...

Day two. I walked into the classroom and saw a bunny girl.

Bunny-ear headband. Full bunny suit. Little tail. Fishnet stockings, heels, the works. A bunny girl so wildly inappropriate for a public setting that it should've caused an incident. Sabakatani-san, of course. Even dressed like this, nobody in the room said a word. Her chest was one deep breath away from staging a breakout — nipples just barely hanging on — and yet somehow Sabakatani-san in that suit was more erotic than most girls in nothing at all.

"What exactly are you doing?"

"Bunny girl! I figured you might like... You know. Sexy girls."

"Love them."

"Wanna grope them?"

She lifted her own chest with both hands and asked. I mean — yes. Obviously, but we were at school.

"Nobody cares anyway. I could probably touch myself right here, and they'd look straight through me."

"Kuroko camouflage," I said.

That was my conclusion. Not invisible, exactly. It wasn't that people couldn't see Sabakatani-san — they could. They just couldn't hold the perception like stagehands in black, or a stone hat. Attention slides off before it can stick.

"Kuroko camouflage?"

"It's a term from magic theory circles. A specific concealment effect — dilutes a presence until it's nearly zero. You can register it, but you can't consciously process it."

"And that's what's on me?"

"You're this cute, your chest is that size, you're dressed like that, and not one person is looking. Connect the dots."

"Fair point."

"It's like a stagehand in theater — operating in plain sight, acting on the stage without being part of it. I named it Kuroko camouflage. It's a curse that spirits and yokai naturally carry."

"Yokai. Spirits. Seriously?"

"I'm not trying to convert you. Take it with a grain of salt. I'm not an onmyoji or a Ghostbuster."

"Then what if we just had sex right here?"

In class. Out in the open.

"Yeah, in class. Out in the open."

"I appreciate the generous offer. Respectfully, no thank you."

"Your loss."

Sabakatani-san was genuinely, unambiguously erotic. Her chest was doing things to me that my age made it impossible to be dignified about. If I could perceive her and no one else could, the logical question was whether to do something about that. The answer was yes, very much.

"But you'll still talk to me, right?"

"Right. Because I'm the only one who can hold a conversation with you."

"Yep. You're the only one who sees through my curse right now. But you're not one of those people, are you? No onmyoji, no Ghostbusters?"

"If anything, I'd count as the enemy side of humanity."

"Yokai? That kind of thing?"

"Explaining it gets complicated. I'll skip it."

After a while, I noticed something. When I was talking with Sabakatani-san, the Kuroko camouflage seemed to extend over me, too — at least during the conversation. She kept up a cheerful stream of chatter through every break, and classmates who couldn't perceive either of us left us entirely alone. Lunch was more of the same. I was sitting with her, eyes occasionally drawn south, when —

"You can grab them whenever you want, okay?♡"

"Thank you."

The cafeteria stirred. I looked toward it.

A girl had walked in. Dark, glossy hair. Proportions that were impossible to fault. A face that could've launched an entertainment career without effort. Not quite Sabakatani-san's tier — but then, Sabakatani-san's beauty came with occult strings attached, so comparing them fairly was questionable to begin with.

"Who's that?"

"The Moon-Shadow Goddess."

Sabakatani-san — still in full bunny suit, somehow eating the chili con carne that had inexplicably made it onto the cafeteria menu — filled me in.

"Moon-Shadow Goddess?"

"One per year — three total in the school. That one is the second-year representative. Her nickname is the Moon-Shadow Goddess. Her name is Tokoyami Akira. She's got this slightly shadowy vibe, but apparently that's the whole appeal."

"Huh..."

I went back to my Sri Lankan curry without much reaction. Seriously, though, the cafeteria menu was way too well-stocked for a high school.

"Smitten?"

"You're cuter."

"Oh my. Are you hitting on me?"

"I mean, I've been thinking about the possibility of something happening."

"So... want to...?"

"Respectfully, no."

The two of us chattered on, invisible to everyone around us, inconvenient to no one.

"The thing is, size matters, but shape matters just as much."

"When you're as big as I am, finding bras that actually fit becomes a whole ordeal."

"Please, for the love of everything, don't let them sag."

"Keeping them in good shape takes constant vigilance, you know."

It was not a sane conversation. I was having it anyway and somehow enjoying it.

...

I glanced over at the Moon-Shadow Goddess. The school's most beautiful second year, which, accounting for Sabakatani-san's supernatural edge, probably made Tokoyami the legitimate holder of the title in any fair contest. My sixth sense had been quietly pinging about her since I first noticed her walk in.

My vision isn't normal. One look at someone and I pick up things that shouldn't be visible. Right now, it's telling me she's carrying something. Not physical exhaustion — more like she was thinking herself into a corner. What about? I couldn't tell.

"Does the Moon-Shadow Goddess have a boyfriend?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if she did."

"Hmm."

"So you are interested in her."

"'Interested' might not be the right word."

Something was pressing down on her — that much was plain to me. The first thing that came to mind was a relationship gone wrong, which was obvious. But obvious isn't the same as wrong.

"So you think her love life is in trouble?"

"It's a maybe. That's all."

"What are the odds?"

"Seventy-five percent."

"That's pretty high."

My observational range is different from a normal person's.

"So you have a magic eye?"

"Magic eye... close enough. The field calls it Side-Sight."

"Side-Sight..."

It integrates visual data and synthesizes everything it implies — sharp, near-precognitive insight. That sounds cool. In practice, it's just being a voyeur.

"But if you're saying it, I believe it. Especially if it's really a magic eye."

She actually believed me.

Chapter 2: The Moon-Shadow Goddess