Wait… My Clumsy Classmate is a Secret Greek God?!

The first conscious sensation wasn't sight or sound, but a low, persistent vibration coming from somewhere underneath Akira's head. It felt like a trapped, angry insect determined to bore through his skull. He kept his eyes squeezed shut, hoping that if he didn't acknowledge it, the vibration, the night before, the entire state of his existence, might simply cease.

He shifted, the vibration intensifying as his pillow nudged something hard and rectangular. His phone. He knew, with a sickening certainty, what lay behind the lock screen. Slowly, reluctantly, he slid a hand under the pillow and felt the device. It was humming with relentless energy.

He fumbled for the power button, the screen flashing to life. The number in the corner of the messaging app icon swam into focus through the bleary haze of his anxiety: 1,237 unread. Each number felt like a tiny, personalized accusation. His thumb hovered over the unlock button, paralyzed. There was no point. He already knew the highlights reel of his public humiliation awaited him.

A sudden, loud WHUMP against his door made him jump. Then, the door burst open.

Grandpa Hiroshi stood there, a whirlwind of poorly chosen patterns and boundless energy. He held a sheet of crumpled paper triumphantly aloft, like a freshly caught fish. It was a print-out. Of a meme.

"Kid! Get up!" Grandpa bellowed, his voice booming in the small room. "Look at this! You're famous!"

Akira cautiously pushed himself up, propped on one elbow, bracing himself.

Grandpa held the print-out closer. It was the photo Sakura had sent to the group chat – Akira's wide-eyed grimace next to Sakura's cheerful thumbs-up. Superimposed over Akira's face were the words: "When you remember homework is due."

"It's got thousands of shares!" Grandpa crowed, beaming with a kind of perverse pride Akira couldn't comprehend. "Trending! Even my denture adhesive ad only got twelve likes last month, and I did a whole soft-shoe number!" He shook the paper. "This! This is viral gold! You should trademark that face!"

Akira stared at the meme, at his own face, a symbol of universal dread. This was his reality now. A living meme.

"I… I need to get ready," Akira mumbled, swinging his legs out of bed. Every muscle felt heavy with fatigue, despite having barely slept.

Getting ready was a negotiation with his reflection. His usual uniform felt insufficient. A hoodie? Too revealing if it rode up. Just a t-shirt? Impossible after yesterday. He settled on a dark, oversized hoodie pulled tight around his face and, adding an extra layer of anonymity, grabbed the pair of cheap, dark sunglasses he usually only wore ironically at the beach. And then, because the idea of people seeing his face at all felt unbearable, he dug out a disposable medical mask. He pulled it up, the thin material feeling flimsy against his cheeks. It wasn't a disguise, not really, but it was a barrier. A small, pathetic wall between him and the world.

The walk to school was worse than the day before. The sunglasses obscured his vision slightly, making him feel clumsy. The mask felt stifling. The hoodie felt like a cage. But even through these layers, he could feel the attention. It wasn't just whispers now; it was blatant staring. People pointed, then ducked their heads to whisper furiously. The low murmur of voices followed him, a wave of sound he couldn't outrun. He saw the quick flash of phone cameras, students pretending to check the time or fix their hair while aiming their lenses in his direction. He felt like a zoo animal on display, a rare, awkward specimen.

He reached the school gates, his stomach clenching tighter with every step. He needed to disappear. Find a corner. Become a wall.

Before he could execute his vanishing act, a blur of pink and energy intercepted him just inside the entrance.

"Akiiiiiraaa!" Sakura's voice cut through the hallway noise, bright and alarmingly cheerful. She was wearing a pink cardigan that somehow amplified her already vibrant presence. She zeroed in on him, moving with the speed and determination of a heat-seeking missile. "There you are! Good, you're here!"

She grabbed his arm, her grip surprisingly strong, pulling him away from the flow of students, towards a small, unmarked door near the main office. He stumbled along behind her, a human appendage.

"Everyone's talking about it!" she chirped, not sounding concerned in the slightest. "It's amazing! But we need to strategize! Come on!"

She tugged the maintenance door open and pulled him into the familiar, disinfectant-scented dimness of the janitor's closet from yesterday. The door clicked shut behind them, plunging them into relative silence, broken only by the hum of nearby lights and the distant murmur of the hallway.

The air in the closet was thick and still. Akira leaned back against the mop-filled wall, the sunglasses and mask making him feel vaguely like a fugitive superhero who was terrible at disguises. Sakura faced him, her eyes bright and determined in the gloom.

"Okay," she began, her voice dropping to a serious, conspiratorial whisper. "Okay. This is good. It's messy, yes, but it's attention. We can spin this."

Akira stared at her blankly over the top of his mask. "Spin… my public meltdown and humiliation? Into what? A hit reality show called 'Anxiety: The Musical'?"

"No!" she hissed, leaning closer. The smell of disinfectant was overpowering. "Into a love story! Think about it! Everyone saw the photo, everyone saw the message! If we just… double down! Fake-date harder! Like, really obviously! If we act super in love, everyone'll think the group chat thing was… a joke! A performance! They'll think we meant for them to see it!"

Akira felt a cold wave wash over him. "Double down? Fake-date harder?" He shook his head slowly, the sunglasses sliding down his nose slightly. "Define 'super in love,' Sakura. Because right now, I define it as 'never, ever leaving the protective embrace of this very smelly closet.'"

"No way!" she countered, standing straighter. "We have to be visible! We have to perform!" She started listing things on her fingers. "We'll hold hands in the hallway! Share lunches! Maybe even… gaze longingly at each other during class!"

Akira felt a fresh wave of nausea. Hold hands? Share lunches? Gaze longingly? These were levels of social interaction he barely managed with inanimate objects. With Sakura, in front of the entire, now-watching school? Impossible.

"No," he said, firmer this time. "Absolutely not. No touching. No… gazing. No public displays of… whatever this is."

Sakura frowned, tapping her chin. "Okay, okay. Negotiation. What can you handle?"

He thought for a moment, scanning his internal panic levels. "Minimal interaction. Zero physical contact. Public acknowledgment limited to… maybe occasional nodding in the same direction?"

Sakura considered this, her expression surprisingly serious. "Nodding… in the same direction?"

"Yes," Akira insisted. "Like, 'Oh, look, we're both looking vaguely towards the library. What a coincidence. Must be fate.' That kind of nodding."

Sakura sighed dramatically, running a hand through her hair. "Okay, that's… a low bar. But fine. We'll start there. Occasional directional nodding. But you have to be seen with me. We have to be linked." She gave him a pointed look. "Like it or not, Akira Hayashi, you are currently trending as my 'fake boyfriend (who is kinda cute)'. We have to lean into it. Or everyone will know I sent that on purpose."

Akira stared at her. He hadn't considered that angle. The group chat message had been a genuine mistake, but if they didn't play along, wouldn't people think she wanted that attention on him? It was a twisted logic, but in the bizarre ecosystem of high school rumour, it made a terrifying kind of sense.

He slumped against the wall, defeated. "Fine," he muttered, pulling the mask tighter. "Directional nodding. And… standing vaguely near you."

Sakura grinned, that sharp, triumphant flash returning. "Excellent! Phase one: Operation Lean In is a go!"

Akira just sighed, breathing in the faint scent of lemon-scented cleaner. His new reality was even stranger than the last.

Lunchtime arrived like a scheduled execution. Akira navigated the crowded, noisy cafeteria with Sakura hovering nearby, their proximity a carefully negotiated distance that felt both too close and too far. He clutched his tray, trying to maintain a stoic, directionally-nodding facade. Every head seemed to turn as they entered. The whispers started immediately, louder this time.

Sakura seemed oblivious, or perhaps she was just better at ignoring it. She was attempting to navigate the crowded space with her own tray, filled with colourful, elaborate bento boxes that seemed far too complex for a school lunch. Akira, focused on finding an empty corner table, wasn't paying full attention.

Suddenly, there was a gasp. A loud clatter. Sakura cried out.

He reacted on pure instinct, the kind honed by dodging stray stunt equipment. He dropped his own tray (it landed with a splash of lukewarm soup) and lunged forward, hands reaching out to steady her.

He caught her, his hands on her upper arms, stopping her fall. Her tray, however, wasn't so lucky. It hit the floor with a chaotic crash, food scattering everywhere – rice, bright pink pickled ginger, sliced tamagoyaki spreading across the linoleum.

In the split second he steadied her, the quick motion, the angle of his head… his sunglasses slid down his nose. His mask snagged slightly. His glasses, the thick, defining frames, slipped from his face entirely.

He blinked, the world going soft and blurred again. He was supporting Sakura, who was wide-eyed and startled. His glasses lay on the floor somewhere near the scattered food. His face, sans glasses, sans sunglasses, sans effective mask, was fully visible.

The cafeteria noise, which had surged with the crash of the tray, dipped again. That familiar, terrifying silence began to spread outwards from their little island of chaos.

Phones clicked. He heard them. A rapid fire of tiny shutters.

He was still holding Sakura's arms. She was still looking up at him. Their faces were impossibly close, only inches apart. He could see the faint dusting of freckles across her nose, the surprised widening of her eyes. The air felt suddenly thick, charged with unspoken… awkwardness. It wasn't longing; it was sheer, unadulterated, panic-induced proximity. His brain screamed Abort! Abort!

Their faces inched infinitesimally closer. The silence stretched, tense and absurd.

Then, a small, brown blur erupted from Sakura's jacket pocket.

"Squeak!"

Sir Nibblesworth. The hamster. He launched himself from her pocket, landed on Akira's arm, and began a frantic, furry ascent up his bicep towards his shoulder.

The unexpected tickle, the sheer absurdity of a hamster climbing his arm mid-cafeteria crisis, broke the spell. Akira yelped, releasing Sakura and flailing slightly to dislodge the tiny rodent.

Sakura gasped, expertly snatching Sir Nibblesworth off his shoulder before the hamster could make it into his hair. "Sir Nibblesworth! Bad timing!"

Akira blinked, trying to locate his glasses in the blurry mess on the floor. The moment was gone. The near-kiss, the revealing of his face, the clicking phones – it had all happened in a compressed, chaotic sequence, punctuated by a climbing hamster.

As Sakura scooped up the terrified Sir Nibblesworth and started apologizing profusely to the nearest janitor, Akira, half-blind, fumbled for his glasses. He found them near a glob of rice. He jammed them back onto his face, the world snapping back into sharp, horrifying focus.

Across the crowded cafeteria, near a window, he saw Ren Kurosawa. Ren wasn't eating. He was standing rigidly, arms crossed, watching the entire spectacle. A deep scowl was etched on his face. His gaze felt like a physical weight.

Akira's stomach churned. Ren had seen. Seen the photo, seen the group chat, and now seen this. The "rival" he was constantly competing with, the one Akira secretly trained, was watching him play-act some bizarre, hamster-interrupted romance in the middle of the cafeteria.

A moment later, Akira's phone, tucked safely in his pocket, buzzed. He pulled it out surreptitiously. A new message on the encrypted training app he used for his anonymous coaching persona.

From: Client_Alpha

Need emergency training session. Tonight. My rival's… really distracting me lately. Causing unacceptable fluctuations in focus. Must crush him.

Akira stared at the message, a cold dread spreading through him. Ren Kurosawa, needing help dealing with his distracting rival, had just texted the rival himself. The irony was a bitter taste in his mouth.

Akira retreated to the relative quiet of the school library during lunch break, hoping to disappear among the shelves of dusty books. He pulled his hoodie tighter, adjusted his mask, and sank into a chair at a secluded table, trying to regulate his breathing. The cafeteria incident played on repeat in his mind – the fall, the glasses, the faces inches apart, the hamster.

He felt a presence nearby. Looked up.

Yuki Tanaka stood over him. Yuki was the student council vice president, known for her meticulous record-keeping, unnervingly calm demeanor, and tendency to treat every school event like a high-stakes logistical puzzle. She carried a thick binder.

"Hayashi-kun," she stated, her voice flat and devoid of emotion, yet somehow conveying immense disapproval. "I need a moment of your time."

Before he could respond, she pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down, placing the binder on the table between them with a decisive thud. The label on the spine, written in crisp, precise kanji, read: "Hayashi Anomalies: A Statistical Analysis."

Akira felt his blood run cold. Hayashi Anomalies?

Yuki opened the binder. Inside were charts, graphs, and what looked suspiciously like surveillance photos. There was even a small, hand-drawn map of the cafeteria, highlighting the exact spot where Sakura's tray had fallen, with little dotted lines tracing his movements.

"My analysis of your recent behaviour indicates significant deviations from baseline probabilities," Yuki began, speaking like she was presenting a scientific paper. "Specifically, your interactions with Nakamura-san. Prior to this week, the calculated probability of a direct, unforced interaction exceeding three seconds was 0.007%. This week, that number has spiked exponentially." She pointed to a graph. "Furthermore, I have observed anomalies in your attire."

She turned a page, revealing a picture of him from yesterday, hunched in his gray hoodie. Next to it was a diagram showing the weave density of the fabric.

"Your standard hoodie fabric density, while already high, decreases by approximately 22% in the immediate vicinity of Nakamura-san," she stated, completely serious. "Consistent with recent laundering frequency, which is also anomalous compared to your historical data." She looked at him, her eyes sharp behind her own glasses. "Coincidence? Statistically improbable."

Akira swallowed hard. His laundry frequency was statistically anomalous? How did she even know that?!

"It's… it's called laundry day?" he stammered, feeling utterly cornered. "Sometimes clothes get dirty? It's not… a conspiracy."

"A singular event is noise," Yuki corrected calmly. "Multiple correlated events indicate a signal. The viral photograph. The group chat dissemination. Your increased visibility. The proximity fluctuations. The cafeteria incident, which I have mapped here—" She pointed to the map. "—suggests a pattern. A deliberate attempt to influence social perception. Or perhaps… something is being hidden."

She closed the binder slowly, the sound echoing in the quiet library. Her gaze was unwavering. "The School Festival Committee requires new members. We need individuals with… unique talents for managing unexpected variables. Given your recent… experience with unpredictable social phenomena," she paused, her lips pressing into a thin line, "I believe you would be an invaluable asset."

Akira stared at her, dread pooling in his stomach. He knew what this was. It wasn't an invitation; it was a demand. Yuki Tanaka knew something was up. Maybe not what exactly, but enough to make him a target. She was offering him a way to be monitored, controlled. If he refused… what would she uncover next? Would she dig deeper? Find the gym? The secret training? The anonymous account? Find the gym selfies he occasionally took, immediately regretted, and never deleted properly?

The image of Yuki presenting a dossier titled "Hayashi Anomalies: Abs Edition" to the entire school council flashed behind his eyes.

He slumped further into his chair. "What… what would I have to do?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

"Attend meetings. Follow instructions. Provide data analysis," she said, her tone becoming slightly more business-like, though no less intense. "And allow for… periodic assessment of your… anomaly levels."

He shuddered. "Periodic assessment." He pictured blood samples and graph paper.

"Fine," he mumbled, defeated. "I'll… I'll join the committee." Anything was better than having Yuki Tanaka unleash her statistical analysis on the raw data of his existence.

Yuki's expression didn't change, but he thought he detected a faint flicker of satisfaction in her eyes. "Excellent. Our first meeting is Tuesday. Be prompt. Anomaly levels above acceptable thresholds will not be tolerated."

She rose, picking up her binder, and walked away as silently as she had arrived, leaving Akira feeling like a specimen under a microscope, his every movement, every interaction, now subject to rigorous, terrifyingly accurate analysis.

Later that evening, Akira found himself in the familiar, slightly musty-smelling dojo attached to Grandpa Hiroshi's apartment complex. It was technically a multi-purpose training space, doubling as Grandpa's personal gym and, apparently, a secret coaching facility.

He was wearing a different dark hoodie, pulled low, and had a scarf wrapped awkwardly around the lower half of his face. He'd even tried lowering his voice when he'd responded to Ren's message on the encrypted app, aiming for a gravelly, mysterious sound. It probably just sounded like he had a sore throat.

Ren was already there, a whirlwind of focused energy. He was lifting weights on a bench press, the bar loaded with impressive weight. Akira positioned himself to spot, his heart pounding a little faster than it should have been just from proximity.

"Alright, Coach," Ren grunted, lowering the bar towards his chest. "Today, we focus on… eliminating distractions." He pushed the weight back up, muscles straining. "There's this guy. He's been… everywhere lately. Just… annoyingly perfect."

Akira, hands poised beneath the bar, trying to look like a mysterious, hooded figure and not a bundle of nerves, managed a low, muffled sound that he hoped sounded like sage wisdom. "Focus… on the form."

"Form is fine!" Ren wheezed, struggling with the weight. "It's him! His face! This smug… confident face! And now… this whole… dating thing!" He pushed through the sticking point, racked the weight with a clang. "He's everywhere! And now he's with… her! Nakamura! He just shows up, takes his shirt off in the cafeteria, and suddenly he's… the center of attention! It's infuriating!"

Akira stood there, spotting Ren, listening to him rant about the guy he secretly was. That's my default face, he thought, slightly hysterically. That's not smugness, Ren. That's chronic, low-grade anxiety masquerading as indifference. And the dating thing? That was pure, unadulterated panic.

"He just… doesn't even seem to try!" Ren continued, pulling the weight for another rep. "He just… exists! And everyone flocks to him! Meanwhile, I'm here, putting in the work! Day in, day out!"

Akira mutters under his breath, "That's my default face…" It was barely audible, lost under Ren's grunts.

Mid-rep, sweat beaded on Akira's forehead, misting up his glasses under the hood and scarf. Suddenly, everything went blurry again. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear them. The weight bar dipped precariously.

"Hold it!" Ren yelled, strain in his voice.

Akira grabbed the bar more firmly to help him finish the rep. Their faces were close. Ren, mid-exertion, glanced up at Akira's face, the blurred, sweat-streaked face half-hidden by the hood and scarf. He squinted, his brow furrowing.

"Hey," Ren said, his voice slightly breathless from the effort. "Your glasses… and that… that face shape under the hood…" He paused, breathing heavily. "Do I… know you?"

Akira froze. Time seemed to stop. His heart leaped into his throat, a frantic hummingbird trying to escape. This was it. Exposure. Ruin. Ren, his most intense rival, his most dedicated secret client, was about to discover the truth.

He released the bar as Ren racked it. "Uh… protein emergency!" Akira blurted out, the first thing that came to his panicked mind. "Immediate need for… specific amino acids! Critical!"

He turned and bolted, half-tripping over a yoga mat, leaving a bewildered Ren Kurosawa on the bench press, staring after the mysterious, hooded figure who had suddenly fled, claiming an urgent need for dietary supplements.

The school rooftop felt like the only place left to breathe. The sky was a soft, fading orange as the sun dipped below the horizon. Akira slumped against the cool metal of the AC unit, peeling off the clammy, damp hoodie he'd been wearing. He pulled his glasses off, rubbing the bridge of his nose. The world softened pleasingly around the edges.

He wasn't alone.

Sakura was sitting near the edge of the roof, her legs dangling over the side (safely, he noted with a flicker of anxiety), sketching in a small notebook. Sir Nibblesworth was perched on her shoulder, nibbling calmly on a seed.

She looked up as he approached. "Hey. Figured you might be up here." She held up the notebook slightly. "Was just sketching… the tragic manga hero who is secretly ripped but trapped by social anxiety."

Akira managed a weak, humourless laugh. He sank down a few feet away from her, pulling his knees up to his chest. "That's… oddly accurate."

"So," she said, putting down her sketchbook. "Gym session didn't go well?"

He blinked. "How did you—?"

"You look even more stressed than usual," she finished, matter-of-factly. "And you just ran up five flights of stairs. Plus, you've been texting that 'Client_Alpha' person constantly. Seems like a demanding gig."

He stared at her. She was surprisingly perceptive when she wasn't causing social chaos.

"Why?" she asked, her voice quiet. She gestured vaguely at him, at the sky, at the general state of things. "Why do you hide all of this? The… the training. The… the fact that you're clearly not just 90% ramen noodles. You're way more… interesting than the 'hot guy' crap people are fixated on. Way more interesting than being invisible."

Akira hugged his knees tighter. He looked out at the darkening city lights twinkling below. "Because interesting gets you noticed," he said, the words low and heavy. "Noticed gets you… this." He pulled out his phone, its screen still a pulsating centre of attention, still showing the endless scroll of notifications, the ubiquitous meme of his face. "It gets you analyzed by Yuki Tanaka, chased by hamsters, and nearly discovered by the person you're secretly coaching."

He sighed, the sound shaky. "Being invisible? Being safe? That was… quiet. Predictable. This?" He gestured to the phone again. "This is chaos. And I… I'm really bad at chaos."

Sakura looked at the phone, then back at him. "Yeah," she said softly. "Chaos is… a lot." She was quiet for a moment, stroking Sir Nibblesworth. "My brother… he only gets so overprotective because…" She hesitated. "Because I used to be really… gullible. Trusted everyone. Got into some… bad situations. He just worries. He thinks everyone's a creep."

Akira looked at her, seeing a vulnerability he hadn't expected. She wasn't just a force of nature; she had her own reasons, her own anxieties, even if they manifested differently than his. He felt a flicker of something – not romantic, not attraction, but understanding. Connection. Maybe… maybe he could tell her. About the training. About Ren. About why he felt the need to hide this part of himself. The words formed on his tongue.

"Sakura, there's actually something I…"

Before he could finish, before he could confess his secret identity as Ren's unwitting trainer, he felt a sudden, warm, wet splat on the top of his head.

He froze. Looked up.

A pigeon, perched precariously on the edge of the rooftop sign, took flight, leaving behind its unfortunate deposit.

Akira stared blankly ahead, a single, perfect pigeon poop glistening on his hair.

Sakura stared, then burst out laughing. Hard. She laughed until tears streamed down her face, clutching Sir Nibblesworth for support.

The moment of vulnerability, the almost-confession, was instantly incinerated by avian bodily functions.

Akira returned to his apartment smelling faintly of pigeon, disinfectant, and lingering despair. He scrubbed his hair in the shower, the hot water doing little to wash away the indignity of the day.

He emerged to find Grandpa Hiroshi in the living room, looking incredibly pleased with himself. He was hunched over a tablet, muttering into its camera.

"And now, folks, the main event!" Grandpa announced to the tablet, completely ignoring Akira. "My grandson, Akira 'The Physique' Hayashi, demonstrating the proper form for maximum glute activation!"

Akira froze. Grandpa was livestreaming. From their apartment.

"Grandpa! What are you doing?!" Akira yelped, lunging towards the tablet.

"Promotion, kid! While the iron's hot!" Grandpa dodged him, setting the tablet up on a stack of old movie props – a fake sword and a rubber chicken. The camera was aimed at the small training mat in the corner of the living room, where Akira sometimes did floor exercises. "They love the mystery! Hooded figure! Perfect form! Now, let's see those sit-ups! Smile for the ladies, kid! And flex those glutes!"

Akira stared in horror. Grandpa was broadcasting his private workout space – the corner of their living room – to the entire internet. He could hear the faint, tinny sound of comments rolling in from the stream.

"Grandpa, stop!" Akira pleaded, his voice rising in panic. He didn't dare step into the frame, wearing just a t-shirt and sweatpants.

"Nonsense! Embrace the fame!" Grandpa waved him towards the mat. "Think of the potential! Protein supplement endorsements! Instructional videos! We could call it 'Grandpa Hiroshi's Hardbody Helpers'!"

Akira watched in helpless horror as Grandpa continued narrating, describing the exercises Akira would be doing if he weren't paralyzed by the sheer, unfathomable nightmare of the situation. The stream was picking up viewers rapidly. People who had seen the memes, the cafeteria incident, were now tuning into a livestream of his living room, narrated by his eccentric, livestream-savvy Grandpa.

The camera wasn't showing Akira's face – Grandpa, bless his oblivious heart, had somehow managed to frame the shot perfectly to focus on the space where Akira should be working out, only occasionally catching a glimpse of his legs or the edge of the futon. But it showed the background clearly. The worn tatami mat. The slightly peeling wallpaper. The distinctive bamboo sword rack near the corner, an heirloom from their actual dojo history.

His phone, sitting abandoned on the coffee table, buzzed loudly.

Akira glanced at it. A new message. From Ren.

From: Client_Alpha

Wait. Is that… your trainer's dojo? Recognize the bamboo rack. Who is this guy? I NEED THEM. Send contact info NOW.

Akira stared at the message, then at the livestream of his living room, then at Grandpa Hiroshi beaming into the tablet camera. He was simultaneously Ren's hated rival and the anonymous trainer Ren desperately wanted to hire, and now, thanks to Grandpa, Ren knew where the trainer lived. Or at least, where he livestreamed from.

The sheer, convoluted horror of it all settled over him.

Later that night, the notifications finally slowed. Akira sat on his bed, phone in hand, scrolling numbly through the wreckage of his online life. The livestream, somehow, had also gone viral. #GrandpaHiroshisHardbodyHelpers was trending just below #NerdOrHottie.

A message popped up. Kenji.

Hey man, meteor shower tonight? Club meeting moved outdoors. Bring snacks!

Akira stared at the message. A meteor shower. Quiet. Peaceful. Looking at the sky, away from people, away from screens. A brief flicker of hope.

Then, another message, almost immediately after. From Sakura.

Heyyyy meteor shower tonight? Sounds super romantic for a fake-date! 😉 Be there in 20! Bring Sir Nibblesworth snacks!

Akira closed his eyes, a small, defeated sound escaping him.

Rule #1 of survival: Stay invisible.

Rule #2 of survival: Never trust a clear night sky. Or a girl with a hamster.