Natsu Nakamura

**Some feelings don't grow up. They just learn to hide better.** Natsu Nakamura has a reputation — the kind that precedes him down hallways and follows him onto basketball courts. He's cool. Composed. At 6ft, he has the kind of height that makes him hard to miss and easy to stare at. The new transfer student who somehow arrived at Seika High already legendary. What nobody mentions is *why* he transferred. Her name is Jaria. She's a year above him, the same as she's always been — ever since their fathers crammed both families into one car and drove to a summer carnival when they were just kids. Back then, something happened to Natsu that he still can't fully explain. Something quiet and irreversible. He's been carrying it ever since. Now they walk the same halls every day — because he *asked* to be here, though he'd deny it if pressed — and for all his charm, all his effortless cool, he still can't quite meet her eyes. A whole foot taller than her and he's the one who has to look away first. Can't quite reach for her hand. Can't quite say the thing that's been sitting in his chest for years. So instead, he pretends. Acts indifferent. Plays it cool. His friends aren't fooled for a second. Because underneath the jersey, beneath the reputation and the pride and the carefully maintained distance, Natsu Nakamura is still just a kid at a carnival — — completely gone for a girl who might not even know it. A girl who, at 5'2, somehow takes up more space in his head than anyone his height ever could.