After School, Let's Go See the Snow

Shiraishi Mio is the perfect specimen in everyone's eyes.

Calm and restrained, she keeps just the right distance from everything around her.

Only I know the warmth of her fingertips when we kiss, and the possessiveness she can't hide in her eyes when she traps me in a space barely big enough to stand in.

In the bustling daylight, we're classmates sitting across the aisle from each other;

after school, as dusk settles in, we're two fugitives avoiding every watchful eye.

"If we cross the line, wouldn't that leave a stain on your life, Shiraishi?"

"It's not a stain. It's the only answer I chose for myself."

In a corner no one knows about, we share each other's breath. When the cold winds of the north begin to blow, the lofty honor student has already become my accomplice, and mine alone.