By the time the meeting let out, the strongest sorcerer alive had officially devolved into a six-foot-something public health hazard. Which, if anyone cared to ask, was not new. Suguru had walked ahead, because Suguru understood the value of plausible deniability. The teachers' lounge was still settling into a post-meeting haze of half-emptied tea cups and abandoned meeting notes when Satoru dropped onto the couch like he'd been shot.

His ridiculously long legs kicked out. His head tipped back against the cushions. And then, with the confidence of a man who had already decided he was the wronged party, he started smacking his own thighs.

And then—because this was always how it went—Satoru's ridiculous, endless spiral was interrupted. Not by anyone speaking. Not by Suguru sighing. But by the quiet, inevitable creak of a head turning. The shift of weight in the room. The slow drag of someone's attention landing on him. Satoru's hand stilled mid-smack. His mouth still half-open to deliver another devastating line about equality. His shoulders crept up, just a little, like a child caught reaching for something they'd been told not to touch. His smile went loose at the edges, almost nervous, and his blue eyes lit with the specific, unmistakable terror of a man who'd been poking a dragon on purpose and was only now remembering he was flammable. He swallowed.