Episode 3: The Secret Under the Desk

Title: Between Us and the Bell Rings

Every school has a mystery.

Sometimes it’s a hidden stairwell. Sometimes it’s that one vending machine that only accepts coins from 1994.

In Class 2-B, the mystery lived under the third desk from the window—Haruto’s desk.

Saki had noticed it first.

“Kaoru,” she whispered one morning, nudging him with her elbow as their math teacher scribbled half-heartedly on the whiteboard, “do you see that?”

Kaoru looked up from doodling a dinosaur in his notebook. “See what?”

“Under Haruto’s desk. He’s hiding something.”

Kaoru leaned sideways and squinted. Indeed, taped to the underside of Haruto’s desk was something small, wrapped in colorful paper. It looked like… candy?

Saki’s eyes sparkled. “I knew it. He’s a secret candy hoarder.”

Kaoru deadpanned, “Saki, you’re a candy hoarder.”

“Don’t project.”

After class, Saki bolted to Haruto’s desk the second he left to refill his water bottle. Kaoru reluctantly followed, already predicting disaster.

Saki crouched, yanked the wrapper, and gasped.

It was candy.

But it was also a tiny note, folded neatly beneath the wrapper.

“Don’t read it,” Kaoru warned.

Saki already had it open.

“Bad days don’t last forever. Eat something sweet.”

Kaoru blinked. “That’s… surprisingly wholesome.”

Saki looked thoughtful. “Do you think he wrote it for himself?”

But just then, Haruto walked back in. His eyes flicked down to the now-exposed underside of the desk. Then to the empty wrapper in Saki’s hand. Then to the wide-eyed duo hovering guiltily nearby.

A long, painful pause.

“…Did you just rob me?”

“Borrowed!” Saki said quickly. “It’s an emotional loan!”

Haruto stared. “That was mine.”

“You left candy with motivational quotes taped under your desk,” Kaoru said. “That’s like feeding squirrels and being surprised when they come back.”

Haruto snatched the paper and shoved it in his pocket, ears red. “I made those for someone else.”

“Who? Yourself?” Saki teased.

Haruto looked away. “My brother.”

Kaoru blinked. “You have a brother?”

Haruto hesitated, then nodded slowly. “He’s in middle school. Gets anxious a lot. I leave him little things in his bag, lunch box… and sometimes here, when he visits.”

Saki was quiet for a moment.

Then she gently placed another candy on the desk. “This one’s from me. Tell him to hang in there.”

Kaoru added a post-it: “Being weird is cool. - K”

Haruto didn’t say anything. But he didn’t throw them away.

That Friday, something strange happened.

At lunch, Haruto showed up with three bento boxes.

Kaoru blinked. “Did you start meal-prepping?”

Haruto passed one to each of them without a word.

Inside Kaoru’s box was a neatly folded egg roll with “K” drawn in ketchup.

Saki’s rice had a tiny seaweed cut-out shaped like a cat.

Haruto’s? Just plain white rice. With a single note taped inside the lid.

“You’re allowed to care, too.”