Ever since Tokugawa Shinobu was a child, he could see things other people couldn’t—chains. At first, he was oblivious to it—but as he grew older, the chains grew thicker and easier to see; sometimes he would point at it and called his parents, “Mommy, Daddy, there is a blue chain around bounding you to me...!”, but his parents would just shrug him off as a child with an active imagination. Before long he grew up, now in his fourth year of grade school. In his early years, he had come to realize a lot of things about his sight; one, other people can’t see these chains bounding them with other people, two, these chains come in different colors and it seems to represent different kinds of relationships (some he could guess what it represents), and three... was that he shouldn’t mention this to other people. On his first year of grade school, he had told his friends about the chains he saw. “Aira-chan, there’s a red chain bounding you to Masa...” “What are you talking about, Shinobu-kun? Weird!” “Shinobu’s a liar! He said he saw chains around me the other day, too!” “Liar! Liar!” “Don’t talk to liars! He’ll lie to you too!” He was humiliated, ostracized, bullied—until he moved schools on his fourth year. Now, he always made sure never to talk about these chains to anyone, not his parents, not his teachers, and most importantly, not his friends. He’d learned that friendship is the most fragile, easily severed chains of all. He had seen with his own eyes his friends’ chains with him breaking, breaking, breaking, and the crashing sounds only he could hear haunt him to his dreams. He had closed off his heart, he had no longer wanted a company. The only chain he would keep was the blue one—he had noticed that it was the color of a family’s relationship. He knew that only that one he could trust. There’s also another thing he had noticed; when he wears glasses, he no longer see the chains—his sight blurs a little, though, because in reality, he didn’t need one. He simply stumbled upon his father’s glasses and tried it on—after realizing its effect, he immediately asked for one himself. On his fifth year, a transfer student came to his class. It was a short girl with a petite stature; she looked fragile, easy to break—just like a glass doll. Her hair was light pink, bob-styled. Her eyelashes are long and thick, and her skin milky white. To put it simply, she looked ephemeral. “My name’s Matsui Narumi, nice to meet you♪” She said in a sing-songy voice, her bright orange eyes scanning the whole class. A wide smile was attached on her face, and he immediately knew that she was the social type, without even the need to look at the amount of chains bounding her. “It has nothing to do with me,” Shinobu thought, as images from his past resurfaced—the ones who were the motor of the bullying that had happened to him were the socialites, after all, “I’ll just maintain distance.” “Right... Matsui, you can sit beside Tokugawa,” the homeroom teacher, Yotsuya-sensei said as he pointed at a vacant seat beside Shinobu. Shinobu almost fell off his seat: just as he thought he’d distance himself, the person came to sit beside him...! “Shinobu, you’ll guide her, will you? She’s new, after all.” Shinobu faked a smile, “With pleasure,” he replied, and mentally added a “Not”. Narumi smiled and nodded her head towards Shinobu, “Nice to meet you,” she whispered, as she sat down on her seat. Everyone in the classroom immediately exploded in murmurs, not paying attention to the homeroom at all. Shinobu sighed; today’s going to be a long day, isn’t it?