TLPSO 01

Chapter 1

: The Ice Prince and the Secret Photograph

The long summer vacation had ended.
On September 1st, the classroom of Class 1-A at Seiryo High School was filled with the cheerful chatter of students seeing each other again after a long break.

I, Hina Saeki, sat at the second-to-last seat, resting my chin in my hand as I absentmindedly watched my sun-tanned classmates. As a member of the newspaper club, my curiosity was always searching for the next great scoop. And a classroom right after summer break was a goldmine of interesting stories.

“Hey, Hina. Look—Kirishima-kun.”

My best friend and seatmate, Misaki Fujii, tapped my shoulder excitedly.
Following her gaze, I saw my current subject of observation—Rei Kirishima.

He was sitting by the window, quietly reading a paperback novel. Even after summer vacation, his perfection hadn’t wavered in the slightest—his sharp nose, slightly shadowed eyes, and well-shaped lips all seemed sculpted. His sleek black hair gleamed like it absorbed the light itself.

Every time he turned a page, the girls in the classroom sighed dreamily.

“He’s too good-looking for words…”
“He’s like a prince made of ice. I wonder what he did all summer.”

(He’s too perfect.)
As I scribbled his name in the corner of my notebook, a thought crossed my mind.
(No human can be this flawless. There has to be something behind that mask!)

That was my personal creed as a member of the newspaper club.

After school, I was in the newspaper club room, brainstorming our first project for the new semester.

“Title: ‘Tracing Our Classmates’ Roots! A Look Back at Junior High!’ What do you think?”

“You’re always coming up with such wild ideas… Just make sure you respect everyone’s privacy, alright?”

Ignoring our advisor, Ms. Hayashi’s exasperated tone, I immediately began asking classmates if I could borrow their junior high yearbooks.

“Oh, Saeki! You trying to dig up my dark past or something?”

That was Yuto Takagi, Kirishima’s best friend and fellow basketball team member. He lent me his yearbook with a friendly grin, adding, “But if you’re looking at Rei’s, you’ll find nothing interesting there.”

Back in the clubroom, I spread out several borrowed yearbooks.
I laughed at Misaki’s awkward twin braids and admired Yuto’s mischievous buzz-cut look. Everyone’s faces looked different from how they were now—it was fascinating just to look.

Then, without much thought, I picked up the thick yearbook from Yuto’s public junior high and began flipping through the pages.

And then—my fingers stopped dead on one photo.

In the class photo, off in the very corner, there was a boy.
He was noticeably larger than the others, with a chubby frame, wearing thick black-rimmed glasses. His messy hair stuck up in all directions, as if he hadn’t bothered to fix his bedhead.

There was no way this could be the same person as that refined “Ice Prince.”
No way at all.

But then, I saw the small printed name under the photo—and gasped.

“Rei Kirishima.”

My heart gave a violent thump.
And in the white space beside the photo, someone—probably a girl—had scrawled some cruel graffiti:

“So plain (LOL).”
“No way anyone would ever like him.”

No…
It had to be a coincidence.
A different person with the same name.
Because there was no way that perfectly sculpted boy could have ever been this.

I kept comparing the photo to the image of the Kirishima I knew, again and again. Disbelief and the thrill of a potential scoop swirled violently inside me.

Could it be—
Could this be the “secret” that the Ice Prince could never let anyone discover…?

And so, my tumultuous second semester quietly began—with a single photograph.