[] COTE - Curious Hearts [] Love Triangle [] Alternative []

[] Chapter 1 :- Two Hearts, One Path []

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It was afternoon, the sun high overhead.

"Hey, hey! The cultural festival’s coming up soon, right?"

"Umu, can’t wait!"

"What’s our class planning to do?"

"Dunno, they’re still deciding."

Chatter from a group of girls floated across the rooftop—the spacious rooftop of Mizuki High.

"It’s too noisy up here," a boy with chestnut hair muttered, lying in the shade. Looked like his precious nap had been cut short by all that excitement.

With a sigh, Kiyotaka rose to his feet, heading for the door.

‘Cultural festival, huh... It's happening next week,’ he thought, his curtain bangs stirring just slightly as he exited the rooftop.

Honestly, he was kind of looking forward to it. The cultural festival… his first one.

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Kiyotaka strolled down the first-floor hallway where the first-year classrooms were, looking for an empty spot to continue his nap.

‘Seven months here… and I still haven’t made a single friend,’ he thought, his golden-brown eyes narrowing slightly with a sigh.

It’s not that he liked being alone, it was more that he just didn’t know how to start a conversation with his classmates. Socializing—well, that wasn’t exactly something he understood.

And besides, why should he be the one to initiate? That’s how he saw it.

It wasn’t ego, more like a nervousness, a nervousness of being judged by whoever he’d try talking to. And that’s how he’d ended up a loner for the past seven months.

Deep down, Kiyotaka wished someone would reach out to him—a pretty hopeless thought considering he was practically invisible to his classmates. But maybe… it wasn’t impossible.

As he wandered past the hallway, an open art club room door caught his attention.

Curiosity nudged him forward, and he stepped inside.

The room was quiet, with a few easels set up with blank canvases, some chairs, and a table in the center covered with scattered sketches. The place was empty.

"Hmm, this room’s empty... maybe I can…" he murmured. But before he could finish, a sudden gust blew through the open window, sending the sketches on the table flying toward him.

One sketch in particular caught his gaze—a familiar face drawn on the page. It was the face he saw every day in the mirror.

That same boring face he didn’t really like.

Yeah, it was him, drawn right there on the page.

‘But... was I always this… decent looking?’ he wondered, staring at the sketch with his usual detached expression as he picked it up.

Being overlooked had worn on him so much he’d barely thought about his own looks. Being ignored long enough can do that to a person, can drain the self-esteem right out.

And it wasn’t just one sketch of him lying there—there were several.

Fwap!

In one swift motion, the sketch in Kiyotaka's hand got snatched away.