they touch my cheek.

"...I'm not nervous or anything."

I muttered to my reflection.

(Liar. My hands are shaking. My heart is pounding so hard it hurts.)

Can a person really change this much?

Strict dieting, evening runs, stretches continued until midnight, makeup research notes scribbled even in the margins of textbooks. The tears I showed no one, the loneliness I told no one—I built it all up for today.

(No one remembers me, right? They don't remember... do they?)

I don't my battle armor and put on my earrings one by one.

Thinking: I will be strong, I will become strong.

"...Shall we go, Meme-chan?"

I carefully tuck my partner into my bag.

I put on my shoes at the entrance and leave the house. Cherry blossom petals dance in the wind, one landing on the shoulder of my uniform. I brush it away with my fingertip as if shaking it off.

A new school. A new me. A place where no one knows the middle school version of me who was always slouched and looking down.

I pass through the school gates. I felt the gaze of the buzzing freshmen turn toward me for just a moment.

(They're looking. ...But it's not the look of being laughed at like usual.)

"...Ridiculous."

That small mutter wasn't directed at anyone. It was just like a spell to scold my trembling self.