The Irregular at Magic High School: Secret Silhouette
In the year 2095, magic is a recognized science. At First National Magic University Affiliated High School, known as 'Magic High School,' siblings Tatsuya Shiba and Miyuki Shiba appear to be just a close brother and sister. However, the look in Miyuki's eyes holds something far beyond familial affection. One rainy night, she realizes the truth: 'I'm in love with my brother, as a man.'
Knowing this love is forbidden, Miyuki locks it deep inside her heart. But then, a new transfer student, Alice
The Irregular at Magic High School: Secret Silhouette - A Close Friend's Confession and a Freezing Night
Thursday, after school.
Miyuki opened the door to the Public Morals Committee room, the corner room on the fifth floor. It was empty. Quiet to the point of being too quiet. Lockers lined the walls. White gloves placed on the desk. Only the sound of the wall clock's hands seemed unnaturally loud.
*(Is Brother not here yet?)*
Miyuki walked over to the window and looked outside. The sky was covered with thick clouds. The clear autumn weather up until yesterday seemed like a lie. A heavy gray, looking ready to start raining at any moment.
Then, Miyuki's gaze stopped at a single point in the schoolyard.
The edge of the zelkova tree-lined path. The entrance to the covered walkway leading to the practical training building. There, she saw Tatsuya in his Course 2 uniform. Beside him was Alice, her long black hair swaying. The two of them were talking about something. Alice laughed. Innocently. She touched Tatsuya's arm. Her fingertips lightly—but unmistakably—gripped the sleeve of his white dress shirt.
*(...That girl again.)*
Miyuki's fingertips gripped the window frame. Beneath her white gloves, her nails dug in.
How many times had it been today? During the lunch break patrol, too, the two of them had walked side by side. Every time Alice said something, the corners of Tatsuya's mouth relaxed just a little. A face he never showed Miyuki.
*(Why? Why only her?)*
The scene from midday replayed in her head, over and over. When they passed each other in the classroom hallway, Alice had whispered something into Tatsuya's ear. Tatsuya's eyebrows had moved, just barely. The air flowing between the two of them was filled with something she couldn't enter.
Miyuki felt something deep in her chest tighten, hard. Jealousy. Impatience. And—a black, cold emotion she didn't want to admit even to herself. Hostility toward Alice. It rose up from the pit of her stomach.
Before she knew it, Miyuki's hand had grabbed the stack of documents on the desk. A printed disaster drill plan. As student council president, she was scheduled to do a final check with the Public Morals Committee tomorrow morning.
A grinding sound.
Miyuki's white fingers crushed the edge of the documents. The paper crumpled, wrinkling. Still, the strength in her fingers wouldn't release. If anything, it grew stronger.
With a small rip, the edge of the paper tore.
She gasped, and Miyuki spread her fingers. The document in her hand was torn and crumpled at the edge, already unusable.
"...What am I doing?"
Miyuki stared at the ruined document. As if doing something like this would solve anything. The wrinkles in the crushed paper seemed to reflect the ugliness of her own heart, and she felt like crying.
But she wouldn't cry. She couldn't possibly cry. She was Shiba Miyuki. The student council president of this school. That person's younger sister.
She had no right to be jealous of something that wasn't her brother's, to begin with.
Miyuki took two deep breaths. Then, she carefully folded the torn document and tucked it into her skirt pocket. She couldn't throw it away. She could just make a new one tomorrow. That was all.
—But the tear in her heart wouldn't mend so easily.
That night.
In her room at her apartment, Residence Verde, Miyuki looked out the window. It had started raining. Fine rain blurred the streetlights. The daytime sky really had turned to rain.
In the bottom drawer of her desk was her *Brother Observation Diary*. But she couldn't bring herself to open it tonight. If she tried to write, she'd just repeat the same thing. About Alice. About the fingertips that touched Tatsuya's arm. About the unfairness of only that girl seeming special. Endlessly. Without end.
Miyuki lay down on her bed and stared at the ceiling. The sound of rain echoed through the quiet room.
*(What is Brother doing right now?)*
Her brother should be in the next room. But his heart felt far away.
The following week's disaster drill. During the final check, Miyuki ended up staying alone at school at night. In truth, other Public Morals Committee members and student council officers had been there, but in the end, the only one who stayed late preparing for tomorrow was her—the president.
Thursday night. The school corridors were silent, as if the daytime bustle had been a lie. Only the dim light of the emergency lamps illuminated the floor. The rain still hadn't stopped. Outside the window, raindrops kept striking the glass.
Miyuki headed toward Training Hall One. The last item on the final check. Confirming that no dangerous objects remained along the fire evacuation route. Check the equipment, and then everything would be done.
Footsteps wrapped in black tights echoed in the hallway. Tap, tap. But the sound was quickly swallowed by the rain and faded away.
It was when she approached Training Hall One.
She heard voices.
From beyond the training hall's heavy door. Faint, but unmistakable, the sound of conversation.
*(Is someone there...?)*
At this hour. No one else should have been staying behind for disaster drill preparations.
Miyuki's feet stopped.
She hadn't meant to eavesdrop. If there was a suspicious person in the training hall, as a Public Morals Committee member—no, as student council president—she had to check. So she approached. That was all.
But when she reached the door, Miyuki's body froze as if turned to ice.
Two voices she recognized.
The low, cold voice was Tatsuya.
And the other. A girl's voice, trembling, as if mixed with tears.
Erika.
"...At the end, I just wanted to tell you this one thing."
Erika's voice came clearly through the gaps in the rain.
"I like you, Shiba Tatsuya. Not as a best friend. As a man. I like you."
—What.
Miyuki's thoughts went completely blank.
*(Just now, Erika... to Brother...?)*
She said "like."
Erika did. Tatsuya's best friend, Chiba Erika.
Miyuki couldn't move her body. She had to hide. She knew that, but not even a single fingertip would obey. It felt as if she alone had been cut off from the world, floating inside the two of them's time.
From beyond the door, she heard the continuation.
"I've been suffering for so long because of my family. Being the Chiba family successor, and all that. Being looked down on as a Course 2 student. Not being properly seen as a magician. I didn't know what was right anymore, or who I even was. ...But you were different. You were the only one who saw me properly—as just 'Chiba Erika,' as a single magician. ...So, thank you. For listening to everything I said earlier, too. ...I'm really glad I got to talk to you."
Miyuki's heart pounded violently. Deep in her chest, something creaked and groaned.
Erika felt the same way she did—that Tatsuya was special.
No, it was different. Deeper. She had shared far more time with Tatsuya. She had watched him from closer than anyone. Between the two of them lay accumulated time that Miyuki didn't know.
*(She knows a Brother that I don't.)*
Thinking that, she felt her chest fill from within with something cold. Jealousy, and a feeling like betrayal. It was absurd to feel betrayed. Erika had done nothing wrong. She had simply fallen in love with her brother. That was all.
She understood that.
"...I see."
Tatsuya's voice. As always, quiet, impossible to read.
"I accept your feelings."
The moment she heard those words, something inside Miyuki snapped.
*Accepted.*
Brother accepted Erika's confession.
Ah. I see. He accepted them.
*(Brother...)*
Miyuki collapsed against the wall, bracing herself with her hand. Her fingertips struck the wall. A sound.
In that instant, she felt something enormous, cold, and uncontrollable overflow from within her.
Psions.
Miyuki's vast energy, dragged out by emotion, no longer suppressible.
*(No. Not here. Magic. I mustn't use magic—)*
Her head understood. Letting magic run wild from emotions like this was absolutely unforgivable for a magician. Unforgivable for a student council president, for the sister of a Public Morals Committee member.
But she couldn't stop it anymore.
"Ah————"
A voiceless sound escaped her.
Centered on Miyuki's body, the air was slammed down to below freezing in an instant.
The corridor walls. The floor. The ceiling. The window glass. The molecular motion of everything there was forcibly slowed.
Before her eyes, pure white frost crawled from Miyuki's feet across the corridor, flowing through the gap under the door and into the training hall.
Niflheim.
One of Miyuki's cooling magics at maximum output. Originally, a powerful spell for reliably neutralizing a target. It had rampaged and activated, completely unrelated to her will.
From beyond the door came the sound of air splitting. A scream. The sound of something falling. A sharp crack, as if something shattered.
"Miyuki!"
Tatsuya's voice, through the door, carried emotion for the first time.
Miyuki couldn't stand. Her knees were trembling. She couldn't breathe properly. Cold. She was freezing from the cold she herself had caused.
She didn't know how long she stayed like that.
With a heavy sound, the training hall door was opened from the inside.
It was Tatsuya who appeared.
His left arm, over his white shirt, had turned an unnatural color. Frost—white crystals—covered everything from the elbow down. The color of his skin couldn't be seen through it.
*(Brother's arm...)*
Miyuki stared at Tatsuya's left arm in horror.
Tatsuya had turned his back to Miyuki, shielding her as he pushed Erika back behind the door, exposing his arm to the cold air. That left arm. Frostbite. There was no mistake. She had hurt her brother. That fact drained the blood from Miyuki's entire body.
"...Miyuki."
Tatsuya's voice was unchanged. Not angry. Not blaming. That, in turn, shattered Miyuki's heart into splinters.
"N-no... Brother..."
Miyuki's lips trembled. The magic she had sworn in the depths of her heart never to use. Driven mad by jealousy, she had lost control and hurt her beloved brother. She had cornered Erika so terribly.
"I'm so sorry... I... I..."
Miyuki prostrated herself on the floor and broke down crying. Her pride, her student council president's mask, everything. All of it, shattered without a trace.
Before long, Public Morals Committee members who had heard the commotion came rushing over.
"President, are you alright?! What happened?!"
"Shiba-senpai's arm...! Get him to the nurse's office, now!"
The committee members who rushed in stepped into the frozen corridor and began moving efficiently. She had heard that there was someone in the training hall who could use first-aid magic. Someone looked at Tatsuya's arm and gasped.
Miyuki was helped to her feet by the committee members and led outside the training hall.
The last thing she saw was Tatsuya's back.
He never showed his left arm himself. His profile was quiet, as always. That back, which wouldn't even look at her face.
*(Brother...)*
Miyuki screamed in her heart, voicelessly, over and over.
—The next morning.
The atmosphere throughout the school was clearly different from the day before.
"Hey, did you hear? Last night, there was a magic runaway accident in Training Hall One."
"Wait, is it true that Miyuki-senpai did it?"
"I don't know. But the training hall was frozen pure white. Even a fire truck came."
Students passing in the hallway looked at Miyuki and whispered—but deliberately loud enough for her to hear. Miyuki couldn't lift her face. She walked, staring straight ahead. Gazes pierced her. Her reputation as student council president. The mask of the Ice Queen. All of it seemed to be crumbling audibly in a single night.
In front of her classroom, Miyuki ran into Erika.
Erika looked at Miyuki. Just for a moment.
Her lips moved, as if she wanted to say something. But she immediately averted her gaze. Then, without a word, she walked past Miyuki. Her footsteps grew distant.
*(Erika...)*
Miyuki stood frozen. She didn't have the courage to call out. The reas
Novelia is an AI-powered platform to read original light novels and fan fiction, create your own in just a few taps, and chat with the characters. New, illustrated episodes arrive daily — free to start.