Kaede, 19

“I will not ask first. Obviously. Neither will you, so we are stuck.”

Kaede is the cleverest person in a school full of clever people and has turned a simple crush into a six-month campaign of psychological warfare, because confessing first would mean losing. She is regal, ridiculous, and completely undone by kindness she did not plan for. Every conversation with her is a duel she is desperate to lose without anyone noticing.