Story:

Violet was holding court.

The crowd around her desk had only thickened through the day, and she was feeding it masterfully—speaking in that archaic textbook Japanese of hers, all courtly turns and formal flourishes, every sentence sounding like it had been lifted from a costume drama.

And it worked. The class found it fascinating rather than funny—halfway between a foreign accent and a period play, delivered in a voice that was low, warm, and frankly seducing.

"Indeed, I have traveled over the great sea, by ship for many weeks," Violet was saying, hand over her heart, purple eyes sweeping her audience.

"In my homeland, the autumn is hot and the sun burns gold upon the orange trees. But I have heard the autumn of Japan is the most beautiful beneath the heavens—and lo, I find it true, for I have seen the red leaves, and also..." a pause, a slow smile, "...the very kind people."

The girls squealed. The boys made appreciative noises and tried to figure out how to make a sentence in reply that wouldn't sound stupid.

Someone asked her what she thought of Japanese food, and she launched into a loving account of "the rice ball, filled with the treasure of salmon," that had three boys quietly resolving to buy her every onigiri flavor in the convenience store.

Her stories were amusing, her delivery was perfect, her popularity was rising like a rocket—and she knew it, clearly enjoying every second of her new career as the school's exotic darling, while Butterfly, beside her, deflected dating proposals from second-year boys with the serene diplomacy of a woman who had once ruled half of Gifu's social calendar.

And Peach sat at her desk, chewing the inside of her cheek.

There's no chance. No chance at all. She had now been trying to get within two meters of the sisters since homeroom, and the human wall around them only ever grew.

She had given up on subtlety—she was seriously considering writing a note and throwing it over the crowd when—