"Maybe it's for a play?" another replied, not even breaking stride. "She was muttering something about 'Dark Matter'."
Albert did not look. To him, the comments about "matte finish," "sniper rifles," and "Dark Matter" were all the same frequency.
It's deafening. Everyone has a topic and everyone has a connection. They are talking or laughing about fashion, games, and school plays. They are sharing a world. Meanwhile, I'm walking to a library to hide from the only two people who talk to me. I really need to find a new social circle.
Albert walked past them, filtering the conversation as 'Background Noise,' and focused on reaching the library before the crowd got too thick.
---
Date: April 21, 2026 Time: 6:00 PM Location: Zenith Academy Central Library
The library was a cathedral of silence. The air conditioning was set to a crisp, preservation-grade temperature. Rows of towering bookshelves stretched into the dim distance, smelling of old paper and binding glue.
Because it was the first month of school, the ground floor was populated by students pretending to study. But Albert knew the topography of knowledge. The higher you went, the denser the material became, and the fewer humans you encountered.
I need a location with a 'Social repulsive force.' The cafeteria is too open. The general reading area is too risky—Maya might check there. I need a place where no student from Class 1-4 would ever voluntarily go. Target: The 'Red Label' Reference Wing on the 3rd floor. Logic: The books there are non-circulating graduate texts. No manga. No study guides. No Wi-Fi signal. It is a 'Dead Zone' for high schoolers. The probability of encountering anyone I know is less than 0.001%.
Here, the silence was absolute and the only sound was the hum of the HVAC system.
Albert bypassed the General Science stacks and walked past the rows of loanable undergraduate textbooks. He did not stop until he reached the heavy glass partition at the very back of the aisle marked **530: Theoretical Physics**.
3rd Floor.
Target acquired: The 'Red Label' Reference Wing. The books here are classified as 'In-Library Use Only' and cost more than a teacher's monthly salary. No manga, no study guides and no Wi-Fi signal. It is a 'Dead Zone' for high schoolers. People would never have a reason to walk this far.
He pushed the door open.
He didn't just want a corner spot. He wanted a structural guarantee of solitude. This alcove wasn't just quiet by chance; it was quiet by regulation.
He turned the corner, desperate for an empty chair. Then, he stopped. The coordinates were occupied.
Slumped over a large reading table was a girl.
Someone's here? Seriously? This is the only place on campus where I can hide. This sector is usually uninhabited. Who comes to the Advanced Physics section on Tuesday evening?"
He was about to turn around and leave, to find a dark corner in the basement, but something about the scene made him pause.
She was asleep. Her head rested on her folded arms, her face turned toward the window where the dying sunlight bathed her in a soft glow. Her hair was a cascade of soft gold, curling gently over her shoulders. Her skin was porcelain pale. Even in sleep, she looked… peaceful.
Albert stared.
For a moment, the noise in his head stopped. He forgot about Maya in the lounge and he forgot about Leo on the track. At this very moment, he was just a teenage boy looking at a girl who looked like she had fallen out of a fairytale and landed in the physics section.
She's... cute. Wait, not just cute. She's stunning. Blonde hair? That's rare. I feel like I've seen that hair before."
He took a quiet step closer. The library was dead silent, amplifying the sound of her soft breathing. He squinted at her face. It triggered a memory. The huge digital board yesterday. The name at the very top.
Wait. That profile. That hair. It's her.
Rank 1: Tsukishiro Shiina.
The "Perfect Honor Student." The untouchable genius who had scored 465/500 and shattered the school record.
Albert felt a strange mix of awe and bitterness.
Must be nice. Look at her. Sleeping like she doesn't have a care in the world. Top of the food chain. She doesn't have to worry about being a burden to her friends. Not having to calculate every social interaction to avoid hurting people. She just wins.
He let out a silent, self-deprecating sigh. He felt like an intruder. A Rank 2001 staring at a Rank 1. A ghost haunting a queen.
I should go. If she wakes up and sees me standing here looking gloomy, it'll be weird, or worse, I'll be accused of being a stalker.
He took a step back. But then, his eyes drifted to the pillow she was using. She was not sleeping on a jacket. She had built a small fortress of thick, hardcover volumes.
Albert's eyes narrowed behind his glasses.
Non-Perturbative Field Theory
Supersymmetry and String Theory: Beyond the Standard Model
Volume 4: Advanced Quantum Chromodynamics
The bitterness vanished, replaced by sudden, sharp confusion.
Why did a high school freshman have these? Was she posing? Was she just grabbing big books to sleep on?
He stepped closer, his curiosity momentarily overriding his depression. He looked at the open page under her arm. It was a notebook. Her handwriting was small, sharp, and chaotic.
Equation visible: L = -1/4 F_μν F^μν + i (psi-bar) D (psi) + h.c...
Note in margin: "Renormalization fails at 10^19 GeV. The symmetry breaking is artificial. Needs a new constant. Try Zeta function regularization?"
Albert's eyes widened.
She isn't posing. She's deriving. Attempting to manually regularize a divergent integral in a Quantum Field Theory set. She's not studying for a test. She's bored. Probably trying to rewrite the Standard Model because the school curriculum is too slow for her.
Albert looked at her face again. The "Perfect Lady" facade was slightly cracked. Her mouth was slightly open.
And there, glistening in the sunset light, was a small, very un-aristocratic line of drool connecting her lip to the cover of Supersymmetry and String Theory.
She's drooling. The Rank 1 Genius is drooling on a textbook that costs more than my shoes.
It was the most human thing he had seen all day. It did not fix the Maya situation, but for a microsecond, it made the world feel a little less heavy.
Suddenly, Shiina stirred. She made a small, incomprehensible noise—"Mmmngh... gravity... weak..."—and shifted. The stack of books shifted with her.
Slide.
The heavy Quantum Chromodynamics volume on top began to tip.
Physics calculation: Mass of book approx 2.5kg. Height 30cm. Impact vector: Directly onto the bridge of her nose.
Outcome: Significant pain. Waking up screaming. Library silence broken. Attention drawn to me.
Albert did not think. His body moved before his brain could process the social consequences. His hand shot out, catching the heavy book inches before it hit her face.
Thump.
It was a soft sound, but in the silence of the library, it sounded like a gavel hitting a desk.
Tsukishiro Shiina eyes snapped open. They were crystalline blue, but currently unfocused and hazy with sleep.
She blinked slowly and stared at the hand hovering near her face, holding the large book. Then her eyes traveled up the arm, past the school uniform, to Albert's face.
Albert froze. He was leaning over her while holding a book, invading her personal space.
Crap. She's awake. And she's staring at me. I'm leaning over a sleeping girl in a deserted aisle. I look like a creep and I looked like I was trying to touch her while she slept. This looks bad. This looks like a harassment report waiting to happen.
He pulled his hand back quickly and retreated to a safe social distance.
"The book," Albert whispered, his voice dry. "It was falling. Kinetic energy. Your nose."
Shiina blinked again. She sat up slowly and rubbed her cheek, where the pattern of a book cover had left a faint red mark on her pale skin. She looked at the heavy volume of "Quantum Chromodynamics," then at Albert.
"Acceptable," she mumbled. Her voice was raspy, lacking the polished cadence she used in public.
She narrowed her eyes, scanning him. Not having a sign of being grateful. She looked like a security system processing an intruder.
"Who are you?" she asked flatly. "I don't have your face in my memory."
"I'm... nobody," Albert said while taking another step back. "Just a first-year. Atherton Albert."
"Atherton..." Shiina murmured while tilting her head. She seemed to be searching a mental list. "I memorized the names of the Top 100 students from the bulletin board. You aren't on the list."
She looked him dead in the eye.
"What is your rank," Shiina asked.
Albert flinched.
Straight to the numbers. Of course. In this school, you don't ask 'How are you?', you ask 'What's your value?'
He hesitated. He could lie but the data was public. She could check it on her phone in ten seconds.
"2001," Albert said quietly.