The Spilled Ones (Kobore-mono)

[darkrednotmaroon]

Chapter 0 - Muscle Memory

I'd been wrestling with the same goddamn riff for forty minutes.

'I Want You (She's So Heavy).' The Beatles. Lennon's desperate, obsessive chanting over that slow, grinding descent into chaos. It was the kind of song that made you feel like the floor was tilting, like gravity was just a suggestion, like everything solid could turn liquid if you held the note long enough.

My knockoff Fender Stratocaster, bought secondhand at a Hard-Off in Kichijoji, the body scuffed in places the previous owner had tried to sand down and given up on, rested heavy against my thigh. The amp was off. I wasn't trying to wake the whole neighborhood. Just my fingers moving, muscle memory, the strings biting into calluses I'd been building since junior high school.

A-minor. Slide to A-flat.

Bzzzt. Bzzzt.

The vibration cut through the silence like a blade.

I froze, fingers still pressing the frets, and glanced over at my desk. My phone, a silver Docomo flip with the antenna stub and the blue-backlit external screen, was shivering against a stack of unopened school textbooks. The tiny monochrome display on the front showed one word.

Nacchi.

Nanase.

My stomach did something complicated, something between a flip and a clench, and I reached over, flipping the phone open with one hand while the other still cradled the guitar neck.

The screen loaded. Line by agonizing line.

From: Nacchi, Subject: —, Received: 20:07

"Jouchi, I think we should stop seeing each other. We've barely seen each other lately. And I think I want to focus on my studies in the second year."

I read it again.

And again.

The words didn't change. They just sat there, pixelated kanji and katakana on a 2.4-inch TFT screen, completely indifferent to the fact that they'd just reached into my chest and pulled out something vital.

A breakup text. On a Sunday night.

With the Beatles still echoing in my skull and a half-empty can of Pocari Sweat going warm on the floor beside me.

Outside the window, the distant rumble of the Keio Line cut through the quiet, that familiar, mechanical heartbeat of the neighborhood, the steel wheels grinding against the curve just before Kamishiro Station. The 20:17 semi-express to Shinjuku, punctual to the second, its two-tone departure chime echoing across the rooftops like a question nobody had asked.

I let the guitar slide off my leg. It hit the floor with a dull thunk, the strings ringing faintly in protest, and I just sat there, back against the bed frame, phone open in my hand, staring.

Seven months. That's how long we'd been together.

And I use the word together very generously.

Our relationship, if you could even call it that, had never really been a relationship.

Not the way Kenta and Yui were a relationship, with the obvious neck bruises and the matching phone straps, and the way Kenta would brag about shit I didn't need to hear. Not the way Ryo and Aiko were a relationship, with the constant bickering and the jealousy spirals and the dramatic conciliations that played out over long, emotionally exhausting text exchanges.

No.

Me and Nanase?

We were two nervous otaku orbiting the same niche interests from a safe, respectable distance.

We talked about L'ArcenCiel. Hurry Xmas had just dropped, and she had opinions about hyde's vocal range that she could articulate for twenty minutes straight without stopping for air. We debated whether the Chimera Ant arc in Hunter × Hunter was Togashi's masterpiece or a self-indulgent mess. We picked apart every new and past One Piece chapter, Water Seven and Enies Lobby, oh God, those two arcs were giving us life. And Thriller Bark, she'd send me wall of text theories about Moria's Devil Fruit that I'd read three times just to hear her voice in my head. Turned out she was right all along.

But that was it.

That was the totality of our romance.

In seven months, we'd gone on exactly two and a half dates.

The first: Inokashira Park, late autumn, the leaves turning that shade of brownish-gold that made everything look like a watercolor painting. We'd walked the path around the pond in awkward, agonizing silence, the space between our shoulders a charged and miserable void, until a pigeon swooped down and stole the melonpan right out of her hand. She'd yelped. I'd laughed. For about thirty seconds, the tension had broken, and we'd just been two kids, laughing at a bird.

Then the pigeon was gone, and the silence came back, and neither of us knew what to say.

The second: a movie. Some forgettable romance playing at the Toho Cinemas in Fuchu. She'd wanted to see it. I'd agreed because I'd have agreed to watch paint dry if it meant sitting next to her in a dark room for two hours. We'd shared a popcorn, separate hands, carefully avoiding each other, like there was an invisible forcefield around the bucket. When the love confession scene happened on screen, I'd felt her tense up beside me, her whole body going rigid like a guitar string pulled too tight, and I'd stared at the screen so hard my eyes hurt, pretending not to notice.

And the hand-holding. That happened exactly once.

The second; point five: Winter. Late January. We were sitting on a bench near the Inokashira pond, not far from the very same spot where the pigeon had committed its crime. Our breath fogged in the cold air. She was wearing mittens, hand-knit, probably by her mother, and her fingers looked so small, so fragile, like something I needed to protect.

I didn't know what came over me. Maybe it was the cold. Maybe it was the way the setting sun caught the edges of her hair, turning it into something out of a shoujo manga. Maybe I was just tired of being afraid.

I reached over and took her hand.

Her fingers tensed immediately. A full-body flinch, like I'd touched her with an electric wire. But she didn't pull away. Not at first. She just went very, very still, and her hand sat in mine like a small, frightened animal that wasn't sure whether to run or freeze.

Two minutes. Maybe three. The longest three minutes of my life.

I could feel every micro-movement. The twitch of her index finger. The way her pulse beat, rabbit-fast, against my palm. I wanted to say something, anything, but my throat had closed up, and my brain was just a loop of is this okay, is this okay, is this okay.

Then she pulled her hand back. Not harshly. Just carefully. Deliberately. And then, out of pure reflex, I guess, her fingers drifted up to the side of her head, aiming for a strand of hair that wasn't there.

Her hair was cropped into this neat little pixie cut, short enough that her ears and the nape of her neck were always visible. There was nothing to tuck. Nothing long enough to catch between her fingers. But she still made the motion anyway, fingertips brushing the air just above her ear, chasing a ghost of a habit she'd probably picked up back when her hair was longer.

It took her half a second to realize what she'd done. Her cheeks flushed the faintest shade of pink, and she dropped her hand back to her lap like it had committed some kind of crime.

She smiled, that quick, awkward, desperately-trying-to-recover smile, and said something about the temperature dropping, maybe we should head back.

I didn't say anything.

But I think that was the moment I fell for her a little harder, in the dumbest possible way.

And I never tried again.

Not because I didn't want to. God, I wanted to. I wanted to hold her hand until our fingers fused. I wanted to know what it felt like to have her head resting against my shoulder, her hair smelling like whatever shampoo she used, the soft weight of her body against mine.

But every time I got close, every time the distance between us shrank to something smaller than a meter, the fear would kick in. The questions. The second-guessing.

What if she pulls away again? What if she doesn't want this? What if I'm pushing her into something she's not ready for? What if I'm just some creep who can't take a hint?

So I kept my hands to myself, and I sent her a little 'x' at the end of every mundane text.

It was a kiss we both learned from Maitantei Conan.

And I told myself that was enough.

It wasn't.

And the last two months?

The last two months, I'd been trying to change things. Subtly. Clumsily. The way a high school second-year boy with zero game and no template for what 'romantic escalation' even meant tries to change things. I'd drop hints in our texts, "I wish things could be more… you know… real between us," hoping she'd pick up on what I couldn't say directly. I'd let my messages linger on topics that skirted the edge of physical, emotional, something-deeper-than-friends-who-share-manga-recommendations.

I wasn't being subtle.

I knew that.

She had to know that.

And Nanase, Hasegawa Nanase, second-year student in the elite academic track at Asakaze Minami High, the kind of public school that fed directly into Tokyo University and Kyoto University and Kyushu University, the kind of girl who'd been scoring in the top five percent nationally on practice exams since junior high, Nanase was not stupid.

Shy? Yes. Socially awkward? Most of the time. The way she hunched her shoulders forward, that nekoze posture, cat-back, like she was constantly trying to fold herself into a smaller, safer shape, was practically a visual signature of her discomfort in her own skin.

But not stupid.

She'd understood what I was hinting at.

She had to. And it had scared her.

Probably. Most likely.

Not because she was cruel. Not because she didn't care. But because the thought of physical intimacy, the thought of being expected to provide something she didn't know how to give, was probably more terrifying to her than failing an exam. Exams had rules. Exams had study guides. You could prepare for an exam.

There was no cram school for being someone's girlfriend.

And so, faced with a boyfriend who was clearly, desperately, pathetically signaling that he wanted more than just text chains about J-Rock and JUMP manga, she'd chosen the path of least resistance.

Eject.

I took a long breath. Let it out.

My thumb moved across the keypad, pressing buttons by feel without really looking.

"You serious, Nacchi?"

Nacchi. Her pet name. The one I'd come up with in our second month, back when everything still felt new and shiny and full of possibility.

It felt wrong to use it now, a cheap, manipulative jab, a reminder of what we used to be, but the pettier, more wounded part of my brain typed it anyway. We still called each other that anyway.

Sent.

Three minutes. Four. The phone buzzed.

"Yeah, Jouchi. I really do want to focus on my studies. We can still be friends, you know? I'm fine with texting like we always do, talking about anything."

Translation: I can't give you what you want, and the pressure is making me run for the hills, but can we please keep living in the same comfortable, passionless bubble we've always inhabited? Just without the label of being in a relationship.

That was the problem, wasn't it?

She wanted 'friendly.' She wanted 'otaku pen-pals who occasionally meet up and never touch.'

And I, despite my Revolver mop cut, despite the guitar and the somewhat edgy western music preference, despite the fact that I'd deliberately chosen the Bunkei, Humanities track just to avoid the soul-crushing grind of Math III by Fujisawa, I was still a guy. A juvenile with a functioning pulse and a brain that had, increasingly, been going to very non-otaku places when I thought about her.

Kenta and Yui had been doing it since month three. Ryo bragged about stuff that made me want to bleach my own ears. Even Takeshi, Takeshi, who looked like a sentient block of tofu and had the charm of a wet rag, had apparently gotten to second base with his girlfriend at a karaoke box near the station two weeks ago.

And here I was.

Seven months.

Two dates. One hand-hold on an extra date you couldn't even call a date, since it was just us hanging out casually after meeting up with mutual friends, Keira and Anri.

And a break-up text on a Sunday night.

I didn't reply. I just stood up, grabbed my sweater, pulled on whatever jeans were within reach, and walked out of my room.

---

The Yamaha Jog coughed twice before the engine caught, and I let it idle for a moment, the handlebars vibrating under my palms, the red plastic body scuffed from two years of questionable decisions and one memorable incident involving a curb and a rainy night in October last year.

The streets of Kamishiro-cho were quiet. Residential. The kind of quiet that felt less peaceful and more like the town itself was holding its breath. I passed the closed shutters of the shoutengai, the flickering vending machines that stood sentinel on every other corner, the FamilyMart with its neon green-and-blue sign cutting through the dark.

By the time I pulled into the empty lot near the 7-Eleven, the one on the edge of the neighborhood, the one with the low concrete wall that had become our unofficial headquarters, it was quarter to nine.

The boys were already there.

Six silhouettes sprawled across the wall and the asphalt. Some sitting. Some standing. The orange glow of the store sign caught the edges of their faces, flickering slightly as the fluorescent tubes buzzed overhead.

None of them went to Kamishiro High. These were the Ichi-chu survivors, Kamishiro Municipal First Junior High, the alma mater we all shared, the place where our particular brand of aimless semi-delinquency had been forged.

We'd scattered to different high schools after graduation, but the geography of our houses hadn't changed, and neither had the gravitational pull of this parking lot.

Kenta spotted me first.

"Jouchi~!"

His voice cut through the night with the precision of a surgical instrument designed specifically to annoy me. He was perched on the concrete wall, legs swinging, a can of Melon Soda dangling from one hand. His grin stretched wide.

And of course he called me that.

'Jouchi' was supposed to be for Nanase only. These guys always had a terrible sense of humor timing.

"What's with the face, Jouchi? How's Naaah, Naaah, Naaah, Naaah, Naaah~ cchi?"

He dragged out the nickname in a sing-song of Hey Jude's na-na-na, the syllables dripping with mockery, the same stupid tone he'd been using since the day I'd first told them I had a girlfriend and found out we had pet names for each other.

And he sang it out of tune, he just took a sad song and made it worse.

A few of snickers from the others followed.

I dropped onto the concrete beside Ryo without saying a word. The wall was cold through my jeans. I reached over, plucked the half-burned cigarette from between Ryo's fingers, and stuck it between my lips.

Ryo raised an eyebrow but didn't stop me.

I inhaled.

Mild Seven.

That first hit always burned, a sharp, chemical bite at the back of the throat, the kind that made you want to cough if you weren't used to it. I was used to it. Not because I was a real smoker. Real smokers bought their own packs and smoked in the morning and got cranky when they ran out.

I was just a social smoker. A situational smoker. The kind of guy who only lit up when there was something to forget, something to push down, something to fill the hollow space where words should have been.

I exhaled. A slow, deliberate cloud.

"You know… " I muttered.

Ryo leaned forward, squinting at me. His hair was dyed a shade of brown that looked permanently unfinished, like he'd started bleaching it and then given up halfway through.

I didn't continue my words.

I took another drag. Let the smoke sit in my lungs for a second.

"Wait, what? She finally realized you don't give two shits for manga unless it's One Piece, or what?" Ryo gargled at me.

"Or what," I said, and the corner of my mouth pulled into something that was technically a smile but felt more like a wound.

Silence.

Then the whole crew burst out laughing. They knew.

Not the cruel kind. The other kind. The kind where a bunch of guys who've known you since you were a pimple-faced fifteen-year-old with a bad haircut acknowledge, in their own emotionally stunted way, that your life has just taken a spectacular nosedive into the absurd.

Takeshi was leaning against the vending machine, a can of Boss Coffee, the Rainbow Mountain blend, the one with the guy in the hat on the label, dangling from his fingers. He had the build of someone who'd played baseball in junior high and then immediately stopped all physical activity the moment he entered high school. His chin tilted up, eyes narrowing with the self-satisfied expression of a detective about to crack the case.

"What did you do?" He took a sip of his coffee. Grinned. "You ask her to do something kinky? Soap-play? You finally scare poor Nacchi off, huh, Jouji?"

Something in my chest cracked open.

And I laughed.

A real laugh. The kind that started deep in my gut and ripped its way out before I could stop it, loud and raw and maybe a little bit unhinged.

"Hahah… Man… Fuck you…"

I shook my head, still chuckling, and took another drag.

"I wish. I wish it was like that."

---

The house was dark when I got back. Eleven past twelve. My parents' room was at the end of the hall, door closed, no light leaking from the crack underneath. My mom had gone to bed hours ago, and so had Mio and Shouta. My dad wasn't in the house; he lived out of town where he worked in Osaka.

My mom was the kind who operated the house on a strict schedule, dinner at seven, news at nine, lights out by ten-thirty, but she'd long since given up trying to enforce that schedule on me.

My dad was the cool one. He introduced me to The Beatles. He caught me smoking around a month ago only from one sniff at dinner, he only laughed, then invited me to smoke with him outside of the house. My mom went Super Saiyan.

I kicked off my shoes in the genkan, the familiar scent of old wood and faint incense washing over me, and padded up the stairs to my room.

The guitar was still on the floor where I'd left it.

The can of Pocari Sweat was warm now, the condensation long evaporated, a faint ring of moisture staining the floor.

And there, on my bed, was my phone.

The external screen was blinking. A tiny blue light, rhythmic and insistent, like a heartbeat trapped in plastic.

I sat down on the edge of the mattress. The springs creaked. I flipped the phone open.

Two new messages.

The first, timestamped 21:28, was exactly what I'd expected.

"Jouchi, are you upset? I'm sorry. "

Of course. She felt guilty.

Nanase, even while dumping me via text, was still too fundamentally decent to just walk away without checking on the emotional collateral damage. The colon, the parenthesis, the simple devastating syntax of a text representing guilt, looked up at me from the screen, and I hated how much it made me want to text her back.

The second message. 21:30. Two minutes later.

Just two words. Three.

"Oyasumi, Jouchi. x"

I stared at them for a long time.

Every night. Seven months. Goodnight texts and good morning texts, and at the end of every single one, without fail, that little 'x'.

It was our ritual. Our constant. The one thing in our relationship that had never wavered, never pulled back, never flinched.

Looking at it now, after everything, it felt less like affection and more like just a habit.

I sat there, the screen's blue glow casting long shadows across my face, my thumb hovering over the keypad. I thought about typing something. An explanation. A confession. Something to make her understand that I wasn't angry, I was just tired. Tired of the distance. Tired of the 'x's. Tired of wanting something I couldn't name and couldn't ask for. And I still didn't want to quit.

Four minutes. Five.

In the end, I just pressed the button.

"X"

Capitalized, because the first romaji letter will always be.

No oyasumi. No Nacchi. No explanation.

I sent it.

Then I closed the phone, set it on the floor beside my pillow, and let the dark swallow me whole.

Tomorrow was Monday. Second week of the new term. I had a homeroom teacher who almost certainly regretted ever being assigned my class, 2-B Bunkei, Humanities, I'd coasted into purely to avoid the nightmare of advanced mathematics, and a seat near the back of a classroom full of classmates I'd never bothered to get to know, but made some friends already, somehow. Some of the GTA kids, my nakama from 1-B, were there too, thankfully. I missed Gorosen already.

Somewhere across town, in a house that smelled of incense and old books and the quiet, crushing weight of parental expectations, Nanase was probably already asleep. Her phone resting on a perfectly neat nightstand. Her textbooks stacked in order of tomorrow's classes. Her breathing slow and even and untroubled.

She'd wake up in the morning. See my reply. And maybe feel a little sting. Or maybe she'd just breathe easier, relieved that the hard part was over.

I didn't know which one hurt more.

But none of it mattered.

None of it would matter, because in less than twelve hours, on a perfectly ordinary Monday morning, the world would crack open like an egg, and I'd spend the rest of that day wishing, with every fiber of my being, that the biggest problem in my life was still just a stupid, lonely little 'x' on a flip phone screen.

 

[darkrednotmaroon]

Chapter 1 - Ground Zero

My phone buzzed.

Not the aggressive, sustained vibration of a call. Just a single, polite little jolt against the mattress beside my pillow. I cracked one eye open. Pale spring light was bleeding through the gap in my curtains, painting a soft stripe across the ceiling.

The air carried that faint morning chill, the kind that lingered through mid-April, winter's last stubborn breath before the rainy season rolled in.

I fumbled for the phone, thumbing it open.

From: Nacchi, Subject: —, Received: 06:33

"Ohayou, Jouchi. x"

I stared at the screen for a long moment, the blue glow burning into my half-awake retinas.

The 'x' was still there.

After everything last night, the breakup text, my bitter one-word reply, she'd still sent it. Like clockwork. Like muscle memory. Like the ritual was too deeply embedded in both of us to stop, even when the thing it was attached to had already crumbled.

And honestly?

I felt relieved.

Not happy. Not hopeful. Just… the knot in my chest loosened a fraction. Enough to breathe. Enough to function. Enough to roll off my bed and actually face the day instead of burying myself under the covers and pretending Monday didn't exist.

I sat up, dragged a hand through my hair. Still the same Beatles mop I'd been sporting since third year junior high, that shaggy bob that made me look like I'd walked off the Revolver album cover and straight into second-year homeroom.

I surveyed the damage.

Guitar on the floor. Empty Pocari Sweat can staining the floor. My reflection in the dark screen of the old CRT TV across the room: a bit stocky, olive-skinned, the kind of tan that came from spending most of junior high school outside when I should have been in juku, cram school.

But I did go to juku for a short while. There was a time I couldn't reason with my mom.

At 167 centimeters, I wasn't exactly towering over anyone, but I'd made peace with that somewhere around the end of first high-school year.

Everything was exactly as I'd left it, which was somehow both comforting and pathetic.

One thing was different, though.

I smelled like stale cigarette smoke and regret.

Right. I hadn't showered last night. Too busy wallowing.

By the time I'd scrubbed the Mild Seven stench off my skin and thrown on my uniform, the standard gakuran navy blazer, white shirt, navy pants that pooled a little at the ankles because finding a size that fit my height without alterations was apparently impossible, it was creeping past seven. I grabbed two balls of onigiri from the kitchen, a plastic cup of water, ignored my mom's pointed look and shaking head about my late-night wandering, and headed for the genkan.

I saw Mio as I walked pass the sofa. She slumped herself, still in her pajamas.

"Don't you have school?"

"Your sister is sick, Jouji," said my mom from behind the kitchen.

"Yeah, Jou-nii… I'm not feeling great…" She muttered from under the pillow.

"You believe her?" I turned and asked my mom, grinning. I knew my sister.

My mom only snickered back.

"Shouta's still asleep?"

"Yep. He couldn't sleep well last night. Said he missed your dad."

"Hahah. Chichiue was home last Friday and Saturday. That kid never grows up. You're too soft on him, Okaachan."

"Heee? Stop calling your father that, Jouji." She giggled.

"I will. When he decides to shave that ridiculous jidaigeki moustache. He is so proud of it. I don't understand him."

My mom laughed.

---

The Yamaha Jog was parked in its usual spot beside the house, red plastic body damp with morning dew. I swung a leg over, twisted the key, and let the engine sputter to life. As it warmed up, the little two-stroke coughing and rattling like an old man clearing his throat, I flipped open my phone again.

Onigiri, and time to reply.

I couldn't just leave her hanging. Not after last night. Not after that 'x' this morning.

If we were really going to end this, or not end this, or whatever the hell we were doing, we needed to at least talk about it face to face. That was the bare minimum.

That was what decent human beings did.

"Nacchi, ohayou. Sorry I fell asleep on you last night. I was kind of a mess, hehe. Anyway, if we're gonna talk about this, let's at least meet up. Just once. x"

I hesitated before adding the 'x.'

Then I added it anyway.

Sent.

The Jog was warm now. Onigiri, done, water, done. I shoved the phone into my blazer pocket, snapped the visor of my helmet down, and pulled out onto the narrow residential street.

---

7:18.

Last night's 7-Eleven. The lot was empty at this hour.

No Kenta. No Ryo. No Takeshi leaning against the vending machine with his Boss Coffee and his unsolicited commentary. No Junpei, Sora, and Aoi.

Yes, two of my closest friends name from Ichi-chu were Sora and Aoi.

Apparently it made an interesting combination which didn't have anything to do with the color and the sky as of late.

Just the morning sun glinting off the store windows and a bored-looking clerk restocking the onigiri shelf inside.

I parked the Jog in the usual spot, wedged between the concrete wall and a stack of empty drink crates, and started the walk to school.

Kamishiro High, like all public high schools in Japan, had a strict no-scooter-on-campus policy. Whether students or staff, all the same. Something about "student safety" and "setting a proper example," which really just meant the someone didn't want the parking lot turning into a bosozoku, a biker gang convention.

Fair enough. The school had its share of yanki types already; no need to give them a fleet of vehicles.

So every morning, I parked here and walked the remaining five hundred meters. Past the shoutengai, still shuttered at this hour. Past the municipal library, its windows dark. Past the row of cherry trees that lined the school road, past peak bloom now, but still holding on, pale pink petals scattering across the pavement with every breeze like nature's own confetti.

By the time I pushed through the main gate, it was 7:25.

Early.

Too early, honestly. But that was the trade-off for beating the train crowd.

The hallway was quiet. A few early arrivals, mostly sports club kids, already in their practice gear, moving with that exhausted but purposeful energy that came from running laps before sunrise.

I went upstairs. I nodded at a couple of familiar faces and slid open the door to 2-B.

Empty. Well, almost empty. A few bags at a few desks. But none of the people who mattered.

I made my way to my seat, second row from the back, window side, the prime real estate for napping without being too obvious about it, and dropped my bag on the desk.

Dodo's seat beside me was vacant. The two desks in front of me, Sera and Ren, were similarly abandoned.

Figures. Dodo and Sera probably wouldn't show until the absolute last minute. And Ren. Well, Ren operated on her own schedule, which was only tangentially related to the official school timetable.

I pulled out my phone. No new messages.

Nanase still hadn't replied.

Part of me, the rational part, knew it was too early. She was probably getting ready for school. Probably hadn't even checked her phone. Probably had her hands full with her impossibly neat morning routine and her impossibly neat textbooks at Asakaze Minami High, where the elite track students probably didn't stay up until eleven smoking their friends' cigarettes and moping about their romantic failures.

The other part of me, the irrational, needy, pathetic part, kept checking the screen anyway.

Menu, back, menu, back.

I lasted about five minutes before the exhaustion won.

My head hit my folded arms. My eyes closed. The pre-class murmur of the building, distant footsteps, sliding doors, the occasional burst of laughter, blurred into a low, fuzzy hum.

Sleep took me like a freight train.

Until…

"OHAYOU, JOUJI~!"

The voice detonated directly into my right ear.

I snapped upright so fast I nearly headbutted the desk in front of me. There was a small puddle of drool on my blazer sleeve that I desperately hoped nobody else had noticed.

Standing beside my desk, grinning like a maniac, was Dodo.

Doujima Daisuke, but nobody, and I mean nobody, had called him that since the first week of first year. He'd earned the nickname 'Dodo' within about fifteen minutes of our first homeroom together, courtesy of his uncanny ability to walk into walls, trip over air, and generally navigate life with the grace of an extinct flightless bird.

Tall, lanky, and perpetually rumpled, his uniform always looked like it had been folded by someone who'd only heard about the concept of folding through vague rumor. His hair stuck up in the back in a way that was either deliberate or the result of never owning a comb.

"Morning, Netarou," he said, dropping into the seat beside me. "Nice drool."

Netarou. A sleepy boy.

"Not drool. Spring condensation," I said.

"From what? Your mouth?"

From the desks in front of me, two more voices joined the assault.

"Jouji, you're literally the first one here every day and you just sleep through it." Sera, Serizawa Akira's sharp-tongue said. She has even a sharper set of eyes, her dark hair cut in a no-nonsense bob that suited her no-nonsense personality. She twisted around to face me, arms crossed. "Why do you even bother showing up early?"

"Traffic," I said.

"You don't take the train."

"The moped traffic. Very congested. You wouldn't understand."

She rolled her eyes, a gesture I'd come to recognize as her primary form of communication, and turned back to whatever she was scribbling in her notebook.

Beside her, Ren, Akimoto Ren, leaned back in her chair, tilting her head at an angle that gave her a clear view of my face. Her eyes narrowed, the way they always did when she was piecing something together.

I knew that look.

"You look like crap," she said.

"Thank you, Ma'am. I try."

"No, I mean…" She studied me for a moment longer. "Did something happen?"

She was sharp. Always.

But here's the thing about me: I'm not the kind of guy who walks around with a gloomy face. Apathetic? Sure. Half-asleep? By design. But sad? That wasn't my default setting. I was the class clown, or at least one of them. The guy who'd crack a joke during a boring lecture, who'd do impressions of the teachers in the hallway, who'd make Dodo laugh so hard he'd snort his milk coffee out his nose.

So when something was actually wrong, the people who knew me, really knew me, could tell.

Dodo. Sera. Ren.

My core gang inside the bigger gang, GTA kids.

The four of us had been a unit since the first week of first year. Class 1-B, 2007 intake. And 1-B had been… something special.

It started with our homeroom teacher. Tanizuka Goro. Fifty-nine years old, perpetually one cigarette away from retirement, a man who looked at the school rulebook the way most people looked at expired coupons, with mild, dismissive disinterest.

Gorosen, we called him. Goro-sensei compressed into something that felt less formal and more like the name of a tired old dog who'd seen too much and cared too little.

And he was, without question, the best teacher I'd ever had.

Not because he was passionate, or inspiring, or any of that stuff they put in teacher recruitment brochures.

He wasn't.

He taught History with the enthusiasm of a man reading a grocery list, and he spent most of homeroom sitting at his desk with his iPod earbuds in, listening to, as far as I could tell, exclusively Western music from before 1982. Perfectly aligned with my direction.

The Beatles. The Stones. Dylan. Zeppelin. Bowie. The Who. The list could go on. He'd lent me CDs from his personal collection, stuff you couldn't find at the local TSUTAYA, and that was how I'd fallen into the rabbit hole of classic rock.

My dad introduced me; Gorosen rebuilt me.

The man hated everything made after the 80s with a passion that bordered on religious conviction.

No, Gorosen was the best because he didn't pretend to be anything other than what he was: a tired old man who'd somehow ended up in charge of forty teenagers and had decided, somewhere along the way, that the best approach was benign neglect.

Attendance? Write your own name on the sheet. He wasn't going to check.

Announcements? He'd hand them to me or Rena and let her read them out while he stared out the window.

Discipline? He'd catch kids smoking behind the gym or on the rooftop, bum a cigarette off them, and then tell them not to get caught by anyone else.

The man was a disaster. A glorious, chain-smoking, rule-ignoring disaster.

And somehow, his complete refusal to enforce any kind of authority had forged Class 1-B into the tightest, most ridiculous, most fiercely loyal group of students in the entire school.

We called ourselves the GTA.

Goro Tanizuka Association.

Yes, we stole the name from a video game. Yes, it was dumb. But it fit. And no, nobody cared. By the end of first year, every single student in 1-B, all forty of us, was a card-carrying member of the dumbest, biggest, most unofficial, most inexplicably beloved school gang in Kamishiro High history.

Second year had scattered us across different classes, Bunkei — Humanities, Rikei — Science, the various electives, but the GTA bond held.

You didn't survive a year of Gorosen's homeroom without developing a certain… loyalty.

"It's nothing," I said to Ren, forcing a grin. "Just didn't sleep great."

Her eyes stayed narrowed for another second. Then she shrugged and turned back around.

She didn't believe me. But she also knew better than to push.

The sliding door at the front of the classroom clattered open, and the ambient chatter died instantly.

Takeda-sensei swept in like a minor weather event.

She was, objectively speaking, attractive. Early forties, the kind of woman who'd clearly been stunning in her twenties and had aged into something more… formidable. A figure that drew attention from the male student body, myself included, I wasn't going to pretend otherwise, but she dressed so conservatively that even thinking about it felt vaguely inappropriate. High-necked blouses. Ankle-length skirts. A wedding ring she wore like a warning label.

She was also, unfortunately, kind of terrifying.

"I hope everyone had a productive first week," she said, setting her attendance book on the podium with a decisive thwack. "Because we're in second week, and I'm already hearing complaints from the faculty lounge about noise levels in the Bunkei corridor. I won't name names." Her eyes swept the room. They lingered on Dodo for approximately half a second longer than anyone else. "Yet."

Dodo shrunk in his seat. I suppressed a grin.

"Announcements." She flipped open a folder. "First, morning assembly. Sports ground. Eight-thirty sharp. This is the official start of the academic year, the first-years are fully integrated as of today, and the principal has a few words he'd like to share. Try to look alive."

A collective groan rippled through the room.

"Second, club recruitment begins this week. Third, the library is closed for inventory until Wednesday. And fourth," she looked up, her expression shifting into something marginally less stern, "I'm told the vending machines in the east wing have finally been restocked. Try not to start a riot."

A bigger ripple. This time, more positive.

"That's all. Don't be late to assembly," She snapped the folder shut, glanced at the clock, 08:25, and strode out of the room with the same brisk efficiency she'd entered.

The moment the door slid shut behind her, the class dissolved into low murmurs. People started pushing back chairs, gathering their things, drifting toward the hallway in small clusters. Assembly. Sports ground. Eight-thirty.
I, however, had other plans.

Namely: I was still exhausted. The almost-an-hour-long nap before homeroom had only made things worse, the kind of short sleep that leaves you groggier than when you started, your brain wrapped in cotton wool and your eyelids fighting a losing battle against gravity.

Dodo was already on his feet. "Coming? Wanna go behind the gym and bum one?"

"Five more minutes," I mumbled, already lowering my head back to my arms.

"You're gonna be late."

"When am I not?"

He snorted. "Always?"

Fair point.

I was dimly aware, through the haze of half-sleep, of Dodo, Sera, and Ren exchanging glances above my head. There was some laughter. A comment I didn't quite catch. And then footsteps, receding, as the classroom emptied out around me.

The last thing I heard before consciousness slipped away was Ren's voice, drifting back through the doorway:

"Sleep well, sleeping beauty."

And then I was gone. And then I woke up.

...

Yawn.

Hmm...

Something was wrong.

I woke up not to a voice, or a jostle, or the obnoxious buzz of my phone, but to silence.

The wrong kind of silence. The kind that didn't belong in a school building on a Monday morning during assembly.

I lifted my head slowly, blinking against the fluorescent light. The classroom was empty. My cheek was stuck to the sleeve of my blazer. The clock on the wall read 08:35.

Five minutes past the start of assembly.

And I couldn't hear anything.

No Baldy-Matsu, our principal's voice echoing through the whole school PA system. No shuffling feet. No coughing. No bored students whispering to each other in the back rows. The outdoor assemblies at Kamishiro High were never quiet. They were massive, chaotic, seven hundred students packed into a space designed for maybe five hundred, the sound of the microphone always a little too loud, feeding back every time someone bumped the speaker stand.

Nothing.

Just silence. The heavy, unnatural kind that presses against your eardrums.
I sat up fully. My neck was stiff. My mouth tasted like sleep. My phone was on the desk where I'd left it, screen dark, no new notifications.

Then I heard it.

A scream.

Not the jokey kind. Not the "Kenta, stop it!" kind. The real kind. High-pitched. Raw. A girl's voice, tearing through the spring morning from somewhere below, the direction of the sports ground.

My stomach dropped.

I was on my feet before I'd consciously decided to move. The chair scraped backward, clattering against the desk behind me. My hand went to my phone.

But before I could take a step, the classroom door slammed open.

Rena.

Ichinose Rena.

A GTA friend.

More than… actually…

Right now, Rena was standing in the doorway of 2-B, and she looked nothing like the composed, teasing, slightly-gyaru girl I'd known for over a year.

Her uniform was disheveled. Her hair was a mess, the pinky bleached streaks tangled, the loose socks twisted around her ankles like she'd been running. Her eyes were wide, rimmed with red, on the verge of tears.

She was shaking. And nothing shook her.

"Jo… Jouji?!"

Her voice cracked on my name.

And then she was across the room. I didn't even remember her moving, just the impact, and her arms were around me, clutching at my blazer like I was the only solid thing left in a world that had suddenly turned liquid.

"Rena-chan, what the…"

"I was… I was in the washroom… with Mika-chan…" Her voice was muffled against my shoulder, coming out in ragged, gasping bursts. "And then… and then she just… she was gone, Jouji. Mika-chan just vanished. We were talking, and I turned around for one second, and she wasn't there, the stall was empty, and there were other girls in there too, and they're all gone, I checked every stall, every single one, and it's just…"

"Rena-chan. Slow down."

"…I ran out and the hallway was completely empty. Nobody. No footsteps, no voices, nothing. So I went to Bunkei, to 2-C to find someone, anyone, and Chisaton was there, just sitting at her desk, staring at her hands like she didn't even know where she was. I called her out, 'Chisaton, Chisaton!' and she didn't even look up. She should be able to hear me, I was right in front of her. She just kept going 'hah… heh… hah…' like some kind of brok…"

"Chisato? Our Chisato?"

I couldn't hear the 'n' clearly.

She nodded. A jerky, desperate motion. No words. Just the nod.

There were at least two Chisato in our year.

But this one was definitely ours.

Chisaton. Kikuchi Chisato. GTA. First-year Class 1-B, now in 2-C next door.

"…and then on the stairs, Yua-chan was just sitting there, crying, completely frozen. I tried to get her up but she wouldn't move, she couldn't even talk, she just kept shaking her head…"

"Rena-chan."

I gripped her shoulders, firmly, not hard, and pushed her back just enough to look at her face. Her eyes were darting. Her breathing was shallow and fast. On the edge of hyperventilating.

"Breathe," I said. "Just breathe. I'm here."

She took a shaky breath. Then another. Her hands were still fisted in my blazer.

I released her shoulders and moved toward the window.

The classroom looked out over the sports ground, second floor, clear view of the main assembly area. I pressed my palm against the glass, feeling the cold seep into my skin, and looked down.

That was chaos.

Not the noisy, energetic chaos of seven hundred students. The wrong kind of chaos. A scattering of girls, maybe between twenty to thirty, running in different directions with no apparent purpose. Some screaming. Some crying. Some standing frozen like their feet had been nailed to the ground. One girl was collapsed in the middle of the open space, completely motionless, her dark hair fanned out around her head like a spilled inkwell.

I recognized her immediately.

Fumiko.

Tanaka Fumiko. Second-year. We'd been in different classes last year, she was in 1-F, I was in 1-B, but you didn't need to share a homeroom with Fumiko to know who she was. Everyone knew who she was.

Even from up here, you couldn't miss her.

And now she was lying motionless in the middle of an empty sports ground, and the assembly formation lines painted on the dirt stretched out around her like open wounds, utterly vacant.

Where were the seven hundred students?

Where were the teachers?

Where was Baldy-Matsu and his crackling microphone voice?

The PA speakers stood silent. The morning sun, pale and indifferent, glinted off the windows of the surrounding buildings like nothing was wrong.

"Rena-chan…" My voice came out steadier than I felt. "What in the fucking fuck is happening?"

She didn't answer. She was standing beside me now, arms wrapped around herself, staring at the same impossible scene.

My phone buzzed.

The sound cut through the silence like a blade. I yanked it out of my blazer pocket, flipping it open with hands that had suddenly forgotten how to be steady.

I played guitar and sang, and I had played some cheap gigs.

My hands were accustomed to the nerve before performing, not crisis.

From: Nacchi, Subject: —, Received: 08:39.

"Jouchi, I'm scared."

My blood went cold.

Nanase. At Asakaze Minami. On the other side of town.

I hit reply before I'd finished reading the message. My thumbs were clumsy, stumbling over the keys.

"Nacchi, are you okay?"

Sent.

"Jouji…" Rena was staring at my phone. "Who… Is.. Is she okay?"Rena caught on at first glance.

She knew Nanase. I didn't answer.

Instead, I grabbed her hand, cold, trembling, and pulled her toward the door.

"Let's go."

"Go.. Go where? Jouji, what's happening?"

"I don't know," I said. And it was the most honest thing I'd said all morning.

"But we're not staying here."

We stepped out into the hallway.

The corridor stretched in both directions, rows of classroom doors, bulletin boards plastered with club recruitment posters, the faint smell of floor wax hanging in the still air, and it was utterly, completely empty.

No students. No teachers. No footsteps. No voices. Every door we passed was either closed or hanging slightly ajar, revealing glimpses of empty desks and abandoned bags.

Halfway down the stairs, we found her.

Manami Yua.

She was slumped against the wall near the stairwell landing, legs splayed out, back pressed against the cold painted concrete. Her face was wet, not just tears, but the raw, blotchy aftermath of someone who'd been crying so hard she'd stopped making sound. Her breathing came in shallow, hiccupping gasps.

I knew her immediately.

Everyone in our year and above knew Manami Yua. She was one of the eyecatchers, one of the princesses of our year. The kind of girl whose name came up in locker-room conversations, the kind of face that made first-year boys walk into doors since a week ago. And she was attached. Firmly, publicly, somewhat-nauseatingly attached to Donda, the ace striker of the Soccer Club, a guy whose legs moved faster than his brain and whose ego was roughly the size of the Tokyo Dome.

They'd been together since the middle or even early first year. The soccer ace and the eyecatcher. A Kamishiro High fairy tale.

Right now, she didn't look like anyone's fairy tale.

"Manami-san."

I knelt down in front of her, keeping my voice low. Steady. She wasn't a friend, we'd never been in the same class, and our social circles barely overlapped, but she wasn't a stranger either. She was one of us. A second year. And right now, that was the only credential that mattered.

"Manami-san, can you hear me?"

Her eyes found mine. Glassy. Unfocused. She made a sound, a half-sob, half-whimper, but no words came out.

Beside me, Rena crouched down, her voice softer than mine. "Yua-chan. Yua-chan, it's me. Rena. Can you stand? We need to move."
A flicker of recognition. Barely.

"Manami-san." I put enough weight into my voice to pull her attention back.

"Listen. You can't stay here in the stairwell. Go back up to 2-C. There's someone there, Kikuchi Chisato. Chisaton. From GTA. You know her, right? She's in your class."

A pause.

Then a tiny, shaky nod.

She had to know Chisaton, or at least Chisato. Everyone in 2-C should have known Chisaton by now. She's also quite pretty. Very pretty, actually. Chisaton was just as popular as Yua in her own way, another 'princess' of our year, she just never acted the part.

"Go to her. Sit with her. Wait for us there. Or," I glanced toward the stairs leading down, "follow us if you can walk. But don't stay here alone. Okay?"

Another nod. Her legs moved, slowly, uncertainly, one hand bracing against the wall for support.

Beside me, Rena squeezed my arm. "Jouji…"

"I know."

We didn't have time to escort her. Whatever was happening, whatever had emptied this school in the space of minutes, was still happening. And somewhere in the sports ground below, Fumiko was still lying motionless on the dirt.

And somewhere across town, Nanase was scared.

And I still hadn't heard back.

"Stay with Chisaton, Manami-san," I said, straightening up. "We'll come back for you."

We left her climbing unsteadily toward 2-C and took the stairs down. The stairwell echoed with our footsteps.

Mine. Rena's. Nobody else's.

In a building designed for seven hundred students, that I had spent a year enrolled in, this silence was the loudest thing I'd ever heard.

 

[darkrednotmaroon]

Chapter 2 - Assembly

Rena and I pushed through the heavy double doors and stepped onto the sports ground.

The sky was this pale, washed-out April blue, the kind that looks warm until the wind cuts through your blazer and reminds you winter hasn't quite packed its bags yet. The cherry trees along the path were still holding on, scattering the last of their petals like they were charging admission for the privilege of walking underneath them.

On a normal Monday morning, this sports ground would have been a chaos of footsteps and gossip while ignoring Baldy-Matsu's speech.

But right now?

Right now, it was a scene out of a bad disaster movie.

A cluster of girls, maybe fifteen, twenty of them, had formed a tight, nervous circle near the central planter, others scattered around. Their uniforms blurred together in a sea of navy and white, some crouching, some standing with their arms wrapped around themselves like they were trying to hold their own ribs in place. The air was thick with sniffles and shaky breaths and that particular brand of whispered panic that only high school girls can produce at industrial scale.

At the center of it all, flat on the ground, head cradled in someone's lap, was Fumiko.

And the person doing the cradling?

Shimizu Umi, from 2-F.

I recognized her instantly. Not because we'd ever spoken, we hadn't, not really. But Umi was one of those girls you just knew, even if you'd never exchanged a single word. The kind of presence that registered on some subconscious frequency the moment she walked into a room.

Short straight black hair. And a uniform that looked two sizes too big, the blazer sleeves swallowing her wrists, the hem of her skirt hanging well below her knees like she'd borrowed it from an older sister who actually wanted to pass her dress code inspection.

Yamato Nadeshiko. The real deal. Super pretty. The kind of girl who could probably stop a fistfight just by looking vaguely disappointed.

We'd met a few times during class-rep meetings.

Right now, though, that serenity had a crack running through it. Her face was pale, her brow furrowed, and she was gently stroking Fumiko's forehead with a tenderness that made my chest ache in a way I absolutely did not have time to process.

"Ah… Shimizu-san." My voice came out raspier than I intended. "How's Fumiko-chan?"

Umi looked up. For a split second, our eyes met, and I caught something flickering behind the calm, fear, yes, but also this steely determination, the kind you only see in people who've decided that panicking is a luxury they can't afford right now.

She shook her head.

"Still unconscious," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I've been trying to wake her, but nothing."

Beside me, Rena dropped to her knees, her pleated skirt billowing against the cold stone. Her hand found Fumiko's shoulder, shaking it gently. "Umi-chan? Fumiko-chan… Fumiko-chan… wake up…"

There was a crack in Rena's voice. A hairline fracture. And for Rena, who could charm her way out of a burning building, who'd once talked the sukeban of Kamishiro High into being her friend, that was more terrifying than any scream.

I scanned the crowd.

Kouhai. Senpai. A few girls I vaguely recognized from my own year. Some faces were tear-streaked. Others had that hollow, thousand-yard stare of people who'd seen something they couldn't yet process. A few were just whispering to each other in frantic little bursts, their words tangling together into a low-frequency hum of distress.

All girls.

Every single one of them.

Before I could follow that thought any further, the crowd on the far side of the sports ground shifted. Someone was pushing through, not gently either, the kind of shouldering that said get out of my way, I'm bigger than you.

And then he was there.

Donda.

Toudou Daichi. Ace of the Soccer Club from our year. Yua's boyfriend. One of the jocks. But a good one. The kind who actually earned his popularity instead of just coasting on it. He was in 2-C, not my class, but our paths crossed enough through mutual friends from GTA and the Bekesu boys.

We'd smoked on the same rooftop, passed each other in the same corridors, nodded the same wordless nod. But we'd never actually talked. Not once that I could remember.

And in his hand?

A half-eaten croquette.

Because of course.

"Jo… Jouji?!" His eyes were wide, the whites showing all the way around. Bits of potato were still lodged in his cheek. "Fuck, man! This is insane! I bailed on assembly, right? Was hanging out behind the gym equipment shed with the Bekesu boys and some of the senpai from Rushifa. Then, poof, everyone just vanishes. Just… gone! I'm smoking by myself, and the next thing I know, I hear screaming coming from over here." He gestured wildly with the croquette, flinging a crumb into some poor kouhai's hair.

"Where the hell is everyone? Why's it just… why's it only girls here?"

I stood up slowly. My knees popped, too much crouching, too much stress.

"I don't know, Donda. I was supposed to be late for assembly too. I was on my last minute nap in the classroom. Woke up and…" I spread my hands helplessly. "This."

"Shit."

"Yeah. Shit."

We stood there for a moment, two second-year boys in matching navy gakuran, staring at a group of confused and terrified girls, neither of us knowing what to say. The croquette hung limply from Donda's fingers, suddenly forgotten.

And then another figure emerged from the crowd.

Small. Scrawny. Maybe half a head shorter than me, and that was saying something, because I wasn't exactly the Jolly Green Giant with my height.

His hair was a mess, the kind of deliberate bedhead that said I'm in a band before you even saw the calluses on his fingers. His uniform was too big for him, or maybe he was too small for it, the sleeves bunched up around his wrists like he'd borrowed it from an older brother and hadn't quite figured out the proportions yet.

I knew that face. Barely.

The orientation concert. The freshmen had put together a band, all nerves and tuning problems and the kind of earnest, slightly-too-loud performance that makes you cringe and applaud at the same time. They'd covered Oasis. 'Stop Crying Your Heart Out.' Good song. Terrible execution. The bassist had nailed his parts, though, even when the vocalist was flat and the guitarist had clearly forgotten the bridge.

But they were my kind of people.

That bassist was standing right in front of me.

"Oi! You! Kouhai!" I pointed at him, my voice carrying across the sports ground.

"What's your name?"

He didn't flinch. Didn't look scared, either, just confused, which honestly was the most rational reaction any of us could have summoned at that moment.

He straightened up a little, squared his shoulders.

"Ma.. Makoto, Senpai. Arai Makoto. From class 1-D."

He bowed. Not the deep, formal ninety-degree bow you'd give a teacher; just a quick, respectful dip of the head. Nervous, but not paralyzed. The kind of kid who was used to being overlooked, but not used to being afraid of it.

I nodded. "Makoto. Okay."

First-name basis right off the bat. He didn't seem to mind. If anything, some of the tension drained out of his shoulders, a kouhai who'd just been acknowledged by a senpai in front of a crowd, and not in the 'hey, kouhai, go clean the club room' kind of way.

Three boys.

Me. Donda. And Makoto, the scrawny bassist from 1-D.

That was it.

That was the sum total of the male population left in my sight.

And somewhere out there, somewhere in the empty hallways and silent corridors, Yua, Donda's girlfriend, was waiting in 2-C with Chisaton, and Nanase was texting me from Asakaze, and everything I thought I knew about how the world worked had apparently decided to take a sick leave.

Donda's head snapped up like a dog who'd just heard a distant whistle.

"Yu.. Yua?! YUA?!"

He was shouting into the crowd. Searching faces. The desperation in his voice was raw, unguarded, the kind of thing a guy like Donda would never show in normal circumstances, but these weren't normal circumstances, and his girlfriend was missing, and all the social armor in the world couldn't protect you from that.

No one answered.

Rena turned around.

"Donda." Her voice was gentle, gentler than I'd ever heard her. "Yua's okay. She's not gone. Jouji and I found her in the stairwell earlier. She was… she was in bad shape. Crying. But we told her to go back to your classroom, 2-C. Chisaton's with her. You know Chisato, right? From GTA?"

Donda's shoulders sagged. For a second, I thought he might actually collapse. His fist unclenched. The croquette, miracle of miracles, was still intact, though its structural integrity was looking increasingly dubious.

"I gotta…" He started to move, already angling toward the main building.

I grabbed his arm.

"Wait. Help me get Fumiko inside first." I glanced down at the girl in question, her face still flushed red, her breathing shallow, Rena and Umi still hovering over her like guardian angels. "If we leave her out here in this cold much longer, she's going to get worse."

Donda looked at Fumiko. Then back at me. Then at Fumiko again. His jaw tightened. I knew exactly what was going through his head, the same thing that had been going through mine since the moment I saw her lying there, her chest rising and falling in a slow, unconscious rhythm.

Fumiko, of all people. Fumiko with the impossible figure. Fumiko who was basically a walking gravitational anomaly in a school uniform.

Fumiko had that enormous physical trait any healthy teenage boy would ogle like idiots the moment they saw her.

But he didn't say it. He just nodded.

"Janken?" I said, forcing a smirk. "Winner gets the head end."

It was a stupid thing to say. A completely idiotic, wildly inappropriate thing to say. But that was the point. If I didn't inject some kind of stupidity into this situation, if I let myself actually think about the scale of what was happening, I was going to lose it.

Donda stared at me. Then, slowly, a grin split his face, the kind of grin you give someone you've seen around for a year, same rooftop, same yanki-friends, same cigarettes, but never actually exchanged a real word with, suddenly realizing they might not be as much of an asshole as you thought.

"You're such an asshole," he said, and laughed as a bit of croquette fell out of his mouth.

I was already raising my hand. "Rock, paper…"

My phone buzzed.

"Hold on."

I flipped it open. The external screen glowed blue.

From: Nacchi, Subject: —, Received: 08:51.

"Jouchi, I'm okay. I'm with Yumi-chan. We were at assembly and everyone just disappeared from the field at once. There are maybe twenty of us left here. Some people are hysterical, some fainted."

The phone was working. That was one good thing, at least, the cell towers hadn't collapsed, the network hadn't gone dark. The world wasn't completely broken.

Yet.

I just realized this and my mind went down the rabbit hole for a split second.

The spiraling rabbit hole of what ifs.

The bad what ifs.

To the worse what ifs.

But I shook my head quick.

Stop!

I called Nanase without even thinking.

She picked up on the second beep.

"Hello, Nacchi?"

"Jouchi…" Her voice was a wreck, thin and trembling, the kind of sound you make when you've been crying so long you've run out of tears and all that's left is the rawness. "I'm scared…"

"Nacchi. It's the same here at Kamishiro High." I pressed the phone tight against my ear, as if I could somehow reach through the signal and pull her close. "But thank God you're okay. Yumi too." I swallowed. "What's the situation? How many guys are there? And where exactly are you at now?"

Her voice wavered as she repeated what she'd already texted: twenty people, mostly girls. And then she added something that made my jaw tighten.

"There's one guy from 2-D, Ebara-san, and a third-year, Ninomiya-san. They're trying to take charge, but Ebara-san keeps yelling at everyone. He yelled at Yumi-chan earlier. He's so cruel. We.. We' just moved to classroom 1-A."

I closed my eyes. Ebara. I didn't know the guy personally, but the name rang a bell, and not a good one. Some loudmouth from one of the sports clubs, probably, the kind of guy who thought volume was a substitute for leadership.

"Nacchi. Listen to me." I kept my voice low, steady. "Stay there in the classroom. Don't move. If the phone signal cuts out and you've gone somewhere else, we'll end up looking for each other and never finding anyone. I'll come to get you as soon as things here are under control. Just stay with Yumi. Wait for me. Okay?"

A long pause. A sniffle.

"O.. okay, Jouchi."

"Jaa."

The call clicked off.

Rena was watching me. She'd been observing the whole exchange, the way her eyes narrowed at the edges, the slight tilt of her head, told me she'd already pieced together most of it.

"Nanase? She okay?"

I nodded, glancing at her.

Rena exhaled. A long, slow breath.

I crouched down beside Rena and Umi, who was still watching over Fumiko with that steady, unblinking vigilance. I kept my voice low, meant only for them.

"Rena-chan, Shimizu-san." I glanced toward the main entrance. "We're gonna lift Fumiko-chan and move from here. Closest classroom to the shoe lockers, Class 1-A. I want you both to take down names. Everyone here. What class they're from. Everyone."

I turned. "Oi. Makoto."

The kid's head snapped up. I crooked a finger, and he scrambled over, dropping into a crouch beside me.

"You're a first-year," I said. "Help me get everyone in order. We're moving to 1-A."

He nodded, quick and sharp. Good kid.

Rena bit her lip. "Jouji, wouldn't it be better to take Fumiko-chan to the infirmary?"

I shook my head. "A bit too far, Rena-chan. And I prefer everyone to stick around."

She didn't argue. I straightened up and raised my voice, letting it carry across the ground.

"Okay! Everyone here, calm down. We're moving to the first-floor corridor. Class 1-A. Closest room to the entrance. We stay there for now."

I looked at Donda. "Donda and I will carry Fumiko. Let's go."

He was already moving into position. No complaints. No jokes. Just a nod.

"Alright." I pocketed the phone. "Janken first, though. No more distractions."

Donda squared up. The croquette was on the ground now, abandoned. We locked eyes.

"Jan-ken-pon!"

His hand: rock.

My hand: paper.

I won.

"Tough luck." I was already crouching, positioning myself at Fumiko's shoulders.

"You get the feet."

Donda grumbled, but he took his position. As I slid my arms under Fumiko's back, my hands brushing against the fabric of her blazer, I became acutely, and I mean acutely, aware of a certain logistical complication.

Kamishiro High's most famous physical feature was currently unconscious and cradled in my arms.

Don't think about it.

Do not think about it.

I could feel Donda trying not to laugh. His shoulders were shaking.

One accidental brush. Soft.

My face went deadpan, the expression I'd perfected over years of not reacting to things I very much wanted to react to, and I locked eyes with Donda, crumbled.

I snickered. Wryly.

"If you say a single word…"

He didn't say anything. He just grinned, the bastard.

We lifted together. Fumiko's dead weight was heavier than she looked, but between the two of us, she came off the ground easily enough. The crowd parted. Rena and Umi flanked us, guiding the way, and behind us, a slow procession of girls, kouhai, senpai, year-mates, began to trickle in the same direction.

We moved toward the main entrance. Past the shoe lockers. The corridor beyond was dark and silent, the kind of silence that felt solid, physical, like a wall you could press your palm against. The row of classrooms stretched ahead, their sliding doors all closed, their windows staring blankly into the emptiness.

Class 1-A was the closest. First door on the left from the entrance and shoe-lockers.

Inside, it looked like any other classroom, thirty-odd desks in neat rows, a blackboard with the remnants of their first Friday of high school still scrawled across it, the faint, chalky smell of academia clinging to the air.

Umi immediately grabbed a random bag from one of the front-row desks and balled it up as a pillow, easing Fumiko's head onto it with a tenderness that was almost maternal.

Rena and Umi started moving through the crowd, tapping shoulders, jotting down names on a scrap of paper Rena had pulled from any bag nearby.

I pulled them aside before they could get too far.

"Rena-chan, Shimizu-san." I kept my voice low. "When you're taking attendance, ask them one more thing. Does anyone have a medical condition that needs special attention? Asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, anything like that. But ask quietly. One by one. Don't let anyone else hear."

Rena's brow furrowed. "Why keep it secret?"

Umi, however, was already nodding. She got it. If twenty-some panicking girls learned that one of their own had a seizure condition and no immediate access to medication, the fragile calm we'd managed to scrape together would evaporate like mist in the sun.

"We'll handle it," Umi said softly. "We will be discreet."

Rena still looked confused, but she didn't argue.

Donda, meanwhile, was already at the door. "Jouji, I'm going upstairs. To 2-C. Yua."

"Don't forget Chisaton."

He nodded and disappeared into the corridor.

That left Makoto.

He was standing awkwardly by the door, looking like a stray puppy who wasn't sure if he was allowed inside. I beckoned him over.

"Makoto." I clapped a hand on his shoulder. The kid flinched but didn't pull away.

"You're the only guy in this room right now. These girls are scared. Some of them are still crying. I need you to stay here and keep an eye on things until Donda and I get back. Got it?"

He swallowed. Nodded. "Where are you going, Senpai?"

"I'm going to search the school. Make sure nobody else is left outside."

He nodded a few times quickly.

And then I was gone.

The corridors of Kamishiro High had never felt this empty.

I walked. First floor, classroom after classroom, all dark, all silent, the desks still arranged in their neat little rows like the students had just stepped out for a moment and would be right back. But they wouldn't be. Somewhere between the morning bell and now, around maybe seven hundred students and teachers and staff had simply vanished, leaving behind maybe twenty, thirty of us.

Second floor. Same story. The windows let in pale, indifferent sunlight. The lockers stood open in places, abandoned bags either on the floor or on the desks. A single indoor shoe, left behind in someone's desperate rush, sat in the middle of the hallway like a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence nobody had finished.

A door slid open down the corridor. From 2-C.

Donda stepped out with Yua on one arm, and Chisaton followed them from behind. Yua's face was blotchy from crying, but she was walking. Chisaton looked shaken but functional, somehow. I nodded at them, and Donda nodded back, Chisaton also nodded. No words needed.

I kept climbing. Third floor. Same story. Didn't even bother checking all the rooms.

Rooftop access. The door was open, and the wind up there was fierce and cold, whipping through the chain-link fence. Empty.

The bench where I'd sometimes squeezed in with the GTA boys, Dodo, Akira, Issei, others, and the Bekesu Boys crew, Donda among them, sneaking cigarettes between classes while the senpai from Rushifa and ZAKO of the third-year held court, all of them now graduated, Takeo, Rena's boyfriend, among the loudest of that senior yanki crew… that bench sat forlorn and unused.

The rear building. Student Council room. Club rooms. I passed the Manga and Pop Culture Research Circle, the so-called "Otaku Club," Manken, where I'd signed up in first year purely because I needed an extracurricular that wouldn't complain if I slept through meetings or spent the whole time reading One Piece on a secondhand couch. The door was ajar; through the gap I could see the old CRT TV they used for anime marathons still humming with static.

Nobody there. The audio-visual room where I'd spent countless hours in first year, attending class-rep meetings, trying not to fall asleep while the Cultural Committee president droned on about the upcoming festival.

The pool was a sheet of glass, so still I could see the bottom tiles perfectly, a row of lane ropes floating motionless like they'd been frozen mid-stroke.

The gymnasium was somehow worse. The basketball hoops still had their nets hanging slack, the floor polished to that mirror sheen the volleyball club always demanded, and my footsteps echoed off the high ceiling in a way that made it sound like someone was walking ten paces behind me.

I circled the perimeter of the school grounds, following the old concrete wall that separated Kamishiro High from the houses beyond. I stopped there and just listened.

Nothing. No bicycle bells, no kei car engines, no mothers yelling at their kids to hurry up. The world outside the wall was as silent as the world inside it, and that was the moment the last little part of me that had been hoping this was some kind of elaborate TV dokkiri prank with some newly-found technology quietly packed its bags and left.

All empty.

All silent.

By the time I arrived at the door to 1-A again, I stopped at the little glass window by the door, something in the atmosphere had shifted inside.

The hysterics had stopped. The crying had been downgraded to a soft, background tremor of sniffles. And Fumiko, finally, was awake.

She was sitting at a desk, leaning heavily against Umi's shoulder. Her face was still that alarming shade of red, and her breathing hadn't quite steadied, but her eyes were open. That was something.

Umi had one arm wrapped protectively around her. Rena was still making her rounds, checking names, murmuring quiet questions. And across the room, seated in clusters or slumped against the walls, were the rest of them.

Chisaton, Yua, and Donda had settled in.

Makoto was with some of his peers, talking to them.

I recognized more faces now that my brain had time to process.

Those from my year. Some above me, the senpai, some below me the kouhai.

I leaned against the doorframe and let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

Three boys. Twenty-something girls.

Somewhere across town, Nanase was waiting for me in another classroom, in another silent school, just as scared and just as confused.

Somewhere out there, the rest of the world might still be turning, the trains might still be running, the vending machines might still be humming. The cherry blossoms still scattering across empty playgrounds were the only thing I was sure of.

 

[darkrednotmaroon]

Chapter 3 - Casting Call

I slid off the doorframe and walked inside.

The air in 1-A had settled into something different from the sports ground.

Not calm. Nothing about today was ever going to be calm again, but… controlled. The kind of quiet you get after a storm has passed and everyone's still huddled under the eaves, waiting to see if another one's coming.

They were scattered across the desks like someone had upended a box of mismatched pieces and hadn't gotten around to sorting them yet. Some sitting. Some slouched. A few still had their arms wrapped around themselves, but the full-body sobbing had stopped.

Now it was just sniffles. The wet, shaky aftermath.

Rena was near the window, a crumpled sheet of paper in her hand, still making the rounds. Umi had Fumiko propped against her shoulder.

Fumiko's eyes were open now, glassy and unfocused, but open. That red flush hadn't left her face, and her breathing still came in shallow little sips, like she was afraid the air might run out if she took too much at once.

That uniform, always a size too tight, not out of vanity but because she'd probably never thought about it. That long curtain of hair, the bangs framing a face that always looked faintly puzzled, like she'd just wandered into a conversation she hadn't been invited to.

Donda was in the corner with Yua tucked against his side. His arm was around her shoulders, big and awkward and way too tight, but she wasn't complaining. Her face was buried in his blazer, and his perm, that godawful chaos of tight curls, was somehow even more disheveled than before.

Chisaton sat a desk away from them, staring at the blackboard like it held the answers to questions nobody had asked yet.

And the senpai. The third year. Some that everyone easily would recognize.

Anzai Nagisa-senpai. The most famous girl in school. The Queen. The Idol. And somehow, impossibly, also the most humble. She was kneeling beside a sobbing kouhai, her hand resting on the girl's back, her expression gentle and unhurried. She radiated the kind of calm that wasn't forced or performative, it was just there. Natural. Like being a good person was a reflex she'd never had to think about.

Not far from her, a stark contrast, was Asou Fumi-senpai. Small. Blonde streaks in her dark brown hair, tied up in a bun. The uniform modified just enough to skirt the edge of the dress code without technically breaking it, a slightly shorter skirt, a looser ribbon, the sleeves of her blazer rolled up to show off a cheap silver bracelet.

She was the sukeban. The girl boss of Kamishiro High, who'd once cornered Rena in the first-year hallway and torn into her for making eyes at third-year boys.

And Rena, being Rena, had somehow walked out of that encounter with a new friend and an official stamp of approval from her circle, including Nagisa-senpai.

She was leaning against the far wall with her arms crossed, surveying the room with the expression of a general who'd seen worse and wasn't about to let a little mass disappearance rattle her chain.

And then there were the Student Council girls. The ones I recognized from those endless class-rep committee meetings in the audio-visual room.

Taniguchi Riko-senpai, the PE rep, average build, unassuming at first glance but with a figure that had a way of making the gym uniform look considerably more interesting than the school intended.

Matsushima Marina-senpai, the Cultural Committee rep, with her wire-rimmed glasses and her perpetually thoughtful and bright expression.

Abe Airi-senpai, from Health and Sanitation, fitting, given the circumstances, her hair tied back in a practical ponytail, a first-aid kit already open on the desk beside her.

They were already working. Already organizing. Already being the kind of leaders that student council elections promised but rarely delivered.

The Student Council triumvirate were huddled in quiet conference, figuring things out while consoling their friends and kouhai at the same time.

And Makoto.

The kid from 1-D. The bassist. He was standing near his first-year girl friends, like a personal guard. Shoulders squared. Jaw tight. Trying very hard to look like he wasn't as terrified as he obviously was to the girls.

I respected that.

And those first-years, mostly, clustered together at the back of the room like baby birds who'd fallen out of the nest and hadn't figured out what to do about it.

Entirely new faces.

But the two of them, though, two of them I recognized.

Not because I'd ever spoken to them. But because you couldn't not recognize them.

Kujou Karin.

She'd been impossible to miss since the orientation ceremony last week. Not in the loud, attention-grabbing way and more like she'd walked into the auditorium and the air had just… shifted.

Karin had the kind of face that made you do a double-take and then immediately feel vaguely guilty about it. Sensual wasn't the right word, that implied something deliberate, something performed, but it was the only word my juvenile brain could summon. She looked older than the rest of the first-years, not in a weathered way, but in a been-there-done-that way. Like she'd already read the script for high school and found it boring.

Her uniform was regulation on paper but somehow not in practice, the ribbon a little looser than intended, the skirt hem a centimeter shorter than the dress code probably allowed. Not gyaru. Not yet. But the seeds were there. Give her two or three weeks, and she would have run straight into Fumi-senpai's orbit, either as a protégée or a rival, and honestly, I wasn't sure which possibility was more terrifying.

But right now, all that rebel energy was banked. Karin sat near the window with her chin resting on her palm, staring out at the empty courtyard with an expression that was impossible to read. She wasn't crying. She wasn't trembling. She was just… watching.

And beside her, almost comically out of place by contrast, was Saitou Asuka.

The first-years' very own miracle. The kind of girl who walked into a room and made every second-year and third-year boy suddenly forget how to breathe.

She'd been the undisputed primadona of the incoming class since the moment she stepped onto the stage at orientation, and the scary thing was, she didn't even seem to know it. Or if she did, she didn't care.

Asuka was beautiful in the way that made you want to use words like kawaii and actually mean them. Big eyes. Perfect posture. Hair that caught the light in ways that seemed physically improbable. Her uniform was immaculate, pressed, tucked, tied exactly according to the dress code illustration in the student handbook. The kind of girl who probably returned her library books on time and never forgot her indoor shoes.

And yet, and this was the part that made me feel vaguely uncomfortable to notice, she was sitting close enough to Karin that their shoulders were almost touching.

Two girls from opposite ends of the first-year social spectrum, drawn together by nothing except the apocalypse that might have just happened.

And then it snapped back to me.

Shit. Nice one, Jouji. Sixty minutes into the end of the world and you're already cataloguing first-years.

I forced my eyes to keep moving.

And that was when it hit me.

It made me bit my bottom lip.

Not a thought. Not a realization. A physical sensation, a cold prickle that started at the base of my skull and crawled downward, vertebra by vertebra, until it settled somewhere in my stomach like a stone.

Every girl in this room was beautiful.

Every. Single. One.

I scanned the faces again, slower this time, actually looking instead of just registering. The senpai. The kouhai. The girls from my year, some of whom I'd never even spoken to, and whose names I'd never bothered to learn because thirty-eight GTA kids in 1-B was already overwhelming.

All of them fit. All of them looked healthy.

Not one face that fell below the invisible median. Not one body that looked underweight or overweight. No acne scars. No features that made you want to politely look away.

It was like someone had gone through the school with a casting director's clipboard and only kept the ones who made the cut.

The chill spread to my shoulders.

I thought about the two girls from my own class, 2-B. The ones I'd barely registered last week because I'd been too wrapped up in my inner GTA gang, too comfortable in my little bubble of Dodo's snorting laughter and Sera's eye-rolls and Ren's quiet perceptiveness.

What were their names?

One had shoulder-length hair, clean and straight. Shy posture. Glasses she kept pushing up her nose. I thought her name might be Shizuka.

Kawamura? Kawamoto? Something with a kawa..

And the other, a bit taller than me, with long dark hair she wore in a single braid down her back. Madoka. Higashi Madoka. That one I was maybe seventy percent sure about.

They were both beautiful too.

Stop it.

I blinked. Hard.

This was insane. This was absolutely, certifiably insane. I was standing in a classroom full of girls who all looked like they'd been plucked from a gravure magazine's special edition, and the only other two boys in the room were a soccer striker with a perm and a scrawny bassist who still hadn't figured out how to fill out his uniform.

Three boys. The rest are girls. And all of them…

"Jo.. Jouji…"

Rena's voice cut through the spiral of my freight train of thoughts.

She was standing in front of me, holding out the crumpled sheet of paper. Her fingers were trembling, just slightly, the kind of tremor you'd miss if you weren't looking for it.

But I was. I was looking at everything now.

"This is everyone." Her voice was steadier than her hands. "Total… Total is thirty-three people. Three boys," she swallowed, "the rest are girls."

I gulped. I took the paper.

The handwriting was Rena's definitely, a little rushed, a little shaky, but legible. Names. Classes. Laid out in neat little rows like the world still made sense and this was just another roll call on just another Monday.

Attendance — Kamishiro High, Classroom 1-A

First year

1. Saitou Asuka — 1-A
2. Morikawa Ayano — 1-A
3. Fujiwara Kaede — 1-C
4. Arai Makoto — 1-D
5. Nakajima Hana — 1-D
6. Kujou Karin — 1-E
7. Nomura Yuki — 1-E
8. Ogawa Miki — 1-E
9. Tanabe Aoi — 1-F

Second year

1. Suzuki Sayaka — 2-A
2. Shigeru Jouji — 2-B
3. Kawamura Shizuka — 2-B
4. Higashi Madoka — 2-B
5. Kikuchi Chisato — 2-C
6. Manami Yua — 2-C
7. Toudou Daichi — 2-C
8. Takahashi Moe — 2-D
9. Shimizu Mai — 2-D
10. Yamamoto Eri — 2-E
11. Shimizu Umi — 2-F
12. Tanaka Fumiko — 2-F
13. Ichinose Rena — 2-F
14. Kobayashi Rina — 2-F

Third year

1. Anzai Nagisa — 3-A
2. Asou Fumi — 3-A
3. Taniguchi Riko — 3-B
4. Matsushima Marina — 3-B
5. Abe Airi — 3-D
6. Ishikawa Rie — 3-D
7. Oonishi Saki — 3-E
8. Sakamoto Miho — 3-E
9. Tsuchiya Nao — 3-F
10. Yoshida Haruka — 3-F

I read through it twice.

Three boys. Me, Donda, and Makoto.

And thirty girls. All of them.

All of them…

I folded the paper and tucked it into my blazer pocket.

I got this. I have to.

I clapped my hands together.

The sound cut through the low-frequency murmur like a blade. Heads turned. Sniffles stopped. Even Fumiko's glassy eyes drifted vaguely in my direction.

"Ehem."

I took a step forward, toward the center of the room. Toward the teacher's podium, not because I wanted to stand at it, but because it was there, and right now, anything that looked like authority was probably a good idea.

"Guys," My voice came out steadier than I thought.

"Senpai."

A deeper bow toward the third-years. Nagisa-senpai, who met my eyes with that gentle, unshakeable calm. Fumi-senpai, who raised one eyebrow like she was reserving judgment. Riko-senpai, Marina-senpai, Airi-senpai, and the others, all watching, all waiting.

"Kouhai."

I turned slightly, dipping my head toward the first-year cluster in the back, Makoto, Asuka, Karin, and the others whose names I'd just learned and already felt responsible for.

"My fellow year-mates."

I addressed Rena, Chisaton, Donda, Yua, Fumiko, Umi, those two of my new classmates, Shizuka and Madoka, and the others.

Every pair of eyes in the room locked onto me.

"I'm Jouji. Shigeru Jouji. Class 2-B. Please call me Jouji."

Straight to my first name. There's no reason for formality anymore.

"Look."

I let the word hang there for a second. Buying time. Thirty pairs of eyes and not one of them was blinking.

"I'm not saying this means I'm in charge or anything. That's not what this is." I shoved my hands into my blazer pockets, partly for comfort, partly so no one would see they were shaking. "I already checked the whole school. Main building. The rear building. The gym. The club equipment sheds. Every washroom, toilets. Even the ones at the pool."

A beat.

"There's no one else. Just us."

I let that sink in. It sunk into me too, saying it out loud.

"And the guys…" I jerked my thumb toward Donda, still cradling Yua in the corner, then toward the back where Makoto was on watch duty of the girls. "It's just me, Donda, and Makoto."

"Three of us. That's it. If I don't at least try to speak up…"

I trailed off. Shrugged.

"Well. That'd be pretty stupid, right?"

Someone let out a shaky breath. Might have been a laugh. Might have been the opposite. Hard to tell anymore.

"Some of you know me. Maybe. And I know some of you." I turned slightly, scanning the second-year cluster. "Uh… we're in the same class. Right? Kawamura-san. Higashi-san."

Shizuka, the one with the shoulder-length hair and glasses, flinched like I'd thrown a baseball at her forehead. Her cheeks went pink. She pushed her glasses up her nose in that nervous tic. She nodded.

Madoka just nodded. Slow. Measured. Her braid shifted against her back.

"Now, if you all don't mind… Can I call out your names so at least we can all be sure that no one's left behind?" I said.

Ripple of nods.

Then I started calling all of them, one by one.

My voice found cracks every once in a while in between names.

"Look." I turned back to the room at large after everyone was checked.

"I don't know what happened. None of us do. This is insane. I don't know if it's aliens, or the apocalypse, or some kind of supernatural seinen manga bullshit. I don't know. I didn't even see it happen."

I paused. Might as well be honest.

"I was asleep during assembly."

A few blinks. A few uncertain glances.

"Yeah. I know. My friends ditched me in the classroom, actually no, I decided not to go with them for five more minutes nap, so I slept through the end of the world." I let a dry, humorless smile tug at the corner of my mouth.

"Rena-chan found me. By the time I woke up, everyone was already…"

Rena, still standing near the window, looked down at her shoes. The crumpled attendance sheet was back in her hands even though she'd already given me the copy. She was holding onto it like a lifeline. For the first time, I saw that the pink streak in her hair didn't fit her expression.

"And, uh…"

Here we go.

"I have a girlfriend."

Beat.

"No. Ex."

Beat.

"No. Still girlfriend. She broke up with me last night but I haven't responded yet. So technically…" I waved a hand vaguely. "Point is. She goes to Asakaze Minami. I called her earlier. It's the same over there. About twenty people left. Two guys. The rest girls."

I could feel Rena's eyes on me. I didn't look back.

"So this isn't just Kamishiro High. It's not just us. Whatever this is…"

I pulled out my phone. Flipped it open. The screen glowed blue in the fluorescent light of the classroom.

My thumb froze over the keypad.

"Fuck."

The word came out before I could stop it. I held the phone up so they could all see, which was sort of pointless.

It was one of my what ifs. Now it wasn't.

The little antenna icon in the corner was gone. Just… empty space where the bars used to be.

"Signal's dead."

The murmur that rippled through the room was sharper than before. Panic with an edge. A few girls immediately checked their own phones, the snap of flip-phones opening, the chirp of tiny screens lighting up, and then the same hollow silence as one by one they all realized.

"Yeah." I closed my phone and shoved it back in my pocket. "I think… I think we have to assume this didn't just happen at Kamishiro. Or Asakaze."

I scanned the room.

"Does anyone else have anything to add? How was it during the mass disappearance? The vanishing?"

Silence.

And then, from near the window…

"I was in line."

Karin's voice was lower than I expected. Not deep, exactly, but… textured. The kind of voice that didn't need volume to carry. She hadn't moved from her spot, chin still resting on her palm, eyes still fixed somewhere in the middle distance.

"Just standing there. Waiting for the principal to finish whatever he was saying." She shrugged one shoulder. "Then suddenly, everyone was gone. Like someone pressed pause and deleted everyone."

No tremor. No tears. Just a flat, matter-of-fact delivery that was somehow more unsettling than if she'd been weeping.

Fumi-senpai snorted from her spot against the far wall.

"Same here." She uncrossed her arms, gesturing vaguely with one hand. The blonde streaks in her hair caught the light. "I was laughing my ass off in the back row, not listening to a single word Baldy-Matsu was saying. Casual Monday. Talking over him." A wry smirk. "Then, poof. Exactly what the kouhai said. Silence. And the only person left anywhere near me was Nagisa, two rows up."

Nagisa-senpai nodded, her expression unreadable. She didn't add anything. She didn't need to.

Riko-senpai, Student Council, sharp-eyed, already looking at this like a puzzle to be solved, cleared her throat.

"There wasn't any kind of… effect. Special effect, like in films or anime. No light. No sound. No distortion." She spoke carefully, choosing each word like she was placing pieces on a chessboard.

Yua's voice came next, muffled against Donda's blazer. She'd pulled her face out just enough to speak.

"I was walking down to the assembly, with Natsu-chan and Chika-chan. We were talking about… I don't even remember what. Something stupid. And then…" She swallowed, "…they were gone. Everyone around me. Just… gone. There was a lot…"

Chisaton nodded. Still staring at the blackboard. When she spoke, her voice was louder than the others as usual. All necks turned to her.

"I was still in the classroom. Borrowing lip gloss from…" She stopped. Blinked. "I was borrowing lip gloss. From… umm… one of my friends. And then she wasn't there anymore. The lip gloss was still in my hand."

She held up her palm like the evidence was still there.

And typical Chisaton, I bet she couldn't even remember whose it was.

No one said anything for a long moment.

Then Makoto shifted near the door.

"Senpai." His voice cracked slightly on the second syllable. He cleared his throat, tried again. "I was… I was late. Running late. Me and my two friends were getting our outdoor shoes from the lockers before heading outside. I was bent down fitting in one of my shoes, and when I stood up…"

He stopped. His jaw worked for a second, like he was trying to chew his way through the memory.

"They were gone. Both of them. Just… gone. And everyone else around us."

"The weird thing was, Senpai…" He continued, hesitated.

"What?"

"One of my friends, Kenji, one of his indoor shoes was still there. Just one. The one he had put in the locker."

That detail landed somewhere in my stomach and stayed there.

One shoe.

What the hell?

I stared at him. Still. Cringing my face.

My brain was trying to assemble these pieces into something that made sense and coming up with precisely nothing. One shoe left behind in the locker. No light. No sound. One moment there, the next, erased.

I filed it under problems for later and forced myself back to the present.

"Okay." I rubbed the back of my neck. "So they really did just… vanish. Not like abducted by alien-beam or something. Not dragged off. Just…" I snapped my fingers. " …gone?"

A few nods. No one looked happy about the confirmation.

What's this? Thanos?

"Has anyone managed to contact family? Relatives? Friends outside school?"

A wave of head-shakes rippled through the room.

"I did."

One of the first-years. A girl I barely recognized until I called her name before. She was Yuki, small, mousy, with her phone clutched in both hands like a talisman.

"I… I'm Nomura Yuki. From 1-E. Please call me Yuki."

Polite.

"I… I was texting my friend. From junior high. She goes to Kamishiro Nishi now." Yuki's voice was thin but steadier than she looked. "She said… she said it's the same there. Everyone disappeared. She said…" Yuki squinted at her phone screen, even though there was no signal to check. "She said all that's left are girls, except three boys. Like… us."

A pause.

"And then I tried to text back and the signal was…" She held up her phone helplessly.

Kamishiro Nishi High.

Kenta, Takeshi, Junpei, Aoi. Are you guys alright? I thought to myself quick before dread swallowed me up again.

Something cold settled into the base of my spine and made itself at home.

And that made three schools. Three high schools, same pattern. Overwhelmingly girls.

"Alright."

I turned back to face the whole room. Thirty-three people. Three boys. Thirty girls.

All of them looking at me like I was supposed to know what the hell to do next.

"Here's what it comes down to. We have two choices."

I held up one finger.

"Option one. We stay here. Wait for help. Police. JSDF. Whoever. Stay in one place so if anyone comes looking, they find us."

I held up a second finger.

"Option two. We leave. Go home. Check on our house, our families."

And there it was.

The shift in the air was immediate. Faces that had been blank with shock suddenly cracked open. Fear. Hope. Desperation. A dozen voices started to rise at once.

"My mom…"

"My little brother…"

"I need to…"

"Please, I have to…"

"…grandmother lives alone…"

I raised both hands. The voices didn't stop, but they lowered. Barely.

"I get it. Believe me. I want to check on my family too." Okaa-chan. Mio. Shouta. They flashed through my head in quick succession, images I couldn't afford to dwell on right now. "But here's the problem. Where does everyone live?"

A pause.

Hands started going up. Answers came in a messy chorus.

"Kichijoji…"

"Mitaka…"

"I'm in Tachikawa…"

"Kamigawa…"

"Nishi-Ogikubo…"

Two stations. Three stations. Some even further. On a normal day, these were nothing. Twenty, thirty minutes on the bus or Keio Line. But this wasn't a normal day. No phones. No way of knowing what the stations looked like. No way of knowing if the trains were even running.

Rena, who'd been quietly taking mental notes through the whole exchange, stepped forward.

"How many of us live close? Walking or cycling distance?"

I raised mine and we counted hands.

It didn't take long.

Eleven.

Out of thirty-three, only eleven people lived close enough to the school to walk or cycle home without needing a train or a bus.

Me. Chisaton. Fumi-senpai. A handful of others whose names I was still memorizing.

The rest, more than twenty people, were stranded.

"Okay." I exhaled slowly, running a hand through my hair and mess it up.

The mop was felt less Revolver now, more like Disintegration-era Robert Smith.

"Eleven people. That's… that's workable."

I looked toward the far wall. Toward the girl with the blonde streaks and a presence that can shut you up just from being present. Partly because of that, partly because she was one of the eleven.

"Asou-senpai."

I moved toward the back corner of the classroom, away from the main cluster, closing in on where she stood.

Fumi-senpai's eyebrow rose a fraction of an inch. "Shigeru."

"Can I talk to you for a second?"

Fumi-senpai pushed off the wall and followed. No hesitation, no questions. But something in her expression had shifted. A flicker. Barely there and gone.

All eyes were on us for a split second.

We stood near the window, voices low.

"Here's what I'm thinking," I said. "I need to check the outside first. See what's out there. The streets. The neighborhood. Whether…" I paused. Swallowed. "Whether it's just the schools or…"

"…or everything." Fumi-senpai finished the sentence I didn't want to finish.

"Yeah."

Her eyes were sharp, unblinking, held mine for a long moment.

"You've thought this through."

It wasn't a question.

Fumi-senpai's arms were still crossed, but something in her posture loosened. Just slightly.

"I also need to grab my Jog," I said. "It's parked at the 7-Eleven. If things are… if it's safe out there… then I'll come back, brief everyone, and send the eleven of us who live close. In groups. Check our houses. Then, worst case, come back here."

Fumi-senpai nodded. "And the other twenty-two?"

"They stay here. Doors locked. Someone capable in charge." I glanced toward the corner. "Donda's solid. Rena-chan's been holding it together since this started. And Shimizu-san, Umi, she's got a better head for crisis than half the third-years I know."

"You mean half the third-years in this room."

Fuck. Wrong choice of words.

"I didn't say that." I held my grin.

"You didn't have to." An almost-grin flickered from her. "I'll handle it."

She turned back toward the room.

"Alright, listen up!" Her voice cut through the low hum of conversation like a hot knife. Every head turned on us again. Fumi-senpai had that effect.

"Shigeru and I are scouting outside. Just the two of us. While we're gone…"

She's going too? Of course.

She scanned the room. Her eyes landed.

"Donda. Soccer kid." The soccer ace straightened. "You're in charge of everyone. Rena. Shimizu Umi. You're with him. Anything happens, anything at all, you three make the call. Not Nagisa. Not Riko. You."

A ripple of surprise went through the third-year cluster. Nagisa-senpai's expression didn't change, if anything, she looked faintly relieved.

Rena blinked. "Fumisen, I…"

"You kept your head when everyone else lost theirs," Fumi-senpai said flatly. "Don't make me repeat myself."

Rena closed her mouth. Nodded.

Umi. Shimizu Umi, Yamato Nadeshiko incarnate, still cradling Fumiko's head, met Fumi-senpai's gaze with that steady, serene expression. She didn't argue. She just nodded in quick succession, as if being appointed to a crisis leadership position by a third-year sukeban was a perfectly normal Monday occurrence.

A few girls exchanged glances. The weight of those words settled over the room like a second ceiling.

"Donda." I nodded as I turned heading towards the door with Fumi-senpai behind me. Donda casually nodded back, but his eyes were sharp.

I started walking toward the door and stopped for a second. Makoto was still standing there beside the first-year clusters.

"Makoto."

"Senpai."

"Hold the fort."

He straightened up so fast I thought his spine might snap. "Y.. Yes, Senpai!"

I paused, then walked towards him. Pat his upper-arm a little bit harder than I intended.

"You're doing fine, by the way. The bass thing, too. 'Stop Crying Your Heart Out' was the only song that didn't fall apart at orientation."

His eyes went wide.

"You… You saw?"

"Everyone saw it. I'm just the only one telling you the truth."

I let go, walked back towards the door and slid it open before he could figure out how to respond.

Behind me, I heard Fumi-senpai's boots on the linoleum following.

Just the two of us strolling out of the classroom to an empty hallway.

The hallway swallowed us whole. After the weight of thirty-three people crammed into one room, the silence outside felt like a physical thing. Thick and cold and completely uninterested in whether we'd make it back.

And somewhere in that silence, Nanase was probably waiting for a call I couldn't make anymore.

 

[darkrednotmaroon]

Chapter 4 - Shocker

"Wait."

I stopped halfway down the corridor.

"My bag. I need my bag. Everything's still there, my Jog key, too."

Fumi-senpai raised an eyebrow but didn't argue. We climbed the stairs to the second floor, our footsteps echoing in the empty stairwell like we were the last two people on earth.

Which, for all I knew, we almost were.

2-B was exactly how Rena and I had left it.

Desks in their neat little rows. Chairs pushed in, or not, depending on whose they were. The chalkboard still had whatever notes Takeda-sensei had scrawled last Friday. And the bags.

Bags everywhere.

Dodo's beat-up nylon backpack slumped against his chair like he'd be back any second. Sera's tote, the one with the little cat charm she'd bought in Harajuku, hanging from her desk hook. Ren's meticulously organized satchel, the kind that probably had color-coded folders inside. All of them. All still here. All waiting for owners who weren't coming back from assembly.

I didn't let myself look too long.

Fumi-senpai stood in the doorway, arms crossed, scanning the room with an expression I couldn't read. Maybe she was thinking the same thing I was. Maybe she wasn't. Hard to tell with her.

I grabbed my bag from beside my desk. The same grey knockoff messenger bag I'd been using since third-year junior high, frayed at the corners, the strap held together with duct tape and stubbornness. Inside: one spiral notebook that served every subject because I couldn't be bothered with multiple. My CD player, a Sony Discman that skipped if you breathed on it wrong. Two records I'd grabbed on my way out the door this morning: Blur: The Best Of and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

"That everything?" Fumi-senpai's voice echoed slightly in the empty classroom.

"Yeah."

I slung the bag over my shoulder and we headed upstairs to get Fumi-senpai's.

All the same in the third floor.

Then we headed down.

The main entrance was dead quiet. Our footsteps on the linoleum. The distant hum of the vending machines. Nothing else.

I checked my phone as we walked. The screen still glowed blue. 9:47.

About an hour since everything went to hell.

No signal. Just that empty little antenna icon, mocking me.

We stepped outside. The courtyard stretched before us. Empty now, the last cherry blossom petals scattered across the stone like confetti from a celebration nobody had attended. The sky was still that pale, indecisive April blue.

And then I remembered.

"Asou-senpai. Wait here."

I didn't wait for her response. Just took off running toward the sports ground.

The field was worse than it had ever been.

You could see where they'd been standing. The assembly formation, class markers still planted in the grass, little placards on metal stakes: 1-A, 1-B, 1-C.

Don't think about it.

I made a beeline for the equipment shed, the big metal container near the soccer goalposts that also served the baseball club and the track-and-field team.

The door was unlocked. Of course it was. Who locks up during morning assembly?

Inside: Soccer balls. Hurdles. Relay batons. And…

There.

Four metal baseball bats, leaning against the corner rack. Aluminum alloy. Scuffed from practice but perfectly functional. I grabbed one in each hand, swung them once to feel the weight.

Not for baseball.

Fumi-senpai was right where I'd left her, chewing gum with the slow, deliberate rhythm of someone who'd been doing it since junior high and had long since stopped caring if teachers noticed.

She saw the bats.

And she grinned.

Not the smirk from before. Not the cool, guarded half-expression she'd been wearing all morning. A real grin, the kind that reached her eyes and said finally, someone who gets it.

"Here, Asou-senpai." I held one out to her.

She took it. Gave it an experimental swing, one-handed, wrist-casual, like she'd done this before and wasn't about to pretend otherwise.

"You really do think ahead, don't you?"

"Hngh…" I rested my bat across my shoulder. "I'm on a mission with the sukeban of Kamishiro High. Can't disappoint the Queen."

The words came out before I could stop them, that default setting my mouth had, the one that got me in trouble more often than it got me out of it.

She barked out a laugh. Actually laughed. Swinging her bat in a lazy figure-eight.

"Queen? The hell are you talking about? Nagisa is Queen." She jerked her thumb toward the main building. "What does that make me? Demon Lord?"

The reference was obvious. Nagisa-senpai. the Queen of Kamishiro High, an uncontested title she'd held since before last year's third-years had even graduated.

Part of Fumi-senpai's crew, technically, but anyone who thought that made her a delinquent, had clearly never spoken to her. She was humble. Genuinely, almost absurdly humble for someone whose wink could launch a thousand war ships.

Underclassmen wrote her poetry. The Idol of idols.

And Fumi-senpai, feared more than loved, respected more than admired, the sukeban nobody wanted to cross. Different thrones. Same kingdom.

"Ha.. hahah. Whatever." I shrugged, still walking. "To me, if a girl's cute, pretty, adorable… she's a Queen. Or a Princess. Simple."

Her chewing stopped for half a beat.

Then resumed, faster. Harder.

Her face was red.

Not the faint pink of mild embarrassment. A proper flush. The kind that started at the cheekbones and spread outward, the kind she was trying very hard to chew her way through.

She smirked.

I'm so fucking dead.

"Sh… shit. Hahah." I stared back, straight ahead, very deliberately not looking at her. "Sorry, Asou-senpai. You know. End of the world. Fucking nerves, right?" I gestured abruptly.

She laughed again. Louder this time. And she didn't say anything about it. Didn't call me out. Didn't shut me down. Just kept walking beside me, swinging that bat, gum-snapping rhythm slightly faster than before.

If anything, and I might have been imagining this, my brain wasn't exactly running at baseline right now. If anything, she looked… pleased.

We walked through the school gate.

---

And the world outside was wrong.

Not wrong in the way the empty school was wrong. That was contained.

Expected, almost, a building full of vanished students was terrifying, but it was a terror you could wrap your head around.

Because that was what the school was, at night for example.

I'd ridden past the school plenty of times after dark.

A single location. A single event.

This was different.

The street in front of Kamishiro High should have been busy. Maybe not Shibuya-busy, not on a Monday morning. But cars. Delivery trucks. The occasional motorbike. Mothers on bicycles with shopping bags. Salarymen trudging toward the station. The background hum of a residential-commercial district going about its Monday.

Instead: nothing.

Just the street. The buildings. The parked cars lined up neatly along the curb. A bicycle leaned against a railing. A vending machine humming to itself, still glowing, still stocked.

No engines. No horns. No voices.

"No cars..," I murmured, more to myself than to Fumi-senpai. "No bikes…"

She was scanning, too. Eyes sharp, bat resting on her shoulder now, gum-chewing slowed to something more contemplative. The street stretched out ahead of us, broad and empty and deeply, fundamentally wrong.

"But the ones that are parked here are fine," she said slowly. "Everything's… neat."

She was right. That was the weirdest part, not just the emptiness, but the tidiness of it. If drivers had vanished at the wheel, there should have been collisions. Cars run up onto curbs. Motorbikes on their sides. The chaos of suddenly-unmanned vehicles.

Instead, every existing car was parked. Every motorbike was on its stand. Every bicycle was leaned or racked.

Then I stopped walking.

Oh shit.

My eyes went wide.

Empty roads. Parked cars. One shoe.

No fucking way.

"Oi! Shigeru?!" Fumi-senpai called me out from five, six steps ahead.

"Ye.. Yeah… Sorry…" I continued catching up to her. "I.. got caught up with something…"

"What?"

"I.. I'll tell you later."

A cat slunk across the road. Paused. Stared at us with the unmistakable judgment of all cats everywhere. Then continued on its way.

Birds. A few crows on a power line. Sparrows in the shrubs.

Animals were fine. Just no humans.

The 7-Eleven was about five minutes from the school gate. Close enough to be our unofficial hangout spot, far enough that the teachers couldn't be bothered to chase us there. I'd spent probably a hundred nights in that parking lot, leaning against my Jog or the vending machine, drinking whatever was on sale, talking shit with the Ichi-chu crew until midnight.

And there it was. Familiar green-and-orange sign. Automatic doors. Fluorescent glow spilling onto the empty sidewalk.

And beside it, in the little parking nook behind the store…

"Thank God. My Jog."

My red Yamaha Jog. Faded. Scratched up. The seat cover had a tear I'd patched with electrical tape. The left mirror was slightly crooked from the time Dodo had knocked it over trying to sit on it. Two years of abuse and it was still the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

Fumi-senpai wasn't looking at the Jog, though. She was scanning the main road, Kamishiro-chuo-dori, Kamishiro central street, the one that should have been lined with morning traffic. Her jaw was tight.

Nothing. Just storefronts. Shuttered stalls. A few businesses with their lights on, doors open, no one inside.

"The konbini's open," I said. "Twenty-four hours. Obviously."

She followed me inside.

The 7-Eleven was surreal.

Lights on. Refrigerators humming. The oden warmer bubbling gently in the corner. All the shelves fully stocked: onigiri, sandwiches, melonpan, bento boxes lined up like nothing had happened. The cash register was on. The Slurpee machine was spinning.

Just… no cashier. No customers. No old lady taking forever to count out exact change.

I walked straight up to the Slurpee machine, grabbed the biggest cup they had, and filled it with the blue flavor, the one that tasted like chemicals and childhood and made your tongue turn the color of a Smurf for three hours.

"Ahh!"

The brain freeze hit immediately. Worth it.

Fumi-senpai stared at me like I'd just sprouted a second head.

"Are you insane?"

"Insane?" I took another sip. "Look around, Asou-senpai. Who's gonna yell at me? Fujisawa?"

Math teacher. The strictest, most terrifying human being to ever pace a classroom. He'd taught me last year and I'd barely survived because I couldn't laze and clown around him. If I'd gone Rikei, I would've had him again for Math III. One more reason Bunkei was the right call.

Fumi-senpai snorted. Then, slowly, like she was trying very hard not to be amused, she walked over, took the cup out of my hand, filled it again, and drank.

"Ahh."

Her cheeks were still pink.

I had to stay sane. Whatever the cost. Whatever it took. If that meant treating a konbini like my personal living room while the world outside had apparently ended, then fine. Great. Pass the Slurpee.

She set the cup down and started wandering the aisles. Picked up a few packs of gum. Some candy. Tossed them into her bag.

"Oi, Shigeru. We heading back soon?"

"Wait."

I walked to the cigarette counter.

Glass case. Fully stocked. Mild Seven. Seven Stars. Lark. Hope. All of it.

I reached behind the counter, because what were they gonna do, stop me?

And grabbed maybe fifteen packs of Mild Seven. Tossed them into my bag.

"Shigeru?!"

"What? I smoke." I was already tearing open a pack, pulling one out, lighting it.

"Socially, though. But after all this?"

I took a long drag. Right there. In the middle of the 7-Eleven. Under the fluorescent lights. In front of the onigiri.

Exhaled.

"Hahh… Fuck. Smoking indoors in a 7-Eleven is something else."

She cracked. Laughter, real, full-bodied laughter; burst out of her like something she'd been holding in since this morning and couldn't keep down anymore. She walked over, grabbed the cigarette from between my fingers, took a drag of her own, and handed it back.

Of course she smoked. Of course she did.

"You're something else, Shigeru." She shook her head, still smiling.

"It's crazy, isn't it?" She continued.

"Yeah, well." I took another drag. "My friend Takeshi, face like a block of tofu, two nights ago he was bragging to the whole gang about finally getting to second base in a karaoke box. Tongue and everything. And I remember sitting right there," I pointed out to the concrete near the vending machine outside, "thinking, there's no way anything could be crazier than this guy having a girlfriend."

Fumi-senpai was already laughing again.

"And then this." I gestured vaguely at the empty store, the empty street, the empty world.

"So… can't get any crazier." Another drag as I shrugged.

She leaned against the counter, cigarette trailing smoke, shaking her head.

She pulled one cigarette from the opened box and lit it for herself.

A drag.

Two.

When she looked at me again, something in her face had shifted. The careful, guarded mask she'd been wearing all morning, the sukeban armor, the don't-mess-with-me energy, had cracked open just enough to let something else through.

"When it happened…"

Her voice was quieter now.

"…the vanishing. When everyone disappeared. If Nagisa hadn't snapped me out of it…" She took a long drag. Exhaled slowly. "I froze. Completely. I was standing there, watching girls run around screaming, and I couldn't move. Couldn't think. I've never frozen like that. Never. Not once."

She laughed, but there was no humor in it.

"I thought… this is it. Karma finally caught up. For everything I've done. Everyone I've messed with." Her eyes were fixed on some point in the middle distance. "I've never been that… afraid. I admit that."

"And then you showed up. You and Rena. Shimizu was already down there. And the soccer kid, Donda. Handling Fumikoppai. Handling everyone. Taking charge. Meanwhile me, Nagisa, Riko, the whole third-year, we were just standing there like idiots. Frozen."

Fumikoppai. That was the third-years' nickname for Fumiko, a reference to her enormous feature that was about as subtle as a brick through a window. None of us second-years used it. It just felt… wrong, coming from her peers. Like an inside joke we hadn't earned the right to.

Another drag. Longer this time.

"Haha. Fuck."

I didn't say anything for a moment. What was there to say? The sukeban of Kamishiro High, the girl who'd probably made half the school's girl population cry at some point, was admitting she'd been scared. That was huge.

That was the kind of moment you didn't ruin with a joke.

So I ruined it with a recurring joke.

"Well, you know, can't really blame you. Like I said. Takeshi. A living tofu. Second base. Karaoke box." I shrugged. "If I can survive that mental image, you can survive this."

She stared at me.

And then she laughed. Hard. Loud. The kind of laugh that echoed off the convenience store walls and probably scared the cats outside.

"Fuck you, Shigeru." But she was smiling. A real smile, one that reached her eyes and stayed there. "You're clever."

The sukeban of Kamishiro High just said I was clever.

I felt about three centimeters taller. Which put me at a very respectable 170.

Not the best day of my life. But I'd take any win right now.

Then she walked over to the front counter.

And grabbed every box of condoms on the display rack.

"Heh?!"

My cigarette nearly fell out of my mouth.

"Wha… Senpai?!"

"Just in case," She said it like she was grabbing extra napkins. Utterly matter-of-fact. Utterly unbothered. She opened my bag, my bag, mind you, and started stuffing them inside. One box. Two. Five. Ten. There had to be at least twenty boxes in there by the time she was done.

"Just… in case…" I repeated, because my brain had apparently decided that parroting was the best it could manage right now.

Why does it feel like she's flirting with me?

Nah.

Nah.. She's definitely flirting with me.

Shit.

Physical response. Involuntary. Completely. Totally. One hundred percent.

Nanase…

Nanase…

Nacchi.

Gone. Mostly.

I zipped my bag with slightly more force than necessary and walked toward the front of the store. Needed air. Needed to not be standing next to the condom display while Fumi-senpai looked at me like that.

Like what, exactly?

Not sure.

But like that.

We stood outside the 7-Eleven, cigarettes trailing smoke into the empty morning.

My Jog was waiting patiently in its spot. The street stretched out in both directions. Nothing moving, nothing making a sound.

The Slurpee was still cold in my hand. The Mild Seven was still burning.

"Asou-senpai. There's.."

"Fumi."

I blinked.

"Call me Fumi."

She wasn't looking at me. Eyes fixed on the empty intersection ahead. But her voice was different. Softer. Or maybe not softer, just less hard. Less like steel.

"Fumi-senpai…"

"Fumi."

"Nghh… Fumi-chan…"

"Fuck you!" She laughed, that same real laugh from before.

I couldn't help grinning. "Come on. Fumi-tan." I escalated deliberately. Pushed it. Because at this point, what were the rules anymore?

"I really am going to kill you."

But her face was burning. Bright red. Cheeks, ears, even her neck; the flush had gone nuclear. And she was smiling so hard it looked like it hurt.

Damn it. She's fucking cute.

"Ergh… It just feels weird, okay? Bear with me." My own smile wasn't going anywhere either. "Fumi-tan."

"Whatever." She looked away, but the smile stayed.

I took a breath.

"I've got a theory."

The shift was immediate. Her smile didn't disappear, but it settled, her eyes sharpening, her posture straightening. Listening.

"A stupid one. And I'm not telling the others yet." I took a drag. "I'm still hoping someone's coming to save us. Government. Police. JSDF. Some random 7-Eleven employee who happened to be in the bathroom."

"And?"

"And…" I gestured at the street with my cigarette. "Makoto's story. His friend, Kenji, whatever his name was. One indoor shoe still in the locker. The other one, gone. Along with him."

Fumi-senpai nodded slowly.

"Kenji was holding one shoe. Putting the other one away. The one in the locker stays. The one in his hand goes with him. And now," I waved at the empty road. "No crashed cars. No overturned bikes. Everything neatly parked. Nobody vanished mid-drive."

Her eyes narrowed. "You're saying… the people who disappeared took their stuff with them?"

"Not necessarily their stuff. The stuff they were touching. Stuff they were using." I tapped ash onto the pavement. "But think about it. If I'm an alien, or some kind of tokusatsu evil organization… like SHOCKER…" She nodded at SHOCKER, "… or whatever. And I'm abducting people, hundred thousands of people, do I really want all their cars? Their motorbikes? Their shopping bags? Some dude who was mid-cigarette? Some poor bastard in a toilet with his shit still hanging halfway out his ass?"

She cracked even before I got to finish my last sentence, a sharp, involuntary bark of laughter that she didn't quite manage to suppress.

I laughed with her.

To be fair. I surprised even myself.

"The poor toilet bastard," she said, shaking her head. "I'm gonna be thinking about the poor toilet bastard all day now." But even through the laughter, her eyes were still sharp.

"That's…" She trailed off after her laughter receded.

"Absurd?"

"Yeah."

"Everything about this is absurd. That's the point."

She nodded. Conceded.

"So here's the theory." I took one last drag and crushed the cigarette under my heel.

"You know what a multiverse is? Another universe theory? Pocket universe?"

"Don't talk otaku stuff to me!" She was laughing again, but it was the laugh of someone who was following along despite herself.

"But you know SHOCKER!"

"Old Kamen Riders are cool."

Damn. She knows shit.

"Okay, okay. Simple version." I held up my hands. "Imagine there's another world. An exact copy of ours. But empty. No people. Just… the stuff. Mirror world, Kamen Rider Ryuuki? No? The buildings. The parked cars. The 7-Eleven. Everything. And at a certain moment, the moment of the vanishing, that empty world took a snapshot of our world. Registered every inanimate object in our world. Every car. Every bike. Every shoe in a locker. And it froze at that second."

She was staring at me now. Not laughing. Still confused.

"And when the snapshot happened," I said, "it only captured what was still or not in someone's possession, in a sense. Parked cars. Bikes on their stands. Shoes in lockers. Empty buildings and everything in it. But anything that was moving, any car being driven, any motorbike and moped on the road, any bicycle someone was pedaling, that one shoe in Kenji's hand, the snapshot didn't register them. They were in motion. They belonged to someone. So they weren't frozen and brought into the copy." I met her gaze.

"And when it finished… we didn't stay behind in the real world. We got pulled across. Into this one. The empty one."

Her eyes went wide.

"So the people who vanished…" She trailed off.

"…aren't the ones who vanished." I finished her sentence, met her gaze. "We are. We're the ones who disappeared from the real world. And we got dumped here. In this… empty copy."

The words hung in the air between us.

A crow cawed somewhere in the distance. The Slurpee machine hummed inside the 7-Eleven. And Fumi-senpai just stared at me like I'd solved a riddle she hadn't even known she was trying to crack.

"Shige… Jouji."

"Yeah?" She called me by my name.

"That's…" She shook her head slowly. But she wasn't dismissing it. She was processing it. Turning it over. Testing the edges.

"I know," I said. "Stupid."

"Yeah." She pulled out another cigarette, lit it, exhaled. "But it fits."

It did.

"Fumi-tan."

I crushed the last of my cigarette under my heel.

"Don't tell the others about this yet. This is just theory and I'm not a hundred percent sure of it." I looked at her. "I still want to be optimistic. Someone's coming to save us. And this whole thing is…"

She nodded. No argument. No pushback. Just a single, quiet nod as if saying she understood.

Then she smacked my arm.

Hard.

"Ow! What…"

"You called me that again." She wasn't even looking at me. Just smiling at the empty intersection like it had told her a joke.

"You said I could call you that!"

"Fumi. Not that."

"You didn't say no to Fumi-tan."

"I'm saying it now."

"Too late. Registered. Filed. Official."

She smacked me again. But she was grinning.

---

I walked over to my Jog. The red poor old moped looked even more battered in the morning light. the scratches on the side panel, the electrical tape on the seat, the crooked left mirror that was basically a permanent reminder of Dodo's existence. I swung my leg over, pulled on my helmet, a black half-helmet that had seen better days and possibly better decades, and turned the key.

The engine coughed once. Twice. Then caught with that distinctive two-stroke rattle I'd been listening to since my first high school year.

Fumi-senpai climbed on behind me without a shred of hesitation.

No helmet, I didn't have a spare. Because why would I ever need a spare helmet on a Monday morning? I didn't expect apocalypse.

"You're not wearing a helmet."

"You noticed."

"If we crash…"

"Then don't crash."

Fair enough.

She wrapped her arms around my waist. Again, no hesitation, no awkwardness, like this was just another thing that happened in the apocalypse, and I pulled out of the 7-Eleven parking lot onto Kamishiro-chuo-dori.

The main street was a ghost.

I'd seen it empty before. Late nights, early mornings, the dead hours between midnight and dawn when even the konbini felt lonely. But this was different. This was ten in the morning on a Monday, and Kamishiro-chuo-dori should have been alive. Delivery trucks. Buses. Housewives on bicycles. The old man who ran the tofu shop should have been out front hosing down the sidewalk. The pachinko parlor should have had its neon buzzing, luring in the unemployed and the eternally hopeful.

Instead: Nothing.

We passed the tofu shop. Hose coiled neatly on the ground. No old man. The pachinko parlor. Neon off. Doors closed.

A row of houses with their morning laundry still hanging on the balconies. Shirts, skirts, a Totoro towel that would never get brought in before the afternoon rain.

The bus stop outside the station had a timetable fluttering in the breeze. The 10:15 to Kichijoji. Scheduled. On time. Never coming.

I twisted the throttle harder.

The Jog whined up to forty-something, faster than I'd ever pushed it, faster than it probably wanted to go. The wind bit at my cheeks. Fumi-senpai's grip around my waist tightened, and I felt her chin rest on my shoulder as her body closing in against my back. Not romantic, nonetheless soft.

Focus on the road, Jouji.

No helmet meant the wind was trying to blind her.

We took the long loop, north up the main street, past the FamilyMart and the closed-down ramen shop that had been 'renovating' since 2006, all the way to the residential edge where the houses started getting bigger and the apartment blocks gave way to actual yards. Then west, past the elementary school, empty playground, swings moving slightly in the wind, and south again, circling back toward Kamishiro High.

Every street. Every corner. Every traffic light cycling through its colors for an audience of zero.

Same. All the same.

Dead city.

By the time we rolled back through the school gate, the Jog's engine was making a sound I didn't entirely trust, and my fingers were stiff from gripping the throttle.

We parked just right outside the main building entrance, which under normal circumstances, this would mean an instant top-tier school rule violation.

But riding my moped with a girl for the first time, and it was not even Nanase, or Rena, but the sukeban of Kamishiro High herself was stranger than anything registered under normal umbrella.

Fumi-senpai slid off the back and stretched her arms over her head like she'd just gotten off a roller coaster.

"Not bad, Jouji."

"She's a classic."

"I was talking about the ride, not the bike."

She walked toward the main entrance before I could figure out what to do with that.

I followed her inside.

 

[darkrednotmaroon]

Chapter 5 - Borrowed

Classroom 1-A had transformed.

Not in any dramatic way. Nobody had redecorated. But the energy in the room had shifted from terrified huddle to uneasy camp. Someone had pushed a few desks together. Bento boxes were scattered across them. The kind you'd find in a konbini, grabbed from the staff room fridge or someone's abandoned lunch bag. Snacks. Onigiri. A few bottles of Pocari Sweat and cold green tea.

Donda was sitting on a desk in the center of the room, an ad-hoc collection of drinks spread around him like a konbini had thrown up on his lap. A baseball bat, highly likely to be grabbed from the equipment shed where I was getting mine and Fumi-senpai's, leaned against the desk beside him. He'd been handing out Pocari Sweat and cold green tea like some kind of soccer-playing Santa Claus.

That vending machine in the corridor near the shoe-lockers. Its glass front was a spiderweb of cracks with a hole now, and I was pretty sure I knew exactly which baseball bat had done the honors.

Makoto was still with the first-years, but he'd relaxed enough to actually sit down.

Nagisa-senpai was talking quietly with Riko-senpai and Marina-senpai. Rena and Airi-senpai were talking with some of the kouhai, including Karin and Asuka.

Umi fed Fumiko something from a bento box. Her color was better, her eyes actually tracking movement now.

Yua and Chisaton were livelier.

And the others, doing other things. Other than just existing.

It wasn't normal. Nothing about this was ever going to be normal.

But it was… something.

I walked to the center of the room. Fumi-senpai took her usual spot against the far wall near where Nagisa-senpai and Riko-senpai were. We'd fallen into a rhythm without ever discussing it.

"Alright, everyone."

The low murmur died down.

"Asou-sen.. Fumi-senpai and I went outside to check things out." I pulled off my helmet, set it on the nearest desk. "We did a loop from the 7-Eleven, up Kamishiro-chuo-dori, all the way to the residential district, and back around. It's.."

I paused.

How do you describe a dead city without sounding like a horror movie trailer?

"Umm… It's empty. All of it. Every store. Every konbini. Every office building. No cars on the road. No motorbikes. No bicycles mid-ride. Nothing crashed. Nothing burning. Just… silent."

It was impossible.

"Which means we can travel fast. Roads are clear. No obstacles. No traffic."

Fumi-senpai pushed off the wall.

"For the eleven of us who live close and want to check on your families, we can do that now." She crossed her arms. "But I've been thinking. We should grab mopeds. From the houses around here. Among the nine of you, anyone who can ride, raise your hand."

Hands went up. There were a lot.

Among the eleven of us, mine was already accounted for. Fumi-senpai's too. Chisaton, still pale but way more present than she'd been an hour ago, raised hers. Yamamoto Eri from 2-E, a girl with a sharp bob cut and the kind of forearms that suggested she played a sport, raised hers. Ishikawa Rie-senpai from 3-D, tall, athletic, track team probably, raised hers. Suzuki Sayaka from 2-A, who I still knew almost nothing about except that she'd been quietly helping Rena with the attendance, raised hers. And Tsuchiya Nao-senpai from 3-F, a third-year with short dyed-brown hair and an undercut raised hers.

Seven riders.

Seven bikes for eleven people.

"Good." Fumi-senpai nodded. "The four who can't ride, you'll be riding pillion. Everyone else who's leaving sticks close. We find mopeds in the houses near the school. We don't go far. And we don't go alone."

Fumi-senpai snapped her fingers.

"Donda. You're coming with us to find the mopeds."

Donda straightened from his desk-throne. "Yeah, alright."

He walked towards me.

"The streets are really empty? 7-Eleven?"

"Yep." I tossed him my bag. "See for yourself."

He caught it one-handed, striker reflexes, and unzipped it. His hand went straight past the Discman, past the albums, and emerged with several packs of Mild Seven.

"Nice."

Grin. Big one. The kind that made his perm look almost intentional.

Then his hand went back in and came out holding a box of condoms.

The grin got bigger.

Fuck. I forgot.

"No shit." He looked at me. Then at Fumi-senpai. Then back at me. "You two were busy."

Fumi-senpai made a face.

I went, "It's not.."

He was already pocketing three packs of Mild Seven. Then he grabbed two boxes of condoms and held them up like trophies.

"Two?" I said. "You planned ahead."

"Always." He winked at Yua who sat next to Chisaton.

And Yua, still pale, still shaken, still tucked into herself like she was worried she might fall apart if she unfolded, let out a small, involuntary chuckle. The kind that surprised even her. Her cheeks flushed, and she buried her face back against Donda's gakuran, but the laugh had happened. Some would have heard it.

Chisaton looked at Yua rather confused.

She didn't get it. She wouldn't.

Donda and Yua had been together long enough. They'd done it plenty. At this point, there wasn't much left to be embarrassed about, which was probably why the embarrassment still hit her anyway.

Some girls who'd noticed were pretending very hard not to notice. Rena included. I could feel their eyes and grin snickering away from either the main scene.

"Kouhai." Fumi-senpai pointed at Makoto. "Band kid."

Makoto shot to his feet so fast he nearly knocked over his chair. "Y.. yes, Senpai!"

"You're staying here. Taking care of everyone. Holding the fort. Whatever Jouji called it." She jerked her thumb toward the door. "You're the only man until Donda and Jouji get back. Got it?"

"Yes, Asou-senpai!"

"Good."

I couldn't tell if Makoto was terrified or honored. Probably both.

"Everyone who's coming, for the eleven, and Donda, let's move." Fumi-senpai was already walking toward the door, bat swinging casually at her side. "We're going on a moped-hunt."

---

The first house was a two-story place about three minutes from the school gate. A typical Kamishiro family home with a small garden, a bicycle parked out front, and a nameplate on the gate that read Tanaka in neat kanji. Not related to our Tanaka Fumiko, probably.

The front door was locked.

"Sorry about this, Tanaka-san," I muttered, and swung the baseball bat into the doorframe near the handle.

The wood splintered. The door swung open.

Donda let out a low whistle. "Damn. You really are committed."

"Wait until you see me smoking inside 7-Eleven." I chuckled.

He chuckled back.

We filed inside, me, Donda, Fumi-senpai, Chisaton and the others, and immediately took our shoes off in the genkan because some habits were too deeply ingrained for even the apocalypse to break.

"Sumimasen!" Chisaton called out to the empty hallway, bowing slightly as she stepped up into the house. "We're really sorry!"

"We're not robbing you!" Yamamoto Eri added, which was technically true but also technically false depending on how you looked at it.

"We're borrowing!" That was Suzuki Sayaka, who had apparently decided to become our legal counsel. "Borrowing with intent to return!"

The house was spotless. A family lived here, photos on the wall, a kid's crayon drawing on the fridge, slippers lined up neatly by the back door. The kitchen still smelled faintly of miso soup from breakfast.

Don't think about it.

We checked the shed in the back garden. No moped. Just a lawnmower and some gardening tools.

"Next house," Fumi-senpai said.

---

The second house, Suzuki on the nameplate, no relation to our Suzuki, definitely, had a tiny garage.

A pristine white Honda Today. The 50cc kind. Keys hanging on a hook by the door.

"Yes!" Donda pumped his fist. "That's what I'm talking about!"

He quickly got on it.

"A Suzuki household that owns a Honda," I muttered. Some of them giggled.

"Can you even ride?" I turned to Donda.

"How hard can it be?"

Fumi-senpai shot him a look. "You break it, you walk."

He did not break it. He did, however, nearly drive it into a telephone pole within the first ten seconds, which was impressive given that the telephone pole was not in any way in his path.

"I'm fine! I'm fine!"

"You screamed." Fumi-senpai snorted.

"I didn't scream. I wailed. I do that when I fail to score."

---

The third house had a Yamaha Jog, forest green, older than mine, but running.
Nao-senpai claimed it within about three seconds of seeing it.

"I had one just like this in junior high," she said, already checking the fuel gauge.

I liked her.

"Stole my brother's all the time."

"You stole your brother's bike, Senpai?"

"He stole my CDs. Fair trade."

I liked her even more.

She was punk-rock incarnate.

---

The fourth house we hit was a small apartment on the ground floor of a two-story building. No garage. But there was a Suzuki Let's parked under a tarp on the side of the building. The kind of bike someone's grandmother used to run errands, all practicality and zero style.

Rie-senpai claimed it without a word. Just pulled off the tarp, checked the ignition, and nodded once like she was accepting a quest in an RPG.

---

The fifth house, mid-sized, modern, with a carport, gave us absolute gold.
A Yamaha Passol. Bright yellow. Almost brand new. The kind of scooter that probably cost more than my Jog had cost new in 2005.

"Dibs," Chisaton said quietly, but still loud, and for the first time since this morning, there was something like life in her voice.

She sat on it, adjusted the rear-mirrors, and turned the key. The engine purred.

"Chisaton, you're smiling!"

"Huh?"

She blinked. Turned her head toward me with genuine confusion, not denial, not deflection. She simply hadn't heard me.

Donda snorted from somewhere behind me. I bet he'd been trying to figure out if the rumor was true, the one that had been spreading through 2-C, along with Yua.

You had to raise your voice to reach her sometimes. Nobody in GTA knew if it was medical or not. She'd never said, and nobody had ever asked. It was just… Chisaton.

"I said you're smiling," I repeated, louder. Grinning at her.

She blinked again. Then, slowly, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud she hadn't noticed was there, she realized. She grinned. That grin I had known for more than a year now every time we snapped her back to reality.

"…Oh."

Any guy outside GTA would've melted from that smile.

---

Donda and I took the sixth house together while the others kept searching the adjacent house.

The nameplate said Yamada. The door was unlocked.

"Sorry for the intrusion," Donda said, bowing to no one. "We'll bring it back. Probably. Hopefully."

"We keep apologizing to an empty house."

"Yeah, well." He shrugged. "Feels wrong not to."

I agreed.

He headed for the kitchen. I headed for the back door. The garage was a separate structure, and inside, covered in a thin layer of dust, clearly not ridden in months, was a Honda Dio. Black. 50cc. The seat had a crack in it, and one of the mirrors was missing, but the tires had air and the key was in the ignition.

"Found one!"

From outside the house: "Me too!"

One of the girls found one, from the seventh house.

I walked back in to find Donda standing in the Yamadas' living room, holding a Yamada family photo album.

"Hey, Donda."

"What?"

"Put that down."

"I just wanted to see who lived here." He closed it carefully, set it back on the shelf.

"They look nice. Yamada-san. His wife. Two kids. Dog."

Dog.

I just realized it. No pets.

I thought about the Suzuki house a few doors back. The cat tower in the corner of the living room. The empty food bowl by the back door. The first Tanaka place before also had a doghouse in the yard, wooden, hand-built, the kind a dad puts together on a Sunday while his kids watch.

My brain started doing that thing where it connects dots I didn't ask it to connect.

"You think they're okay?" Donda's voice was quieter now, nonetheless felt like a gut-punch snapping me back to reality. "The Yamadas?"

"I… I don't know."

"Yeah." He rubbed the back of his neck.

"Yeah."

And then, because he was Donda, and because silence was apparently not something his brain could tolerate for more than five seconds.

"Hey. You think this Yamada guy had a porn stash?"

"Donda."

"I'm just asking! Every dad should have one!"

"We're leaving. Now. Get on the Dio. We'll get back later. The dog's not here." I smirked.

"Nice."

---

We regrouped in the street outside the seventh house. A modest one-story with a carport that had clearly been converted into a storage space.

Seven mopeds lined up on the empty road.

My red Yamaha Jog, the original, the battered veteran. Fumi-senpai's commandeered Honda Today, white and gleaming, but already splattered with mud from Donda's near-telephone-pole incident. Nao-senpai's forest-green Jog. Rie-senpai's grandmother-spec Suzuki Let's. Chisaton's bright yellow Passol, she was still sitting on it, one hand resting on the throttle, looking almost peaceful. Donda's black Honda Dio. And Eri's find from the seventh house, a silver Suzuki Love, small and compact, the kind of bike you could parallel park in a broom closet. Sayaka was the only rider without a ride, because we got Donda with us, and we all knew Donda by now.

Ego as big as the Tokyo Dome, otherwise he wouldn't make ace striker when he was still mere first-year, skill alone wouldn't suffice. And the best thing about him is that he could suppress his ego when truly needed.

This one, he'd earned to have some fun.

Apparently, he always wanted a moped. And the apocalypse sort of gave him the chance.

Twelve kids. Seven bikes.

We stood there in the middle of the empty street, surrounded by houses whose owners we'd apologized to in whispers and empty rooms, with stolen keys in our pockets and the weight of thirty-three lives balanced on a plan that had been thrown together with duct tape and desperation.

"Not bad," Fumi-senpai said, surveying the lineup. "Not bad at all."

We were officially bosozoku now. A biker gang.

Donda revved the Dio. It sounded like an angry lawnmower.

"I'm keeping this one," he said.

"You almost crashed the white one into a pole," I grinned.

"Almost. Didn't. That's what counts."

Fumi-senpai sighed, the long, exhausted sigh of someone who was rapidly realizing she'd appointed this man as one of the few people in charge.

"Let's go," I said, swinging onto my Jog. "Brief everyone. Then the eleven of us head out."

The moped fleet rolled back through the school gate in a loose formation that was somewhere between a biker gang and an elementary school field trip.

Donda kept revving his Dio unnecessarily, apparently convinced that loud engine noises made up for the fact that his top speed was about forty kilometers an hour. Rie-senpai was riding with perfect, almost aggressive posture, back straight, both hands on the grips, looking straight ahead like she was taking her driving test. Chisaton on the yellow Passol looked like she was in a commercial for something aspirational, springtime, youth, the freedom of the open road, except the road was empty, and the world might have just ended, and she had failed to hear any of it.

---

I killed the Jog's engine and walked toward the main entrance. Behind me, engines cut out one by one.

The twelve of us rolled back into Classroom 1-A like a biker gang that had collectively flunked its driving test. Which, to be fair, was pretty much what happened.

"Whoa! Sweet!"

I stepped through the door and stopped dead. Behind me, the moped-hunting expedition piled up in the hallway, helmets under arms, still buzzing from the open road.

Someone had turned our sad little refugee camp into a restaurant.

Desks were pushed together into one long table running the length of the room. Plates. Chopsticks. Steam rising from fresh rice in those plastic school-lunch containers, the kind that always smelled faintly of industrial sanitizer but somehow still made your stomach growl. Bento boxes, the fancy ones, not konbini leftovers, were spread across the table like a potluck where everyone had brought their A-game.

Umi, Shimizu Umi, was nowhere to be seen.

Rena was in the thick of it, weaving between desks with a stack of plates, her expression locked into what I can only describe as Hostile Hospitality Mode. She caught my eye for half a second and nodded once, acknowledgment, not greeting, then went right back to arranging ceramic-ware like she was defusing a bomb.

"Rena-chan," I grinned at her, "this rice is actually hot?"

She nodded without looking up. "Umi-chan, Marina-senpai, and a few others cooked in Home Ec. The side dishes are from everyone's bento boxes. We pooled everything."

Pooled everything. Right. Because that was what you did when the world vanished. You pooled your tamagoyaki and your chicken karaage and you made lunch for thirty-three people in a high school kitchen that technically nobody had permission to use.

God, I love these people.

The room felt different. The eyes were still puffy, nobody was pretending this morning hadn't happened, but people were talking. Actually talking. The kind of low, earnest conversation you only get between strangers who've just survived something together. Nagisa-senpai was laughing at something Riko-senpai said. A few girls I hadn't remembered the names of yet were smiling, tentative, fragile smiles, but real ones.

Credit where it was due: Nagisa-senpai and Riko-senpai had a gift. They could bridge anyone to anyone. The Queen and the Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications, running diplomacy while I was out stealing mopeds.

"Now that's cool." Fumi-senpai's voice behind me, approving. "That's my girl right there."

She was looking at Rena with something that, on anyone else's face, you might call pride. Rena just nodded and smiled, a real one this time.

Makoto came through the door with his arms full of bento boxes he'd clearly liberated from neighboring classrooms.

"Extra side dishes, Senpai!"

His voice had actual energy in it now. Not the shaky, trying-to-be-brave energy from this morning. Real energy.

"Makoto…"

I clapped him on the shoulder. He'd earned it. The kid had held the fort while we were gone. Solo. With twenty girls and exactly zero warning. Fumi-senpai nodded at him too, her version of a standing ovation.

He straightened a little. Good.

Donda didn't bother with any of that.

He made a beeline for Yua, who was carefully arranging chicken katsu onto plates with the precision of someone who'd been roped into school festival food prep one too many times. His hand shot out and snagged a piece.

Smack.

Yua's palm connected with the back of his hand without her even looking up. Donda just laughed, that big, stupid, striker's laugh, and Yua's expression flickered for half a second before she shook her head and kept working.

Silver-marriage energy, the two of them. Minus the marriage. Minus the twenty-five years. This was their normal.

I looked around the room. Classroom 1-A. The rest of the kids. We were holding on.

It was almost enough to make me forget.

Almost.

Three things were still gnawing at the back of my skull.

The obvious one, Nanase, across town at Asakaze, silent since the signal died, with that one called Ebara. And the other thing. The animal thing. Birds in the sky, wild cats in the alleys, all present and accounted for, but no pets. No dogs. No domestic cats. Nothing that belonged to anyone.

It quite fit the mirror-world theory. If inanimate objects got snapshot-copied based on whether they were being held or used at the moment of the vanishing, then maybe animals owned by people would not be copied as well, only wild animals, or maybe some of them. But then what about the rules for humans?

What about us?

I looked around me.

Us.

And the last thing…

But… What?

I couldn't think straight. The smell of hot rice was doing something to my brain.

Lunch first. Existential dread later.

 

[darkrednotmaroon]

Chapter 6 - Foundation

We ate.

All thirty-three, as the rest filtered back from wherever they'd been, crammed into Classroom 1-A, which now looked less like a classroom and more like a family restaurant that had given up on fire codes. Desks shoved together. Someone had found paper cups for the green tea. Chopsticks were passed around like communion.

It wasn't happy. Not really. There were still silences that stretched too long.

Someone, I couldn't see who, sniffled quietly into their rice. But we were eating. Together. Hot food, shared food, food someone had made with their own hands in a kitchen that wasn't supposed to be ours.

We all knew the same thing without saying it: we had to hold on. For the people who weren't here. For the people we were going to find.

Afterward, nobody had to be told. Plates were collected. Desks were pushed back into their original rows. Trash was bagged. Someone wiped down the surfaces. Not a single person sat there doing nothing.

Thirty-three kids. Barely adults. And we cleaned up after ourselves like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Maybe the apocalypse brought out the best in people. Or maybe we were all just too exhausted to be lazy.

I stood at the front of the room again. My second speech of the day.

"Right." I scratched the back of my neck. "I just wanted to say… thank you. Seriously. Thank you to everyone for holding it together. For being strong, no longer crying, long enough for us to eat a decent meal." I gestured toward the hallway, toward the Home Ec kitchen somewhere in the rear building. "Thank you to Shimizu-san, Matsushima-senpai, and everyone who coordinated lunch. I…"

I trailed off.

Chisaton was staring out the window.

Not daydreaming. Not lost in thought. Just staring. At the row of mopeds parked near the main entrance. Her yellow Passol gleaming in the afternoon sun.

"Chisaton." Normal volume.

Nothing.

"Chisaton…"

Still nothing. Rena's hand was already creeping up toward her mouth. She knew what was coming. Yua and Donda exchanged a look, the kind of look that said, oh, so the rumor's true.

"CHISATON!"

"Haaa? Huh?" She whipped around, grinning wide, utterly unbothered.

Then she burst out laughing, big, unselfconscious laughter, the kind that rolled through the room and took everyone with it.

Rena lost it. Full-on table-slapping. Yua's eyes flicked to Donda, who nodded solemnly, confirming without words: yeah, the GTA girl really is a little deaf.

A few others started laughing too. Confused laughter at first, the kind where you're not quite sure if you're allowed to find it funny, or even if it was funny at all. But it was funny. It was always funny for more than a year I had known Chisaton.

"Alright, everyone." I was still laughing.

"Chisaton, 'ton.' You get it?"

Faces around the room shifted as realization dawned. It wasn't just a cute nickname, though it's already unusual and probably a try-hard to sound like Narumin for Narumi, or Mizukin for Mizuki.

Kikuchi Chisato, gorgeous, athletic, 167 centimeters of good-natured sunshine, she'd earned that cute 'n' suffix with no effort from any boys, or girl friends. However, you had to raise your voice a bit when you talk to her, almost at all times. So… Chisaton, ton-ton.

Rena was absolutely dying. Chisaton shot her a mock glare from across the room, what's so funny? But the smile never left her face. Yua was giggling properly now. Donda was holding back, which for Donda was basically heroic restraint.

Karin, sitting not far from Chisaton near the window, had a knowing smirk spreading across her face. Fumi-senpai was grinning. Nagisa-senpai, Riko-senpai, even Umi, back from the kitchen, still slightly flushed from the stove heat, or that was how I perceived it, was smiling. The first smile I'd seen on her all day.

Fumiko, next to her, just looked confused. Which was… very Fumiko.

"Here's the thing." I got myself under control. "When you talk to Chisaton… you just have to be a little louder. That's all," I said it at normal volume. Those who understood were already smirking.

"Chisaton…" Louder.

"Haa? What, Jouji?" She beamed at me, voice pitched a little too loud herself.

I leaned forward slightly. The room leaned with me.

"Gentsuki ni notta kibun wa dou."

How did you feel riding the moped?

Chisaton blinked twice. Her expression froze, that half-second of processing delay I'd seen a hundred times and never thought to explain.

Then her eyes went wide.

"WHAT?! I'M DEAD?! AM I? Are we dead? So… so THIS is the afterlife?!"

Complete silence.

She'd heard tenshi ni natta kibun wa dou.

How does it feel to become an angel?

The room detonated.

I doubled over. Rena was pounding the desk so hard I thought the wood might crack. Fumi-senpai's laugh was full-bodied and genuine, the one she let out on the 'poor toilet bastard.' Yua finally broke, clutching Donda's sleeve for support. Donda, liberated by the fact that everyone else was laughing too, let his guard down entirely.

Shimizu Umi lowered her head and laughed. Quietly, almost privately, but it was real.

Nagisa-senpai had her hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking. The Queen, caught completely off-guard.

Riko-senpai wasn't even trying to hide it, her laughter bright and infectious, the kind that made you want to laugh harder just hearing it.

Makoto was doubled over near the door, one hand braced against the frame like his knees might give out.

Karin had her face buried in both hands, but the trembling shoulders gave her away. Asuka, the sunflower from the first-year who'd barely said three words since the vanishing, was giggling behind both hands, her eyes crinkled.

Eri from 2-E, moped-hunter number four, the one with the sharp bob, was leaning against the wall, wheezing. Nao-senpai, undercut punk-rock attitude, had her arms crossed and her head thrown back, laughing at the ceiling like it owed her money.

Marina-senpai had given up on dignity entirely, slumped against a desk with one hand pressed to her stomach, tears streaming behind her glasses.

To be fair, in Japanese, 'becoming an angel' was just a polite way of saying you'd kicked the bucket.

Everyone laughed.

Everyone except one person.

The girl every male senpai and half the graduating class of 2007 had in their crosshairs all year long, but none of them ever pulled the trigger, because she was so genuinely, profoundly, almost supernaturally innocent that approaching her felt like trying to graffiti a shrine.

The contrast in her features was enough to make any guy drool at first sight.

The older girls had formed a protective ring around her since day one, under Fumi-senpai and her circle's jurisdiction.

She was too pure. Too blank. Too unaware of her own presence to function in normal society without people looking out for her.

Fumiko.

She looked around the room with her big, earnest eyes making her expression a picture of genuine concern.

"Chisato-chan," she said, her voice soft and utterly, devastatingly sincere. "We're not dead. We're still alive. I only fainted earlier, and Umi-chan and Rena-chan helped me."

"Ouch!" She pinched her own arm.

"See? It hurts. So we're alive."

Oh no!

The room erupted again.

No mercy.

We laughed until our stomachs hurt. Until tears, real tears, the good kind, streamed down faces that had forgotten how to do anything but cry.

And Chisaton, still grinning her radiant, slightly confused grin, just watched us all lose our minds, apparently perfectly content not knowing what the joke was until Fumiko continued.

"Besides," Fumiko said, turning to Chisaton again with clueless eyes, "Jouji-kun asked you about the moped, didn't he? Why would you think you were dead, Chisato-chan? Gentsuki, gentsuki ni notta.."

Chisaton's mouth fell open.

The grin didn't disappear, it got wider, if that was even possible, but now it was accompanied by her head slowly dropping toward the desk. The dawning realization of a year-long running gag finally catching up with her.

"Ah!" She shot up. "Damn it! Jouji! Rena-chan!"

Rena was already crying again, the good kind. The kind where you can't breathe.

And just like that, the running gag was alive and well, it carried on. From GTA, the whole last year of 1-B, to the apocalyptic emergency camp Classroom 1-A at Kamishiro High, Chisaton's ears hadn't changed. Neither had the people who loved her for it.

She grabbed her bag and relocated from her spot near the back window to the front row, right in front of where I was standing. She always sat in the front row in class, too. She knew. Sitting close meant she caught most of what was said, and nobody had to yell.

Most of the time.

Only the three of us are GTA here, me, Rena, Chisaton. And to some extent, seeing Chisaton's face light up like that, I felt something loosen in my chest. Every scrunched-up, tear-streaked face in this room had just brightened because of her. She'd always had that effect on people, even when she couldn't hear half of what they said.

"Alright, guys. Enough…" I raised a hand, still fighting off residual laughter. "Chisaton's moved to the front row, so I can start for real now."

Scattered giggles. But they settled.

Chisaton and Fumiko should form a manzai group.

"Okay." I exhaled.

A beat. Trying to get myself together again.

"Here's where we are. We all know there's nothing to do right now except wait. Wait for help. From anywhere. From anyone."

A pause.

"But I can't let you just sit here and be sad. Or confused. Or lost. Lunch is done. Outside is still empty. You know about the mopeds, six of them, borrowed, as Sayaka-san so legally phrased it."

A ripple of laughter from the moped-hunting crew. I glanced at Sayaka and used her first name deliberately. Before the vanishing, she'd have been Suzuki-san in the hallway. Or more likely, someone I'd never spoken to at all until graduation day. She caught my eye and smiled. She looked way better than this morning.

The mood had lifted. The room felt less like a funeral.

But I couldn't afford to stop being realistic.

"In a few minutes, I, Fumi-senpai, Chisaton, and eight others are heading home. We'll move in a group. We'll plan the most efficient route. And after that…"

I took a long deep breath.

"I'm asking for permission to go to Asakaze. To get my girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. Maybe still girlfriend." I scratched the back of my neck. "I'll bring her back here if I can. I know it's selfish. I'm sorry. I…"

"Hey, Jouji!"

Fumi-senpai cut me off before I could say another word.

"If you don't go get your girlfriend, or ex, or whatever the fuck she is to you right now… just stop being pathetic!" She turned to the room. "Don't apologize. Everyone here is grown up. They can take care of themselves."

It wasn't a question. Nobody answered except with nods.

But those nods, Rena's nod, Nagisa-senpai's nod, Marina-senpai's nod, Umi's, Karin's, even the mousy Yuki's, every girl in the room, they mattered.

Fumi-senpai had just handed me permission to be selfish, and the room had signed off on it.

"Yeah… Thanks." I cleared my throat. "One more thing. I'm not going to sweet-talk any of you. We need to expect the worst."

Silence.

"Sorry. But we can't act like help is definitely coming. I need us to work together. Watch out for each other. Care for each other. Right now…"

I stopped.

"I'm not even sure I'll find my family when I get home. Not after I just robbed, sorry, borrowed six mopeds from empty houses around the block. With no people. Not even pets. Just… nothing."

"My mom. My little brother and sister…"

My hands started shaking so I put them in my pockets immediately.

Shit.

I shouldn't mention them.

I can't cry. Not here. Not in front of them.

I dragged in a long breath through my nose, but my eyes were burning. A few of them had already looked down. Some were wiping their faces.

"Ehem." I cleared my throat hard. Blinked rapidly. Forced the tears back where they came from.

It worked. Barely.

Grin. Grin, Jouji.

Even for a little.

"That's why I'm asking you to be strong. So far, I've seen everyone hold on. You stopped crying. We just ate a solid lunch together. Yoshinoya was never that packed. That must mean something."

A couple of small, fragile chuckles.

"That's why I believe there's nothing we can't do as long as we hold on to each other. Right now, all we have… is us."

They nodded. All of them. Hands went up to wipe away tears that had escaped despite everything. But nobody was sobbing. Nobody was breaking.

If anything, I saw the ghosts of a smile on more than a few faces.

"Okay." I straightened. "Quick briefing. Fumi-senpai, Donda, Rena-chan, Shimizu-san, Anzai-senpai, Taniguchi-senpai, Matsushima-senpai, Abe-senpai, Makoto, and… Kujou Karin."

Karin jolted when her name came out of my mouth. She pointed at herself like I might have the wrong person.

"Yeah, you."

I'd chosen them based on what I'd seen today, how they moved, how they acted, how they held themselves together when everything was trying to pull them apart. These were the people we all could lean on right now.

Fumi-senpai stepped forward and stood beside me. "Everyone whose name Jouji just called, gather in Classroom 1-B. Everyone else, stay here. Keep supporting each other. Talk. Gossip. I don't know, argue about whether Takuya Kimura is still hot, or if Namie Amuro's new single is overrated. Whatever keeps you sane."

A few surprised laughs. Fumi-senpai's mind was running on the exact same wavelength as mine now.

"Chisaton!" Fumi-senpai continued. Loud.

Chisaton shot to her feet, crisp and immediate, zero delay, zero surprise. She was in the front row. Everyone else in the room jumped and giggled.

To Chisaton, that was a perfectly normal speaking volume. Fumi-senpai noticed, too, her lips twitched.

"And you. Donda's wife."

She pointed at Yua, who was still sitting next to Donda.

"Manage your friends, kouhai, and senpai here. You're both in charge."

Chisaton and Yua locked eyes across the room and nodded at the exact same moment, like they'd rehearsed it. No hesitation. No questions. Just two people who understood exactly what they were being asked to do.

"Let's go," Riko-senpai said, already tugging Karin, who still looked slightly stunned, by the sleeve. Marina-senpai, Nagisa-senpai, Airi-senpai, Rena, Umi, Makoto, and Donda filed out after them. I walked at the back with Fumi-senpai.

"Good call, Jouji." Her voice was low, just for me. "Good speech."

She sounded impressed. Actually impressed.

"Fumi-tan… " I whispered back.

We were far enough behind the group. Nobody heard.

"Haaah?!" She whipped her head toward me, cheeks already flushing, glaring like I'd committed a felony. I only chuckled.

"There's something I need to discuss, just with the people I trust to handle Kamishiro High while we're gone."

She nodded. Serious again, just like that.

We filed into Classroom 1-B. Donda was already telling Makoto to pull chairs into a circle near the front. Everyone else pitched in, dragging seats into a rough ring. Two chairs were left open, one for me, one for Fumi-senpai. We sat side by side at the head of the circle.

They already knew why they were here. They just didn't know what I was about to say.

"Alright." I glanced around the circle. "I don't need to explain why most of you are in this room. That includes you, Makoto."

Makoto met my eyes. He understood.

"And Kujou-kun."

Karin straightened immediately. "Ca.. call me Karin, Senpai."

"Karin-kun. I called you here because I trust you to help Makoto bridging and helping the other first-years. So bear with me."

She nodded once, firm, no complaint. And nobody else complained, either. They'd all seen it. Karin hadn't cried once all morning. Her eyes had watered, sure, but she'd been the one consoling the kouhai before Nagisa-senpai and Riko-senpai stepped in. She'd earned this seat.

"I'll get straight to the point. Like I said before, we can't just sit around waiting for someone to save us. We have to take care of ourselves. So we're splitting into teams, and all of you are going to decide how that works."

"Me, Fumi-senpai, Chisaton, and eight others, we'll head out before two. It's one thirty-seven now. We don't have much time."

I turned to Donda.

"Donda. First team, you lead. Scavenge the houses we hit during the moped hunt, plus any we didn't get to. First priority: food. Things that can be cooked. Spices. Seasoning. Second: clothes. Changes of clothes for the girls, they're all still in their uniforms. Third: futons. Every house has them. We need more than fifteen."

Donda was already nodding, his brain clearly running inventory.

"And anything else you think is useful. Use your judgment."

I looked around the circle.

"Second team. Turn Classroom 1-A into a dorm. Your job is to secure every resource in this school. There'll be tracksuits in the club rooms, grab them all. Tonight, cold air is going to seep through the window frames. Find anything you can to seal the gaps, or it'll be freezing. Lay the futons from the raid group, out into one giant mega-bed. All thirty girls. Sleeping together. Close. Body heat."

I looked up.

"That's how you stay warm."

Nobody spoke.

"And we boys will take turn doing the night-watch. Two will be on guard-duty while one will sleep inside the dorm as well, a separated futon away from the mega-bed."

"Please understand this," I scoured around for the eyes of all the girls, "If us, one of the boys would do something inappropriate, you have twenty nine girls and one pretty Demon Lord to kill us on the spot. Just for tonight until we can settle the boys dorm. And I'm not joking." I seriously didn't joke. My expression was flat.

Nagisa-senpai was staring at me with her lips slightly parted. Riko-senpai's eyebrows had climbed halfway up her forehead. Marina-senpai adjusted her glasses like she needed to refocus, while Airi-senpai beside her just fixed her ponytail like she was forced to be ready for anything that will come next.

Makoto, a freshman who'd known me for less than six hours, was staring like I'd just pulled a rabbit out of a hat. Karin, beside him, wasn't much better. Her hands were clasped tight in her lap, knuckles white, but her eyes weren't scared, they were focused.

Shimizu Umi, the calmest of us all, just nodded. Gave me the impression that she understood fully why I was the way I was.

Donda grinned wide to Rena. "Was he always like this?"

"Hahah. Shut it, Donda." I snorted. Finally let out a smile. Fuck this guy.

"No," Rena said quietly with a chuckle. "He was not. Never."

She was looking at me differently.

Not with those usual bubbly, teasing eyes she gets when we're alone. When Rena drops the tough-girl act and goes all kawaii-mode, leaning against my shoulder, voice dropping into that softer register nobody else aside from GTA kids, or Takeo, or some other boys she probably had been closed with ever got to hear.

We'd kept that side of us private.

This wasn't that look. Not even close.

Back then, I was the class-rep because it was funny, the most uninteresting class clown they could find, elected as a joke, Gorosen being Gorosen approved. She was the class secretary. We'd run 1-B together for a year, and I'd treated it like every other responsibility in my life: with a shrug and a punchline.

"This is new," she said. And she smiled. Small. Almost private. But real.

Fumi-senpai didn't say anything. She just stood beside me, arms crossed, and nodded. Once. Twice.

Donda and Rena's exchange had cracked something open. The tension around the circle loosened a notch. A few people smiled, small, tentative smiles, the kind you give when you're not sure you're allowed to feel okay yet.

"Alright. Any questions?" I looked around.

Nagisa-senpai raised a hand, elegant, unhurried. "Jouji-kun. Is 'Jouji-kun' okay?"

"I'm honored." I bowed holding my grin. My heart seriously fluttered.

Smack.

Fumi-senpai's palm connected with my arm before the grin had even finished forming on my face.

"Okay. Call me Nagisa too… or whatever." Nagisa-senpai laughed. "You're right. I personally agree with everything you've laid out for us. We, Fumi-chan, Riko-chan, Marina-chan, Airi-chan, and myself, are your senpai. And I'm in awe of what you kouhai have managed to do today. You stabilized this situation. For that, I'm forever grateful."

She bowed back. Forty-five degrees.

The Queen bowed.

And she was the only person alive with the stamp of approval to call Fumi-senpai, Fumi-chan.

Riko-senpai spoke next, backing Nagisa up. Then Marina-senpai. Then Airi-senpai. One by one, the third-years threw their weight behind the plan.

"We'll brief everyone here and divide teams based on ability," Riko-senpai continued. "Food and kitchen. Logistics and supplies. And medical, we have Airi-chan."

Airi-senpai nodded. That was clearly her domain.

"Umm… If you allowed me, I'd like to handle the kitchen. In Home Ec. With Matsushima-senpai."

We all turned.

Shimizu Umi had raised her hand.

She looked almost embarrassed about it, cheeks faintly pink, eyes somewhere around my collarbone rather than my face. Which was strange, because Umi had been the calmest person in any room since this whole thing started.

"My family runs a small restaurant. In Kamishiro shoutengai. Shimizu Shokudou."

"Wait, the one that's always packed?" Rena's head tilted.

Everyone knew it. Of course they did. It was right by the station, practically across from Musashino Commercial High. I'd walked past it a hundred times.

And yes, always more packed than any chain restaurants on busy hours.

"I've been helping my parents and older brothers in the kitchen since I was eight. I'm used to it." Umi's voice grew steadier as she went. "I still help most evenings after school when I don't have club. I have a key. There are commercial-grade rice cookers, industrial bags of rice, dried udon noodles, dashi stocks, kitchen equipment that's probably a lot more proper than what Home Ec has."

Silence.

"Small my ass, Umi?!" Fumi-senpai burst out laughing.

And that was the thing about Fumi-senpai. She had this aura, she could bypass every layer of Japanese formal social etiquette, jump straight to first names like she'd known you since kindergarten, and somehow it never felt intimidating. It felt like she was giving you more respect, not less.

"Yeah… not small." I was grinning too, shaking my head. "That's the busiest restaurant in the whole shoutengai."

Laughter rippled around the circle. Umi smiled, still a little shy, but there was relief in it now. Relief and something like eagerness.

"If we have time later, we could go get things from there."

"Your brothers, they're all older?" Rena asked. Of course Rena asked. She always dug through a layer of bedrock the moment she felt an inch closer to someone.

"Umm… yes. I'm the youngest of five." Umi's blush deepened. "All of them are boys. I'm… I'm used to watching them fight. In the kitchen. At home."

She chuckled, a small, self-conscious sound, and suddenly a lot of things about Shimizu Umi made sense. I'd said before that she could probably stop a fistfight just by looking disappointed. Turned out it wasn't enlightenment. It was four older brothers and a busy family restaurant kitchen.

"Okay!" Marina-senpai's voice cut through, bright and eager. "I love cooking and baking. I'll handle the kitchen with Umi-chan!"

"Great!" Nagisa-senpai clapped her hands together. "Food and emergency kitchen, decided!"

"Right." I straightened. "Things couldn't have gone better. But they just did. Thank you, Shimizu-san, Anza.. Ow!"

Fumi-senpai had hit me again.

"Enough with the formal crap, Jouji. Use their names."

She was laughing.

"Urgh…" I rubbed my arm, fighting a grin. "Fine. Umi-san. Nagisa-senpai. Marina-senpai. Thank you." Then I kept going. "Riko-senpai. Airi-senpai." I glanced sideways at Fumi-senpai.

"Fumi-tan."

I bowed to her, too, with the most deliberately shit-eating grin I could manage.

The room temperature dropped about ten degrees.

Nagisa-senpai. Riko-senpai. Marina-senpai. Rena. Umi. Donda. Makoto. Karin. Every single one of them frozen mid-breath, mouths slightly open, suspended in the kind of silence that precedes either an explosion or a murder.

Fumi-senpai's arm swung, twice as hard this time.

I expected this.

But she was cackling, and her face had gone full boiled crab.

"Fuck you, Jouji!"

Everyone exhaled. Laughed. The tension that had gripped the room for one awful second dissolved into relief.

"Alright. Twelve, thirteen minutes to two." I stood, still laughing, rubbing my arm. "Let's go."

They nodded. One by one, they rose and filed out of 1-B toward 1-A.

I hung back, bringing up the rear, and suddenly Nagisa-senpai's arm was around my shoulder, pulling me close. Close enough that her not-so-modest chest pressed against my arm. Soft.

She was maybe a centimeter or two taller than me.

"Eh… Na.. Nagisa-sen…"

"You have a death wish, don't you, Jouji-kun?" She whispered it, laughing lowly. I could only laugh back.

"Oh… 'Fumi-tan'?" I managed.

She released me. "Kamishiro no Garasu Ningyou. You do know that, right?"

"Huh?"

"The Glass Doll of Kamishiro." She smiled, still walking as the others disappeared into 1-A ahead of us. "Fumi-chan is feared. Deeply feared among the yankis and gyarus across town after last autumn. She beat six gyarus from Sengawa, alone, on her way home from school. They were trying to kidnap her. Make her a plaything for their yanki boyfriends."

I stared.

"After that, she earned the nickname. Kamishiro no Garasu Ningyou. Sukeban of Kamishiro High. The prettiest sukeban in town. No boy, from my year, from the year above, would even dream of getting close to her. She was feared and respected. And she was always proud of it." Nagisa-senpai's voice dropped.

"Kouhai like you? They wouldn't even try making eye contact. You know this."

"Ah…"

So… That's how it was…

I had heard at some point last autumn, around mid-October, that Fumi-senpai did something terrible to other high school students. Something like, 'don't mess around with that cute small senpai with the blonde streak,' Dodo or Issei said something along those lines.

But I honestly never thought that her reputation was, yanki-esque, town-wide.

"But…" She laughed softly. "I've been best friends with Fumi-chan since our first day of high school. Orientation. I was her desk-mate. We're always together." She paused.

"We go way back."

She stopped. Looked at me.

"And no boy. No man. Has ever made her blush and grin that wide over a stupid joke like that. 'Fumi-tan.' Really?"

"Nngh… Yeah. Stupid joke, right? Well…" I laughed. It came out weaker than I wanted.

"You're not even trying. That's the scary part." She leaned in again as she passed me, her chest brushing my arm for the second time.

"Some ZAKO kid, you know, Shun?"

"Shun?" I knew some of their faces but not their names.

"We were just a week through second year, and Fumi-chan was already friends with many ZAKO kids. Rooftop, smoking and all. Shun made a pass at her, disrespectful, a bit too harsh, he thought Fumi-chan was that kind of girl. You get me?" She giggled.

"He ended up running down to the infirmary with blood streaming down his nose," she continued, still giggling. "I was there. I saw everything. All the other ZAKO kids, including my ex, Riku-chan, fell into silence. And since then, she's the sukeban of Kamishiro High. Period. Feared and respected."

"Really?"

Damn.

"For real, Jouji-kun. I knew her. This morning was the first time I saw her froze, scared. And just there in 1-B, was the first time I saw her grinning like…" she paused, "you know like what. And we both know where did that come from."

"Ah…" I pouted, because I didn't want to grin.

"Well, one 7-Eleven date and you turned the world upside down."

"Nghh…"

"If you can't manage to stop being cool like that… I might fall for you too, Jouji-kun. You gotta be careful. All eyes are on you now."

The Queen smiled, mysterious, knowing, utterly unreadable, and walked into 1-A.

My heart dropped straight through my stomach.

The good kind. The stupid, teenage, hormonal kind. I could feel my blood heading south like a train departing Shinjuku Station.

I stood in the hallway for a long moment, refocusing my breathing.

Then I walked into Classroom 1-A.

 

[darkrednotmaroon]

Chapter 7 - Permission

Fumi-senpai had already taken position at the front of the room. She'd gotten there ahead of me and launched straight into it. No hesitation, no preamble, no asking permission.

"Alright, everyone!" Her voice cut clean through the low murmur. "Everyone who's heading home, short briefing in 1-B. Follow me now. The rest of you, Nagisa, Riko, Airi, Marina, Rena, Umi, Donda, Makoto, and Karin will brief you here."

She'd dropped every honorific. Everyone was first names now. Just like that.

"Chisaton! Let's go!"

Chisaton was already on her feet while the others jolted every time she was being called out.

Classroom 1-B again. Bigger group this time. The eleven of us who were heading out.

"Jo.. Jouji-kun. Asou-senpai. Here."

Sayaka handed me a sheet of paper. First time she'd addressed me directly, not Shigeru. Straight to my first name. At this point, I'd stopped keeping track. We'd all gotten closer than any of us had any right to be after almost six hours.

Fumi-senpai and I stared at the paper.

Every name. Every address. Every house, written out in neat, slightly rushed handwriting. They'd done this while we were still in 1-B. Fumi-senpai and I exchanged a look, then scribbled our own addresses at the bottom without a word.

"Alright." I spread the paper on the nearest desk. "Most efficient route. Let's go."

Seven mopeds. Ten girls plus me. We mapped it out in under two minutes.

The route curved east from the school through the residential pocket behind Kamishiro-chuo-dori, then hooked north toward Sengawa. Eleven stops.

Morikawa Ayano's house first, closest, barely four hundred meters. Then Fujiwara Kaede. Then Fumi-senpai's. Oonishi Saki-senpai's, at the edge of Shinkawa. Rie-senpai's above the shuttered dry-cleaning shop. Chisaton's, tucked deep in the Midorigaoka pocket. Then Nao-senpai's near the river. Eri's squeezed between two commercial buildings. Takahashi Moe's traditional bungalow with the bonsai. Sayaka's with the red American mailbox as written.

And finally mine. Farthest out. 1.7 kilometers.

I stared at my own address on the paper. Last stop.

"Okay." Fumi-senpai straightened. "We're going now. Two-oh-two. About one to one-and-a-half hours. Grab valuables, food if you have it, practical clothes, underwear, anything useful. We move as one group, seven mopeds, eleven people. Nobody splits off. Understood?"

Everyone nodded.

Chisaton nodded too. She was sitting right next to Fumi-senpai. No way she missed any of that.

We filed out of 1-B. People scattered to grab bags from their homerooms. I hung back in the hallway, watching Classroom 1-A reorganize itself in real time.

Two groups now. Donda's scavenge team, him, Umi, Marina-senpai, Karin. And the internal resource team, Rena, Nagisa-senpai, Riko-senpai, Airi-senpai, Makoto. They were already deep in it, delegating, pointing at lists, moving with the kind of purpose that hadn't existed four hours ago.

Donda broke away from his group and dropped onto the chair next to me. I was halfway through a bottle of Pocari Sweat.

"Jouji." Big grin. The one that meant trouble.

"What." I grinned back. I already knew.

"When we go back to those houses." He waggled his eyebrows. "I'm bringing back supplies. You know what I mean."

I snorted. "Be discreet. Don't let the girls see. And all the OzaMari and AyuNao DVDs are mine."

"Fuck you!" He burst out laughing.

"There's gotta be laptops with DVD players somewhere in this school."

"Obviously. Staff room. Audio-Visual room. We'll find 'em."

"I found a stash in the teacher's room already by the way." He snickered.

"No shit…" I just grinned, shaking my head.

---

I stepped outside for a smoke. The main entrance. Mopeds lined up in the afternoon sun. Everyone was still getting ready, bags, helmets, last-minute bathroom runs. I leaned against the wall and let the nicotine do its thing.

The door swung open.

Rena walked out alone.

She didn't say anything. Just crossed the distance and wrapped both hands around my arm, the way she always did when we were alone. Familiar. Easy. Her shoulder pressed against mine.

"Jouji."

I tensed immediately. Every single time. It didn't matter how many times she'd done this, my body still reacted like it was the first.

Rena was lean, the wiry, restless kind of lean, like she burned calories just by existing, standing at an even 160 or 161 centimeters, with a style that leaned a little gyaru-ish around the edges. Loose socks. A pink bleached streak in her long straight black hair. The kind of girl who'd been popular in junior high not because she tried to be, but because she simply didn't give a damn either way.

What mattered, what actually mattered, was that Rena and I had been close since late winter of first year. The kind of close where you share secrets you wouldn't tell anyone else. The kind of close where she'd lean against my shoulder during lunch break and nobody would say anything, because it was just… us. The kind of close where we'd talk about our respective relationship disasters, hers with Takeo, mine with Nanase, and somehow feel less alone.

The GTA kids all knew about it, the secret closeness, the 'are they or aren't they' that everyone whispered about but nobody ever asked directly. But it wasn't like that. It couldn't be. We both knew where the lines were, and we both had reasons not to cross them.

"Rena-chan…" I exhaled smoke, trying to sound normal. "Hahh…"

"So." She didn't let go. "You're going to bring Nanase back here, right? Guess we can't do this anymore, huh?"

Just like that. No filter. Zero hesitation.

"Hee? Hah… Come on, Rena-chan." I took another drag chuckling. "You know how I feel about her. If I don't do something about it… it won't feel right."

She nodded, her cheek still resting against my shoulder. "Did she really break up with you last night?"

"Sort of… Yeah…" I stared at the row of mopeds. "I haven't answered her yet. She did it by text. Super heartbroken. In the end, I just asked if we could at least meet once. Properly. Even though… I still don't want to. I want to… You know… I don't know… Work it out?"

"So that's how it is." Rena's voice was flat. "Short hair. Big tits. You'll really do anything for your type, huh?"

My God.

She'd never even met Nanase. Everything she knew came from our private chats, late-night texts, classroom gossip, the kind of stuff you only told someone you trusted completely.

"Shut up!" I burst out laughing.

"And Fumisen?" She was finally teasing it, whispering.

"Ah, that… you... you kno.."

But she cut me off.

"Jouji…" Her voice shifted. Quieter. "I break up with Takeo again, too."

"Seriously?"

"Mm-hmm." She nodded against my shoulder. "He doesn't want to go to college. Doesn't want to work. Said he wants to 'rest' after twelve years of school. We had a huge fight last week. I broke up with him again. He didn't care this time. Rich kid. You know how it is." A bitter little laugh. "I hadn't told you yet because we haven't had time alone since classes started…"

"You could've texted, Rena-chan."

"Ah… yeah. Probably would've been the same. I'd rant to you for hours, then end up back with him anyway… But now…" She trailed off.

"People vanished."

"Mm-hmm."

"Mm-hmm."

I didn't have anything else to say.

"But, hehe." Her voice brightened, deliberately, I could tell. "You're pretty cool today, Jouji. It's insane. The GTA chairman who couldn't care less about his own class. Every class-rep committee meeting, you'd sit there spacing out, forgetting everything the moment it was over. You never once gave a speech in 1-B that didn't end with a punchline. And now…" She squeezed my arm tighter. "Now you've turned total chaos into something that actually makes sense. I don't know you anymore."

"Stop it. It doesn't make any sense. At all." I chuckled.

Then she leaned closer, whispering.

"Washroom? I'm soaked, Jouji." She was grinning, ear-to-ear.

"Right. Let's go!" I grinned at her back.

She cracked up. Full-on laughter.

It wasn't the first time she'd teased me like that. Probably not the last, even if I was about to bring Nanase here. Rena teased hard. Always. She crossed lines and never once failed to make me tense up. But I'd learned to fire back, play along.

We both knew it was a joke. Nothing happened between us. Nothing would.

I had Nanase. She'd had Takeo. Simple.

But the thought of it though.

But again…

Beneath her laugh, I knew what was really there. The same thing that was beneath mine. A facade. Trying desperately to be normal in a world that had stopped being normal some hours ago.

The main entrance door opened.

"Jouji! We're read.."

Fumi-senpai stopped dead.

Rena's arms unlocked from mine at approximately the speed of light. A little too late. Way too late.

Fumi-senpai's grin spread slow and dangerous as she walked toward us. Chisaton, behind her, just shook her head with a knowing smirk and kept walking passed us. I caught a few other glances from the convoy girls, Sayaka in particular, whose expression said she was filing this away for later.

Great.

"Rena's your girlfriend too? Not just the Asakaze girl?" Fumi-senpai's eyes narrowed.

"N.. No, Fumisen… We're just close. We were… same class last year."

Fumi-senpai's smirk didn't budge. "Kid, I'm not naive." She laughed. "You really are something, huh, Jouji?"

I couldn't tell if she was angry. She didn't sound angry.

"Fumi-tan… seriously. Me and Rena-chan, we're just close friends. From 1-B. GTA." I laughed, took another drag.

Fumi-senpai plucked the cigarette straight from my fingers and took a drag herself. "Bullshit. And you…" She pointed at Rena. "…you are dating some third-year, alumnus, ZAKO crew. Ta… Taku.."

"Takeo," Rena supplied, barely holding in laughter.

"Yeah! That guy. The one with the onion face." Fumi-senpai cackled.

"Fumisen!" Rena lost it.

I was laughing too. Hard.

Then Fumi-senpai grabbed my arm, tight, her chest pressing against me. She yanked me toward the mopeds.

"Oi! Fu.."

"Alright, enough. When your girlfriend gets here," She turned back to Rena, still laughing, "no more clinging to him like this. Don't want no drama, got it?"

"What about you, Fumisen?!" Rena was still cracking up. She teased back.

Damn, Rena-chan.

"Her girlfriend isn't here yet." Fumi-senpai said it completely deadpan. Then laughed.

"Nanase. Her name's Nanase." Rena's grin was devilish. "Short hair. Big tits."

"Rena-chan!"

Fumi-senpai snickered. "My tits are big too. Quite, anyway." Fumi-senpai looked at me, utterly shameless.

"Wanna touch them and compare, Jouji?"

"Wha.. shut up! Let's go!" I tried to pull away.

I didn't try very hard.

---

We rode.

Seven mopeds in loose formation through streets that still didn't feel real. No cars. No bicycles. No old ladies walking their dogs. Just the buzz of 50cc engines and the wind and the buildings, houses and shops and apartments, all standing exactly where they should be, all completely empty.

The first stop was Morikawa Ayano's. Four hundred meters. She dismounted from Fumi-senpai's Honda Today and stood outside her own front gate like she was waiting for permission to enter. Fumi-senpai went with her. The rest of us waited on the road, engines idling.

Nobody spoke.

The silence was worse than the riding. When we were moving, there was wind and noise and the need to watch the road. When we stopped, when someone walked up to their own front door and pushed it open, the silence crept back in.

Ayano came out a few minutes later. A bag. Her eyes wet. She climbed back onto the Honda without a word.

We kept moving.

Kaede's house. Older. Showa-era. A persimmon tree in the garden. She went in with Chisaton. Came out carrying a small duffel and something wrapped in cloth, a photo frame, maybe.

Fumi-senpai's house. Modern. Dark-gray concrete. Frosted glass. She went in alone. Didn't take long. Came back out with a single bag and an expression that told me exactly nothing. She swung onto the Honda and revved the engine.

"Next."

That was all.

I didn't ask.

Saki-senpai's, a pale blue two-story with a small garden she didn't look at as she walked in. Rie-senpai's, the dry-cleaning shop, the iron staircase. Each stop the same ritual: one or two people walking into an empty house, the rest of us waiting in the road like a funeral procession that hadn't decided if it was moving or standing still.

And then, Chisaton's.

Tucked deep in the Midorigaoka pocket. Older Western-style frame house. Cream paint faded from years of sun. Ivy creeping up the brick chimney. A glass wind chime hanging silent from the front eave.

Then I remembered at that exact time. About Chisaton's father.

"Chisaton… Hey…" I called out to her, not loud enough.

She didn't answer. Just walked straight in.

So I followed her through the front door, Fumi-senpai followed me.

The inside was spotless. Ordered. The home of someone who believed in structure and discipline. One wall had a framed commendation. Another had a photograph, Chisaton as a junior high student, Ichi-chu alumnus, same as me, grinning beside a man. Not just any uniform. The rank insignia of a chief.

"Fumi-tan…" I kept my voice low. "I need to talk to Chisaton for a sec."

"About what?"

Chisaton emerged from her room. Her eyes were red. Puffy. But she wasn't crying now.

"Chisaton." I walked closer, normal volume.

"What, Jouji?" Her voice was soft. The creaks were still there.

"Your dad's a police, right? Could you, probably… check his study? Or his room? There's a chance, maybe, he might have… a firearm."

"Jouji! Are you crazy?!" Fumi-senpai's voice cut through the quiet.

"I'm not." I met her eyes. "Can't get any crazier. Remember?"

She opened her mouth. Closed it. "Fair… fair point." Even the Glass Doll of Kamishiro looked unsettled.

Chisaton stared at me. "Jouji. You… You're serious?"

I nodded. "Your call. I know this is hard. It's hard for all of us. But if there's something like that here, we need to secure it. Before anyone else finds it. Any other, what.. umm… kobore-mono?"

The word spilled out through my mouth just like that.

It was the first time I'd used that word. The spilled ones. The dropouts who slipped through the cracks of whatever cleared out the world.

"Kobore-mono?" Chisaton muttered. She hadn't heard my theory yet. I only nodded to reply.

"Kobore-mono," Fumi-senpai repeated quietly, testing the weight of the syllables on her tongue.

"Yeah. Any better suggestions? 'The unvanished sounds too much like a bad sci-fi movie, the leftovers? Nah. I don't wanna feel like wasted food."

She nodded, a grim, faint smirk touching her lips. No argument.

Kobore-mono it is.

Chisaton held my gaze for a long moment. Then she turned and walked into her parents' bedroom. We waited. The wind chime outside didn't make a sound.

She came back shaking her head.

"Nothing, Jouji. Asou-senpai." She looked rather relieved. "I've never seen my dad bring a gun home. They're not supposed to."

I exhaled. Didn't realize I'd been holding it. For countless of times today.

"Okay… Hahh…"

"Let's continue."

We left Chisaton's house behind.

And the streets swallowed us whole again.

I didn't know how else to describe it. Midorigaoka was a quiet neighborhood on a normal day, sleepy, residential, the kind of place where the loudest sound was someone's grandmother sweeping the front step. But this wasn't quiet. This was absence. The kind of silence that pressed against your eardrums like you'd suddenly changed altitude.

No bikes leaning against fences. No laundry flapping on balconies. No old man walking his Shiba Inu at two in the afternoon like he'd done every day for the past forty years.

The vending machines still hummed, their fluorescent glow the only proof electricity still existed in this town, but nobody was buying cold drinks.

Nobody was buying anything.

The shadows had grown sharper as the afternoon crept forward. Around half past two, the April sun still hung high enough to bleach the pavement white, but there was a thinness to the light, that pale, crystalline quality of early spring that makes the world look like a freshly developed photograph no one's claimed yet. Except photographs had people in them. This was a movie set after wrap. Props in position. Actors gone home.

A crow cawed somewhere above the power lines. I flinched. Actually flinched.

So did Kaede, on the back of Chisaton's Passol. Her hand gripped Chisaton's shoulder tighter.

"It's just a crow," I said, loud enough for the convoy to hear.

Nobody answered. Because a crow was normal. Crows were wild. It was the things that weren't here that were the problem.

We kept moving.

Nao-senpai's place sat near the lower river banks. The ground floor was an open-faced corrugated metal garage packed with old tools, fishing rods, and spare moped parts. The living quarters were on the second floor, up an exterior metal walkway. She went up alone. Came back down with one duffel bag and a jaw set so tight I could see the muscle twitching. She didn't say anything. Didn't cry.

"Next," she said.

Eri's place was squeezed between a shuttered photography studio and an office supply store, three stories, maybe four meters wide, a vertical shoebox. She went in and came out with a backpack and a portable shortwave radio, the chunky kind with an extendable antenna.

"My dad's," she explained. "If anyone's broadcasting…"

"Good thinking," Fumi-senpai said.

Then we moved again.

A traditional Japanese bungalow with a low stone wall and a heavy wooden sliding door. Along the side wall, on tiered benches, maybe twenty bonsai, black pines, a cascading juniper, a miniature maple. Untouched.

Moe stood in front of them for a long moment, touched one leaf with the back of her finger, then went inside. She came out in jeans, jacket and hiking boots, carrying a well-used camping backpack.

"My family camps," Moe said. "Three times a year. I know how to pack."

"You're hired," I said.

She snorted and giggled.

The next one.

A standard two-story brick house with a small patch of green lawn and a bright red American-style mailbox that looked wildly out of place in Sengawa-cho.

"My dad spent a year in the States," Sayaka said, catching everyone staring. "He came back with… enthusiasm."

She went in. Moe and Eri went with her without being asked, the three of them had gotten close during the ride, sharing quiet whispers. They came back out: Sayaka with a sports duffel, Moe with an extra bag, Eri with a folded tarp.

"I have two brothers," Sayaka said. "Their clothes might fit you and the boys at school, Jouji-kun."

She said boys at school like we were planning a club activity. Not survival.

"Thanks, Sayaka-san."

She nodded, then glanced at the paper in my hand, the route map, ink starting to blur.

"Next stop is yours, right, Jouji-kun?"

"Yeah." I looked at my own address on the paper. Last stop before Asakaze. One point seven kilometers from school. The farthest out.

Everyone climbed back onto their mopeds. Engines started..

"Okay, everyone." I raised my voice over the idling engines. "From here, my house isn't far. But you should all head straight back to school, because after my place, I'm going straight to Asakaze. And it's quite far. We better save time. The others back at school definitely need your he.."

"Jouji!"

Fumi-senpai's voice cut through the spring afternoon air. Every head turned.

She was glaring at me from the saddle of her Honda Today, both hands gripping the handlebars, her knuckles white.

"We're not splitting. We agreed on this!"

"Fu… Fumi-tan…"

"'Fumi-tan,' my ass!" Her voice climbed. "I'm not having it! We go to your hou.."

"Fumi-tan!"

My voice came out louder than I intended. Sharp enough that she stopped mid-syllable.

The whole convoy went still. Even the crows shut up.

And I didn't think me calling Fumi-senpai 'Fumi-tan' was the cause.

I simply raised my voice at The Glass Doll of Kamishiro.

Something had shifted inside me, maybe it was the six to seven hours of chaos and uncertainty, maybe it was the speeches, maybe it was just exhaustion burning through every layer of fear I'd ever had.

I wasn't afraid of her anymore. Didn't need to be.

Because I had a reason.

"Listen." My voice dropped. Quiet. Deliberate.

"Fumi-tan, Chisaton, Sayaka-san… everyone." I looked at each of them in turn, Nao-senpai, Eri, Moe the others whose names I was still learning to not swap with one another. "I know going alone is dangerous. But I'm not gonna put everyone in danger because of my own selfish reasons. It's not right."

I paused. The engines idled. Nobody spoke.

"Back at Kamishiro High, they need all of you there as fast as possible. They need to see that you're safe. That we're all going through the same thing. That the eleven of us who went home this afternoon, we can be proof that they can get through whatever this is. Without having to wonder about their own houses and families. They need closure. Because they can't go home right now."

Everyone was watching me. Moe had her hand over her mouth.

"You guys… all eleven of us… we can make them stronger facing all this. That's one of the reasons I agreed to this, all eleven of us going home. Because from the start, when me and Fumi-tan left school for 7-Eleven… I already knew. We're not gonna find anyone."

Fumi-senpai's expression flickered. Something unreadable.

"The last time I called Nanase, my… when Fumiko passed out on the field, she told me there are two guys at Asakaze. Guys who were yelling at the girls. Girls who were crying and scared. I don't know if I can get Nanase out of there safely. Without problems. And… for the safety of everyone at Kamishiro High… I can't give too much information about us."

I didn't know why my gut was telling me this. But it was.

Information was an asset and it could be weaponized. I understood that much. I watched too many movies.

"What if they're really bad? What if those two guys at Asakaze have already done terrible things to Nanase and the others there? And… would end up doing bad things to Kamishiro High girls too?"

Silence.

Real silence. The kind where you can hear eleven people processing the same ugly thought at the same time.

Chisaton's face went pale. Nao-senpai's jaw tightened. Eri clutched her shortwave radio like a talisman.

And Fumi-senpai…

Fumi-senpai exhaled. A long, slow breath through her nose. Her shoulders dropped, just slightly, but I saw it.

She knew I was right.

"Jouji…" Her voice had softened. The first time I'd heard that tone from her since she'd told me how she froze when the vanishing happened.

"Okay, everyone." Fumi-senpai straightened in her saddle. "You all go back to the school. Tell everyone that me and Jouji went to Asakaze to get Nanase. Nagisa will understand."

"Asou-senpai…" Chisaton's voice was smaller than I'd ever heard it. "Are you sure?"

Fumi-senpai pointed at me.

"Apparently someone gotta look out for our loverboy leader here." Her voice was dry, deadpan. "If he put himself in danger, I'll kill him myself."

She didn't sound like she was joking. But there was laughter, small, tentative, rippling through the convoy. The tension cracked. Just a little. Just enough.

Chisaton nodded. Grinned. She understood.

"Okay, Jouji-kun." Sayaka straightened her grip on the handlebars, Moe and Eri settling behind her. "We'll head straight back to school. You two be careful, okay? Asakaze is pretty far from here." She reached over and patted Chisaton's shoulder. Chisaton just nodded.

"Yes…" Nao-senpai's voice was rough, low, the voice of someone who didn't speak much and made it count when she did. "You two better get back. Real soon."

"Thank you, everyone!" I bowed from the saddle, awkward, unbalanced, probably looked ridiculous.

Fumi-senpai bowed too.

Wow.

The Glass Doll of Kamishiro. Bowing to her kouhai.

They peeled off one by one, Sayaka first, then Chisaton with Kaede on the back, Nao-senpai, Eri, Moe, the others. Five mopeds turning in the road. The buzz of engines fading into the amber afternoon.

Then it was just me and Fumi-senpai.

Two mopeds. Two people. One destination.

"Let's go," she said.

I nodded.

 

[darkrednotmaroon]

Chapter 8 - Welcome

My house.

About three minutes from Sayaka's. The streets here were wider, lined with zelkova trees that someone, the city, maybe, had planted decades ago. Their leaves caught the afternoon light and scattered it across the pavement in fragments. Pretty. In any other context, it would've been pretty.

The house itself: split-level, a mix of modern white plaster and dark wood paneling that my dad had designed himself. He wasn't an architect, just a guy who'd spent too many Sundays watching home renovation shows on NHK. The second-story balcony jutted out over the driveway, the one feature he'd been genuinely proud of. "Best view of Kamishiro-chuo-dori," he'd say, every time someone visited. "You can see all the way to the station."

I parked the moped in the side driveway. The back door was unlocked.

Of course it was.

I pushed it open.

"Tadaimaa…"

My voice echoed in the empty genkan. Bounced off the hallway walls. Died somewhere near the stairs.

No answer. No 'Okaeri' from my mom. No thundering footsteps from Shouta. No Mio yelling at Shouta to shut up because she was trying to watch something on TV. Mio should've been at school, at Ichi-chu, but she was sick today.

Just the hum of the refrigerator.

Fumi-senpai stepped in behind me. Quiet. Her boots on the genkan tile, then softer on the hallway wood.

"Okay, first time I've ever brought a girl home." I laughed, the hollow kind.

"Not even Nanase has been here. Rena-chan has, though. But that was with the GTA kids."

"Hehehe." Fumi-senpai's laugh was gentler than usual. She was looking around the living room, the kotatsu table, the family bookshelf, the small Shinto altar in the corner with my grandmother's photograph. "What's going on with you and Nanase, anyway? You broke up last night, you said?"

"Hah? Nah…" I walked toward my room, Fumi-senpai trailing behind. "Her and me have been distant the last two months. She's been busy studying, you know how it is, elite track at Asakaze. And me…" I laughed, "Probably asked her for too much weird stuff. Just wasn't smooth about it. She's really… shy, Fumi-tan. And it's been kind of awkward. All we ever talk about is manga, otaku stuff, L'arc… hyde… Yeah. She's a big fan. Too big of a fan she doesn't care about any other male celebrity. And non-celebrity apparently." I chuckled wryly.

I just opened up to Fumi-senpai unintentionally while scanning this emptiness of my house.

I didn't know why but I felt as if I needed that too, so that I wouldn't spiral into thoughts I didn't want to have right now.

I scanned at the living room again. Empty. The couch where my mom usually sat yelling at Shouta to stop turning the house into a circus. The corner where Mio would be curled up, too deep with Arashi and her bishounen magazine to care about anything else.

"Hahah." Fumi-senpai leaned against the hallway wall. "So why are you even dating her?"

"Hey!" I turned, mock-offended, smiling despite myself. "We kicked off great. She's pretty cute. She's smart. Well-mannered. An excited One Piece fan. She could be a bit tomboyish sometimes. Double crooked-teeth. Short pixie hair…" I pushed open my bedroom door. "Umm…"

"Big tits."

"Yeah. That." I giggled.

"Bigger than mine?" She grabbed her own chest and squeezed, deliberately, theatrically, and grinned at me. "Than Fumikoppai?"

Shit.

"Somewhere… between you and Fumiko." I tried to sound clinical.

"Fumikoppai is an anomaly."

"Can't debate that."

I started packing. Clothes. Pants. Underwear. Into my dad's old sports duffel, the one he'd used for company softball games back when he still had time for company softball games. A few CDs, too few to mention. My eyes landed on the Stratocaster knockoff in the corner. Sunburst finish. Cheap Chinese pickups. I'd saved three months of konbini to pay for it in junior high.

I wanted to take it.

But it wasn't important right now. I could come back.

We had at least two acoustic guitars at the Light Music Clubroom.

Behind me, Fumi-senpai had stretched out on my bed like she owned it.

"What did you talk about with Nagisa back in the hallway? Before we moved out?"

Oh, she knew.

"Hahah… That.. She said you beat up six gyarus from Sengawa last autumn. And that you.."

"Hey… Jouji…" She interrupted from the bed.

"Ha?" I swung my neck towards the bed.

Then I couldn't believe what I see.

"Fumi-tan! Hey! What are you.."

She pulled her skirt up. Just a few centimeters. Just enough. The late afternoon light through my window caught the curve of her thigh, and I saw, for one electric, completely involuntary second, what was beneath.

Peach.

Shit.

"Wanna do it?"

Fuck me.

Shit.

Boner.

"Ha.. hahahah!" I laughed. I don't know why I laughed. Nerves, probably. So unhinged. Adrenaline. The sheer absurdity of being propositioned in my childhood bedroom during what might be the end of the world.

I took a very deep breath.

"Fumi-tan…" I sat on the edge of the bed. Her legs were right there. I stared at The Verve's Urban Hymns in my hands instead.

The melody of Bittersweet Symphony filled in my head like personal movie soundtrack. Or I should say Andrew Oldham's rendition of The Stones' The Last Time. I couldn't decide.

"I want to..." The words came out before I could stop them and I nodded. "But… later. After we get Nanase. And only if I've properly broken up with her. Then again I may still ask for her permission for that."

I couldn't stop grinning. Stupid, helpless grin.

The song was still playing in my head. Louder by the second.

I was fucking nervous.

"Hahahahahah!" She sat up, cackling. "You're hopeless, Jouji! You're a virgin or what?" She asked crudely.

"Yeah. I am." I looked at her. "I'm a virgin…"

"Figures." She was still laughing looking at me.

God, she's cute.

"A.. And I'm fucking proud of it."

Shit, terrible response.

Nanase. Nanase.

She laughed again. Hard.

"Let's get your girlfriend back. You break up with her properly." She stood, smooth and unhurried, and walked toward the door. "And I'll fuck you after,"

She said it like she was discussing lunch plans.

My boner won't go away any time soon.

"And if we don't break up?" I said.

She glanced over her shoulder. "I'll still ask her permission to fuck you."

And then she was out the door, footsteps fading down the hallway, along with the song out of my head entirely.

Yes, my boner will not go away any time soon.

---

I finished packing. Zipped the duffel. Grabbed a hoodie, nights got cold in April.
On the way out, I stopped in the living room.

The family photograph sat on the shelf near the altar. Last Obon. We'd gone to visit Grandma in Hakone, up in the hills above Lake Ashi, where the air smelled like cedar and hot-spring sulfur. She lived in an old ryokan-style house that her own grandmother had built, with tatami mats worn soft by a century of footsteps and a narrow wooden veranda overlooking a ravine. Too far from town for convenience. Too stubborn to move. She'd been saying that since Grandpa died.

In the photo, we were all squinting into the sun, Mom, Dad, Shouta on Dad's shoulders, Mio making a peace sign with both hands, me off to the side looking like I'd rather be anywhere else. Grandma was in the center, small and fierce, smiling with all four of her remaining teeth.

I took the photo out of the frame. Folded it carefully. Into the duffel.

"Ready?" Fumi-senpai was at the door.

"Yeah."

We walked out. I locked the door.

It was pointless.

---

Asakaze wasn't close.

From Kamishiro-chuo-dori, we cut north through the residential blocks, then hooked east along the old prefectural road, two lanes, no divider, the kind of road that in normal times was a slog of delivery trucks and cautious grandpas in kei cars.

Now it was a straight shot through a ghost town.

The sun was sinking toward the mountains in earnest, golden hour, that brief, aching window when the light turns everything soft and nostalgic, when even cracked asphalt and power lines look beautiful. The shadows of our mopeds stretched long and thin across the pavement, two dark silhouettes leading the way.

We passed a Lawson at Kamiyama crossing. Fully operational, only without employees and customers. A FamilyMart. A Cosmo gas station with the price numbers still lit, ¥158/liter, unchanged since this morning. A pachinko parlor with its garish neon off, the glass doors reflecting nothing but sky.

It struck me, somewhere around the fifteen-minute mark, that I'd stopped looking for people. My brain had already adjusted. The empty streets weren't strange anymore. They were just the way things were now.

I didn't know if that was resilience or surrender. Maybe both.

---

The school came into view.

I pulled over from the distance, letting the engine idle. Fumi-senpai pulled up beside me and did the same.

The silence rushed back in.

"Three forty-five," she said, checking her phone.

Fifteen minutes to four. We'd made it in just over fifteen minutes. The school loomed in front of us, beautiful, silent, and completely unknowable.

The gate was open.

Wide open. Like the school was expecting us.

Or like someone had left in a hurry and hadn't bothered to close it behind them.

"You ready?" Fumi-senpai's voice was quiet.

I stared at the main building. Somewhere inside that building, Nanase was waiting. Somewhere inside that building, two guys had been yelling at scared girls. Or they'd stopped. Or worse.

"No," I said. "Let's go."

We rode through it, toward the main building.

I killed the Jog's engine. The sudden absence of that familiar two-stroke rattle made the silence rush back in ten times louder. Beside me, Fumi-senpai cut the Honda Today's motor and swung her leg off the seat in one fluid motion.

"Alright," she said, flipping her phone shut. "Made good time."

I only nodded, staring at the building.

Asakaze Minami High School sat on a low rise at the north-eastern edge of the town like it had been dropped there by accident, some architect's fever dream that had materialized fully formed and slightly alien among the suburban sprawl.

Funny that Minami literally means south, but it's not south of the town. Probably had nothing to do with the town geography from the beginning.

Three stories of white concrete and glass. A curved facade that belonged on a corporate headquarters in Marunouchi, not a public high school in a town most people of Tokyo couldn't find on a map. The front plaza was a wide sweep of pale stone with geometric planters, actual planters, with actual landscaping, the kind of thing that required a grounds-keeping budget and probably a committee. A row of cherry trees lined the approach like an honor guard.

Kamishiro High had a dirt sports ground and a chain-link fence and a main building that had been new sometime around the 1980. We had fluorescent lights that flickered in the east wing and a stairwell that smelled permanently of floor wax and teenage regret. We had character.

Asakaze Minami had money.

This was the number one public school in the city, not just academically, where their kids consistently placed in the top five percent nationally on practice exams, but in everything. Sports. Culture festivals. Music programs. Their brass band had made nationals three years running. Their debate team had crushed every private academy in the prefecture.

Riding through those gates, you didn't just feel like you were entering a school. You felt like you were entering a statement.

And right now, that statement was empty.

"Fumi-tan." I pulled off my helmet. "1-A. Nanase should be there."

She was already stowing her helmet on the Honda's seat. "Gotcha."

I swung off the Jog and started securing my bag. The duffel with the family photo. The baseball bat strapped to the side. "She said she was with 1-A with her friend, Yumi, who's my friend too actually, and the other girls, and two boys. Twenty of them, give or take."

"Right. Two damsels then?" Fumi-senpai cracked her neck, one sharp twist to the left, then the right, and grabbed her own bat from where she'd wedged it between the seat and the rear rack.

"Ye… Yeah, two." I just remembered. What would I have done if I'd come here alone. I wouldn't have been able to get Yumi, and Nanase might not want to go with me.

Now I was glad Fumi-senpai was here.

"Let's go get your girlfriend. And her friend."

"Ex. Maybe. Still figuring that part out."

"Figure it out inside."

We walked toward the main entrance. Our footsteps echoed across the stone plaza, two sets, in perfect rhythm, the only sound in a school built for standing ovation over-achievers.

The front doors were glass. Floor-to-ceiling. The kind that slid open automatically when you approached, triggered by some motion sensor. But this one was more expensive than those at konbini. They parted with a soft pneumatic elegant hiss, and we stepped into the lobby.

Good God.

The lobby alone was bigger than Kamishiro's entire first-floor corridor. Polished gray stone floors that reflected the ceiling lights in sharp, geometric patterns. A wide staircase sweeping up to the second floor, its railings brushed steel. A digital information board, dark now, but still mounted on the wall like a promise of normalcy. Trophy cases lined both sides of the entrance hall, and even from twenty meters away I could see the gleam of brass and silver, rows upon rows of awards that said: We win. At everything. Always.

The air smelled different. Not like floor wax and chalk dust. Like new paint. Like whatever industrial-grade cleaning solution they used on those polished floors. Like a building that had been finished last week instead of last decade.

"Damn," Fumi-senpai muttered from beside me. "This is a public school?"

"Number one," I said. "Academics. Non-academics. Everything."

"Figures." She was chewing gum again, slow, deliberate, her jaw working in that rhythm I'd come to recognize over the past six hours. "Rich kids."

"Elite track kids. Different thing."

"Same thing."

She wasn't wrong.

We moved deeper into the building. The hallway stretched ahead of us, wide enough for three people to walk abreast without brushing shoulders, the kind of corridor designed by someone who'd actually thought about student traffic flow instead of just slapping down linoleum and calling it a day.

The lights were on. Fluorescent panels in the ceiling, humming at a frequency just low enough to ignore. Someone had left them running since this morning. Or they were on a timer. Or the building itself was just too stubborn to admit anything had changed.

We took a right at the first junction, following the classroom numbers. 1-E. 1-D. 1-C. The sliding doors were all closed, their little windows showing glimpses of empty desks and abandoned bags and whiteboards still covered in whatever notes had been scrawled there before morning assembly.

1-B.

1-A.

The plaque beside the door was crisp and clear, black letters on white plastic, the school crest embossed in the corner. Inside that room, twenty-something people were huddled together, scared and confused. Inside that room, two guys had been yelling at girls. Inside that room, Nanase was waiting.

Or she wasn't.

Or worse.

I stopped about three meters from the door. My grip tightened on the baseball bat.

"Do we knock?" I kept my voice low. "Or just call out?"

Fumi-senpai turned to look at me. Her expression was completely flat. Then, slowly, deliberately, a grin spread across her face.

"Oi!" she bellowed, her voice slamming down the empty corridor like a thunderclap. "Nobody's here?!"

"Fumi-tan!" I hissed, my eyes going wide. "What the fu.."

She just cackled. Actually cackled, that same full-bodied laugh I'd heard when she's too amused, echoing off the polished floors and probably reaching every single classroom on this floor.

I couldn't help it. The grin broke through before I could stop it. "You're insane. You know that?"

"You're smiling."

"Because you're fucking insane."

I shook my head, still grinning, and turned back toward the door. Might as well commit now. She'd already announced our presence to the entire building.

"Ojamashima.."

She didn't get to finish.

The door to 1-A slid open, and two boys stepped into the hallway.

They were both tall, or at least, tall by my standards. Which wasn't saying much. But these two had presence. The kind of presence that wasn't just about height.

The first one, crew cut, the kind that was maybe trying to be a pompadour but hadn't quite committed, was about Donda's height. Hundred seventy, give or take. But where Donda was lanky soccer-player build, this guy was built. Thick shoulders straining the seams of his blazer. Forearms like someone who'd been doing push-ups since middle school and hadn't seen a reason to stop. His face was, well. Not ugly. But not friendly, either. The kind of face that looked like it was permanently one minor inconvenience away from throwing a punch. Brows heavy. Jaw squared. Eyes that were currently scanning me like I was a problem he was trying to decide whether to solve.

The second one was taller. Maybe 175, 178 centimeters. Lean, not skinny, but the kind of lean that came from being naturally lanky and not doing much about it. His hair was longer, falling past his ears in that deliberately unkempt way that said he either played guitar or wanted people to think he did. Glasses. Wire-rimmed. Behind them, his eyes were narrow and sharp, moving from me to Fumi-senpai and back again with the calculating expression of someone who was already deciding how this conversation was going to go.

And the way they were looking at us said it all: You're not welcome. And you've made a very inconvenient decision by showing up.

 

[darkrednotmaroon]

Chapter 9 - Two Mouths

The crew-cut one, Ebara. Had to be. The one who'd been yelling at the girls.

The one Nanase had mentioned on the phone, her voice trembling through the static.

"Who the hell are you?!" His voice was exactly what I'd expected. Loud. Aggressive. The kind of voice that had spent years learning that volume was a substitute for authority indeed.

I took a breath. Let it out. Raised both hands, not in surrender, exactly. Just to show they were not empty, but we were at bay also. My right hand was still holding the baseball bat, but I kept it low, non-threatening.

"Jouji." I dipped my head, a small bow, not quite formal. "Shigeru Jouji. From Kamishiro High. You must be Ebara-san and Ninomiya-san."

He blinked. Something flickered behind the aggression, surprised, maybe. Or suspicion.

"You know us?" The glasses one, Ninomiya. His voice was quieter than Ebara's, but not in a reassuring way. More like a knife sliding out of a sheath. His expression tightened, his already-unpleasant face settling into something even less welcoming.

"Yeah." I kept my voice level. Tried to sound as non-hostile as I possibly could while standing in a strange school with a baseball bat in my hand. "I'm here to see my girlfriend. Nanase. Hasegawa Nanase. She's in 2-A."

I let that hang in the air for a second.

"Unggh.." A grunt. My brain catching up to my mouth. I was trying to sound calm. Reasonable. The opposite of whatever these two had probably been doing all day, or at least Ebara.

But Fumi-senpai.

Fumi-senpai had decided to take a completely different approach.

She was standing beside me, her baseball bat swinging lazily from her fingertips. The blonde streaks in her hair caught the fluorescent light. Her gum-chewing had slowed to something almost theatrical, pop, pause, pop, like she was keeping time for a song only she could hear.

She released her bun in one swift motion, her hair spilled over her shoulders in a wave that said shampoo commercial, if shampoo commercials starred a delinquent third-year who could probably break your kneecaps with a single well-placed kick.

And her foot. Her foot was tapping.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The toe of her boot against the polished stone floor, a steady, deliberate rhythm that filled the silence between words like a countdown.

Not helping.

Not helping at all.

Ebara's jaw tightened. He turned and shoved the classroom door wider.

"Hasegawa!"

The name echoed down the corridor, not a request. A summons. Like he was calling a dog.

My grip on the bat tightened.

She appeared in the doorway about ten seconds later. Nanase. Hair cropped short in that pixie cut that always made her look a little like a lost elf. Shoulders hunched forward, the nekoze posture I'd teased her about never times. Behind her, Yumi hovered like a shadow, eyes red-rimmed behind her oval wire-rimmed glasses, and a few other girls crowded the doorway, peering out.

Nanase's eyes found mine. And for one long, unguarded moment, everything else fell away.

Relief. I could feel my tense shoulders sagged away.

"Jouchi…"

Her voice cracked. Relief flooded her face, raw and immediate and completely involuntary. But right behind it, something else flickered. Like…

Guilt.

I didn't know for sure.

She took half a step toward me before Ebara's voice cut her off.

"This him? This your boyfriend?"

Nanase flinched. Actually flinched. Her shoulders drew up tighter, and she nodded, a small, jerky motion. "Ye.. Yes. He's… he's from Kamishiro High."

"Then you knew." Ebara's voice had shifted. Sharper. The kind of anger that had been simmering and had finally found somewhere to point itself. "You talked to him. On your phone. After we told everyone, told everyone, to let us know if someone reached anyone on the outside."

Nanase's face crumpled. "I was scared. I didn't… I wasn't trying to…"

"We've been clear about this!" Ebara took a step toward her. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to loom. "If someone contacted anyone, we needed to know. That was the rule!"

I stepped forward.

Not aggressive. Not fast. Just… one step. Enough to draw the eye.

"Ebara-san," I kept my voice level, calm, the way you'd talk to a dog that was two seconds from biting. "I called her. She only told me you two were the only boys. Then the signal cut." I met his eyes. "That's all she told me. It was nothing. So I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk to her like that."

The silence stretched.

Then Ebara was moving. Two long strides and he was right in front of me, close enough that I could smell the faint sourness of stress sweat through his light blue Asakaze suit blazer. He had maybe three centimeters on me, and about fifteen kilos of muscle he clearly wanted me to notice.

"You'd appreciate it?" His voice dropped low. Dangerous. "You come to our school, with a bat, and tell us how to.."

Fumi-senpai stepped between us.

She didn't push him. Didn't raise her bat. Just… inserted herself.

The blonde streaks in her hair caught the fluorescent light. Her gum popped once, slow, deliberate, and her foot was tapping that same steady rhythm on the polished floor.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Ebara looked down at her. And laughed.

It wasn't a nice laugh. It was the laugh of someone who'd looked at a hundred-seventy centimeters of muscle versus a hundred-fifty-something centimeters of cute gyaru and decided the math wasn't worth his time.

"And what's this? Your pretty little gyaru bitch?"

The words landed like a slap.

Fumi-senpai didn't flinch. Her expression didn't change. But her foot stopped tapping.

"Ebara."

Ninomiya's voice cut through, sharp, urgent, nothing like the quiet knife from before.

"Back off."

Ebara blinked. Turned. "What?"

"I said back off." Ninomiya was looking at Fumi-senpai now. Really looking. His narrow eyes had gone wide behind his glasses. "That's Asou. Asou Fumi."

Ebara's brow furrowed. "So?"

"Kamishiro no Garasu Ningyou. She doesn't dress like it, but she's the sukeban of Kamishiro High." Ninomiya's voice had gone very, very quiet.

"Third year. The girl who put down six Sengawa gyarus by herself last October. You of all people would have heard."

The change in Ebara's face was almost comical. The aggression didn't disappear, but it… shifted. Redirected. Like a truck driver realizing he'd almost run over a police car.

Fumi-senpai tilted her head. Her gum-chewing resumed, slow, theatrical, the rhythm of someone who'd just been handed the remote control.

"Ninomiya Shinji," She said it like she was reading a file. "Midorigaoka Junior High. 3-B. The smartest kid in the year, but never a class-rep or student council. You always let other people take titles. You just… advised." She smiled.

It wasn't a warm smile. "Still advising, I see."

Ninomiya's jaw tightened. He didn't deny it.

"You know her?" Ebara looked between them.

"We were classmates," Ninomiya said flatly. "Different circles."

"Very different." Fumi-senpai popped her gum. "I was the bitch type. He was the 'I'll destroy you with three sentences and a polite smile' type." Her eyes flicked to Ebara.

Ebara didn't say anything. But he stepped back. Slowly. Reluctantly. The way a dog backs away from something it's been told not to bite.

I used the silence.

"Nacchi, Yumi." I turned to her and Yumi who pressed against her side. "Come with me to Kamishiro High. I know it's selfish of me, but I promise we'll take care of you both."

Her eyes lit up, that flash of hope I'd been chasing since eight-thirty-something this morning.

"Jouchi, I.."

"Hold on."

Ninomiya. Of course.

He stepped forward, not aggressive, nothing about Ninomiya was ever aggressive, but with the quiet confidence of someone who'd never lost an argument he'd prepared for.

"Hasegawa-san and Arata-san have been under our care since this morning. Ebara-kun and I have been keeping everyone here safe. In that sense… they're our responsibility." He adjusted his glasses. "If help comes, and it will, and they aren't here, that reflects poorly on us. More importantly…"

He spread his hands. A reasonable man making a reasonable point.

"No one knows what's happened. Staying in place is the most logical course of action. Asakaze Minami has a full kitchen. Stocked pantry. Facilities that could sustain twenty people for weeks." His eyes met mine. "What does Kamishiro High have compared to what we have?"

Beside me, Fumi-senpai's jaw tightened. I could feel the heat coming off her. She was about to let loose, and I didn't blame her. Ninomiya had a way of making everything he said sound reasonable while being completely infuriating.

I beat her to it.

"Kamishiro High has food and facilities too." I shrugged. "Not as good as Asakaze. But come on now, that's obvious, aren't you the elites? Why do you even ask?" A pause. A grin. "Comparing Kamishiro with Asakaze is like a can of Boss Coffee with a cup of Blue Mountain from a Ginza specialty shop. One's what you drink to survive. The other comes with a tasting menu. A sixth grader playing Kamen Rider around Sengawa river would know that."

A snort. Then another. One of the girls in the doorway, not Nanase, someone behind her, let out a giggle she couldn't quite suppress. Yumi's shoulders shook. Even Nanase's lips twitched.

And Fumi-senpai, Fumi-senpai let out a sharp bark of laughter that she made zero effort to hide.

Ninomiya's face went red.

"The hell are you laughing at?!" Ebara's voice boomed down the corridor. The snickering died instantly.

"Sorry, sorry." I raised both hands, grinning wide. The apology was about as sincere as a vending machine's 'thank you.' "Didn't mean to offend. But seriously, Kamishiro's got twelve people. Only one guy. Me." I gestured and threw a glance at Fumi-senpai that screamed play along.

"On the way here, we ran into some people. Sengawa students. And…" I hesitated. Let the pause do the work. "We saw military vehicles. Kamishiro-chuo-dori. Convoy. JSDF, most definitely. Three of them. Scary-looking. Like something out of a Godzilla movie."

Fumi-senpai didn't blink. Didn't react. She just kept chewing her gum, her expression completely flat. She knew. She'd understood the moment I'd said it back on the road, I couldn't afford to give these two real information about Kamishiro's situation. But I hadn't said I'd lie either. Misleading wasn't the same thing.

"So here's the thing." I spread my hands. "If help's coming to Asakaze, it's coming to Kamishiro High too. Probably any minute now. And if Nanase and Yumi come with us, that's two less mouths for you to feed. Two less girls crying and making noise. Win-win."

Ninomiya's eyes hadn't left my face. "Military vehicles. What kind?"

"Big ones." I put a little caution in my voice, like I was reluctant to say more.

"Armored. Camo pattern. Definitely JSDF. Three on a convoy heading east. Very… imposing."

He studied me for a long moment. Then: "How did you get here?"

Couldn't lie about that one.

"Mopeds. Mine and hers." I jerked a thumb toward the gate where our bikes were parked. "They're ours to begin with. Ask Nanase, she knows I park my Jog at the 7-Eleven near the school."

Every head turned toward Nanase.

She blinked. Her mouth opened, closed, then opened again. "He.. yes. He rides a red Yamaha Jog. He always parks it at the 7-Eleven. Since first year."

A nod. Small. Uncertain. But it was enough.

Ninomiya absorbed this. Then his gaze sharpened, the way a lens focuses, pulling everything into one clear point.

"One more question."

I waited.

"You rode all the way here from Kamishiro. Past empty streets. Past God-knows-what. Just to get Hasegawa-san?" He tilted his head. "Why? Any other motives?"

And there it was. The real question. The one he'd been winding up to from the start.

And to be fair, I had no other motives.

But if I said no, there was a chance this wouldn't go down easily.

He was prying. He was searching for a crack for him to exploit.

I could feel Fumi-senpai tense beside me. Nanase was staring at me, confusion flickering from her eyes.

I took a breath. A deep one.

Then I walked toward Nanase.

Deliberately. Slowly. My hands came up, not raised, but… presenting. Like a host on a game show revealing the grand prize.

"Can't you see?" I turned to face Ninomiya, Ebara, the girls in the doorway. My face twisted into the most deliberately annoying, cringingly earnest expression I could manage. "Aren't you supposed to be the elites of Asakaze?"
Confusion rippled through the hallway. Nanase's brow furrowed. Yumi looked between us like she'd missed a step. Even Fumi-senpai's gum-chewing had stopped.

"Look at my girlfriend!" I gestured at Nanase with both hands. "Short pixie hair. Double crooked Dracula teeth." I pointed at her mouth, the slight double crooked on each of her fangs she'd always been self-conscious about, they only made her unquestionably cuter when she smiled. "Nekoze. Not taller than me, obviously. And…" I paused for maximum dramatic effect, "…F-Cup!"

Nanase's face went through about six shades of red in half a second.

She clapped her mouth with one of her little hands, the other hand was covering her chest, which always failed miserably at hiding, despite the loose uniform, blazer, and her posture. Always.

Her eyes were wide as a soccer pitch, times two.

"A super cute national treasure! Do I look like I need any other motive?! I'd die for.."

"JOUCHI!"

Her hand connected with my upper arm, thwack, with surprising force.

"Ow! Nacchi, what the hell?!" I complained.

I just found out now that she was strong when she wanted to be. Her face had gone full tomato, and she was staring at me like I'd just grown a third eye, and it's not in the forehead.

Beside her, Yumi burst out laughing. The kind of laugh that came from somewhere deep, the first real laugh she'd probably managed all day. From behind them, a few of the other girls in the doorway were giggling, hands over their mouths. One of them, a short girl with pigtails, was outright wheezing.

Fumi-senpai looked like she was going to combust. She was holding it, trying hard not to lose her composure. She was blinking so fast multiple times. Her lips folded inward, or else she'd explode.

And Ebara.

Ebara let out a snort. Then a chuckle. Then an actual laugh, rough and reluctant, like his body was doing something his brain hadn't approved yet.

"The hell is wrong with you?" he muttered, but the edge was gone from his voice.

I laughed with them. Big. Loud. The class-clown laugh I'd perfected in 1-B under Gorosen's half-asleep supervision. The laugh that said: I'm an idiot. I'm harmless. Don't take me seriously.

But my mind was somewhere else entirely.

Ninomiya.

He hadn't laughed. He was watching me with that same sharp, calculating expression, the one that said he was still adding up figures behind those rectangle-frame wire-rimmed glasses, running equations no one else in the hallway could see.

Come on, I thought. Buy it. I'm just an idiot with a cute girlfriend. Nothing to worry about.

The moment stretched. One heartbeat. Two.

Then Ninomiya's lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile, nor a smirk. Just a type of pout, a lips gesture like he'd just learned something uninteresting, followed by a deliberately careful nods. Maybe the kind of expression a chess player makes when they've decided their opponent isn't worth the full clock.

He leaned toward Ebara and murmured something I couldn't catch.

Ebara listened. Then he laughed, a short, dismissive bark.

"Yeah," he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "You're right. He's just an idiot."

Got you.

I let my grin go wider. Let my shoulders drop. Let myself look exactly like the harmless moron they'd just decided I was.

I rubbed the back of my neck, sheepish. "So… can I take my girlfriend home now? Yumi too? Less mouths to feed, right?"

Ninomiya pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. The gesture was slow. Deliberate. The kind of thing someone did when they were used to everyone waiting for them to speak.

"You can take them." His voice was back to that quiet, reasonable tone, the advisor, not the enforcer. "Under two conditions."

Fumi-senpai's gum popped. "Conditions?"

"Information and cooperation." Ninomiya's eyes settled on me. "If the JSDF really is mobilizing through Kamishiro-chuo-dori, we need to know. When you get back to your school, if you hear anything, see anything, you come here and let me know. You owe me that much for taking care of Hasegawa-san and Arata-san."

He was good. Really good. Turning my own lie into a reason for cooperation. Making it seem like he was the one doing me a favor by taking care and letting the girls go.

He emphasized 'me' as if the solar system revolved around him, not the sun.

A narcissistic snob bastard.

"Deal," I said. "And thank you very much, Ninomiya-san." I didn't hesitate to bow lower than forty-five degrees to them. The faster I agreed, the lower I bowed, the wider my grin showing gratitude, the less time he'd have to think of me as anything but a simpleton.

"Jouchi…" Nanase's voice was small. She was looking at me like she couldn't quite figure out what had just happened. "Are you… really okay with this?"

I turned to her, grinning still wide. Couldn't drop the act yet.

"Yeah," I said quietly. "Let's go."

She nodded. Something in her eyes softened, that same flicker of relief from before, but steadier now. More certain.

Yumi was already grabbing her bag from inside the classroom. A few of the other girls were watching with expressions that ranged from envy to confusion to something like hope.

"Grab your stuff, Nacchi," I told Nanase. "We've got mopeds outside. It's about fifteen minutes back to Kamishiro."

"Fifteen minutes?" Yumi's voice wobbled. "On a moped?"

"Two mopeds," Fumi-senpai corrected. She'd moved to stand beside me, her bat resting on her shoulder now. Casual. Unhurried. The gum-chewing had resumed its normal rhythm. "Jouji takes one. I take the other. You two ride pillion."

"I… I've never ridden a moped before," Yumi whispered.

"First time for everything." Fumi-senpai wasn't looking at Yumi, though. She was looking at Ninomiya. Still watching. Still calculating.

Nanase and Yumi both, entered the classroom.

The other girls followed them inside.

Around two or three minutes, Nanase emerged from the classroom with her school bag clutched against her chest. She'd thrown a cardigan over her uniform, the same olive-green one I'd seen her wear a hundred times, the one with the frayed cuff she always pushed up past her wrists when she was thinking hard.

"I.. I'm ready," she said.

"Okay." I turned back to Ebara and Ninomiya one last time. "Thanks for looking after her. Both of them."

Ebara grunted. It wasn't friendly, but it wasn't hostile anymore either. Just the sound of someone who'd decided the situation was no longer his problem.

Ninomiya inclined his head, a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. "Safe travels, Shigeru-san. Asou-san. I'll be waiting."

The way he said our names made my skin crawl. Like he was filing them away somewhere. Cataloguing.

I didn't let it show.

Said he'll be waiting.

You can wait forever.

"Come on." I gestured toward the main entrance. "Let's go."

We walked.

The four of us, me in front with my bat, Nanase beside me, Yumi trailing with Fumi-senpai bringing up the rear.

The sun had dropped lower. The cherry trees along the front drive were casting long shadows across the stone plaza, and the air had that particular April quality, cool enough to raise goosebumps, warm enough to promise spring was actually happening.

My Jog and Fumi-senpai's Today sat exactly where we'd left them, two small machines in the middle of an empty parking lot designed for a hundred cars.

"Nacchi, you're with me." I swung onto the Jog and kicked the stand. "Yumi, you're with Fumi-senpai. You two relax. Hold on tight. Don't let go. If we stop suddenly, lean with the bike, not against it."

"Okay." Yumi's voice was barely a whisper. She was staring at the Honda Today like it was a roller coaster she hadn't agreed to ride.

Fumi-senpai mounted with practiced ease and patted the seat behind her. "Come on, kid. I don't bite."

Yumi climbed on. Her arms wrapped around Fumi-senpai's waist with the desperate tightness of someone clinging to a life raft.

Behind me, Nanase settled onto the Jog's pillion. Her hands found my sides, tentative at first, then firmer. This… was probably the closest we had ever been.

Last night she'd broken up with me via text.

This morning the world had ended.

And now here she was, holding on.

"Jouchi." Her voice was right behind my ear. Quiet. Just for me. "I'm sorry. About the text. About.."

"Later." I turned the key. The Jog's engine rattled to life. "We'll talk later. Right now just… we gotta get outta here."

She held on.

I looked over at Fumi-senpai. She met my eyes across the space between the two bikes. Her expression was unreadable, the gum still moving in that slow, steady rhythm, her blonde hair catching the golden-hour light.

But she nodded.

Just once. Small. The kind of nod that said we did it, and what the hell was that performance, and you owe me an explanation, all at the same time.

She snorted.

I nodded, snorted back a little.

Then I twisted the throttle, and we headed home.

The gate was still open when we left. Wide open. Like the school was saying goodbye.

Or like someone had left in a hurry and hadn't bothered to close it behind them.

We pulled out of Asakaze Minami at exactly 16:22.

---

The four of us slipped through that still-open gate and onto the empty road beyond. The Jog's two-stroke rattle filled the silence like a defiant middle finger to the apocalypse.

Nanase's grip on the sides of my blazer was rigid. Board-stiff. The kind of grip that said she'd never done this before and was currently running through every possible way a moped could kill her, but she didn't wanna tell.

Which, to be fair, she hadn't.

Not from lack of trying on my part. During our seven months together, I'd suggested the moped maybe three times for dates, just a quick ride somewhere, nothing crazy. Every single time, she'd shot it down with the same unassailable logic: You don't have a license, Jouchi.

Which was true. I didn't. But if you were a hormone-addled nineteen-year-old boy with a cute girlfriend and a 50cc engine between your legs, the lack of a laminated card from the government felt less like a legal barrier and more like a technicality. It kind of disappointed me, to be honest.

But I'd never pushed it. And now here she was, holding on because there was no other choice.

"Jo… Jouchi…" Nanase's voice came from behind me, small and uncertain, as we turned into the first residential block. Quiet streets. Drawn curtains. Bicycles still leaning against fences where their owners had left them. "Is… is it really… nobody?"

"Yeah, Nacchi." I kept my eyes on the road. "No one."

I heard her breath catch. Even over the engine, even at twenty-five kilometers per hour, I heard it, that sharp, ragged inhale of someone trying very hard not to lose it.

"Jouchi… Ke.. Kei-chan… An-chan… are they..?"

Keira and Anri. Nanase's best friends since their days at Kamishiro Municipal Second Junior High, Ni-chu. They were the ones who'd introduced us last September. Both in the Otaku Club, Manken, at Kamishiro High. Both were supposed to be in 2-E, Rikei.

"Sorry, Nacchi." There wasn't any point in dressing it up. "They vanished too."

Her hands clenched into fists against my sides. Then, for the first time ever, in seven months of dating, she pressed her forehead against my back.

She was crying. Sobbing. The kind of crying that came from somewhere so deep it didn't make much sound.

"Nacchi." My voice came out quiet. Steady. "You broke up with me last night."

A reality check before the tears had even dried up.

Call me mean, evil, bad ex-boyfriend.

But she deserved to know that whatever I was about to tell her wasn't coming from her ex-boyfriend. Because I needed her to understand that the world had changed, and so the stupid teenage drama between us could certainly wait.

"So I'm sorry if what I'm about to say sounds cruel."

I felt her stiffen.

"Fumi-senpai and I, we already went home. The nine others at Kamishiro High too. Everyone went to their houses." A pause. Let the words settle. "I lost them, Nacchi. Okaachan. Mio. Shouta."

She was crying harder now. But I couldn't stop.

"I don't know about my dad in Osaka, and Mio was supposed to be at home today she was faking sick. And as far as I know, we, the kobore-mono, we're all that's left, just high school kids."

I could feel her fingers from each of my sides, squeezing hard now.

So hard it hurt and relieved me at the same time, knowing that she was properly processing this.

"I know your house is far, out past Kugayama. And I know you're worried about your dad, your mom, Mitsu-nee, Chiyo, Kirara. Everyone." I exhaled, slowed the Jog down a little. "But you need to be strong, Nacchi. We're all going through the same thing. And we'll get through it."

A pause. Letting the words sink in.

" I promise, me, and everyone at Kamishiro High, we're going to take care of you and Yumi. Both of you."

Nanase kept crying. But the sobbing was shorter now, less desperate. She was wiping her eyes with the back of one hand while the other kept its death-grip on my blazer.

"I… I understand, Jouchi…" Sniffle. "Th.. Thank you…"

"But in return," I added, "you and Yumi have to take care of us too, okay?" I threw a glance over my shoulder. My voice was low, but she should be able to hear me.

I saw her nodding in a split second, wiping her eyes again.

Then her hands found my sides again.

I just wanted her to understand that this wasn't a rescue. She wasn't a damsel. She had responsibilities now, we all did. The sooner she internalized that, the sooner she'd survive.

We then rode in silence.

The road curved through a neighborhood of old wooden houses and narrow alleys, the kind that had been built sometime around the Showa era and hadn't changed much since.

I'd taken this route partly because it was the most direct path back to the main road, and partly because I didn't want to pass anything that might make Nanase cry again. No schools. No parks. No playgrounds with abandoned bicycles.

Just quiet houses and drawn curtains and cherry trees that didn't know the world might have just ended.

 

[darkrednotmaroon]

Chapter 10 - Full Disclosure

"Nacchi." I slowed the Jog a little. "Did you guys eat lunch?" I finally asked something after some five minutes of not-awkwardness we usually found in our time together.

We are used to sitting side-by-side, not saying anything, watching pigeons and people being pigeons and people.

That was awful. This was dreadful.

"We… We did, Jouchi. I brought a bento like usual. Yumi-chan too. We ate around eleven." The tremor was fading from her voice. Still there, a faint vibration underneath, but she wasn't on the edge of tears anymore. That was something.

I looked back at Fumi-senpai, who'd been trailing slightly behind. Yumi was clinging to her like a koala, eyes wide behind her glasses, knuckles white.

"Fumi-tan!" I slowed enough to ride parallel. "There's a Lawson at the Kamiyama crossing. Let's stop there."

She nodded. Then her face did something complicated: she shook her head, snorted, and I saw the grin spreading before I even realized what I'd done.

Oh.

Fumi-tan.

I'd called her Fumi-tan. Right in front of Nanase.

And I couldn't turn around to check her expression.

Shit.

"Fu… Fumi-tan?" Nanase's voice came from behind me. Quiet. A little uncertain. And a bit of something that sounded like snort.

I didn't answer. What was I supposed to say? Yeah, I call the most feared sukeban in Kamishiro-cho by a cutesy nickname, it's an inside joke, please don't read into it?

"You call Asou Fumi, the Glass Doll of Kamishiro, 'Fumi-tan'?" Nanase was definitely trying not to laugh now.

"Nghh… Ha.. Hahah." I laughed, but it came out strangled. "Yeah, Nacchi. It's… It's an inside joke," I said what I had thought anyway.

"You know about her?" I tried to redirect. Shift the conversation somewhere safe. My feet were twitching on the footrest. Nervous habit.

"M-hm… I've heard rumors. In class, last autumn. Around the time we, umm, started dating." She tripped over the words, and I could picture her face going pink.

"A… And Ninomiya-san also told us before too, back then, right?" Nanase continued. "The prettiest sukeban in Kamishiro-cho, they said." A pause. "She really is pretty, isn't she? She also looks… terrifying."

"Terrifying, yeah. But she's... not bad... she's actually a very good person." I laughed. "Really."

We pulled up in front of the Lawson. The parking lot was empty except for a single abandoned bicycle that had fallen on its side. The automatic doors were still working; they slid open as we approached, welcoming us into the fluorescent glow of a perfectly preserved mid-April convenience store.

Fumi-senpai dismounted first, swinging her leg off the Honda Today in one fluid motion and grabbing her baseball bat and bag. I killed the Jog's engine and Nanase climbed off behind me, still wiping at her eyes.

"Alright, gang. In." Fumi-senpai was already heading for the door. "Yumi said she was thirsty, right? Same here! That bastard Ninomiya hasn't changed one damn bit." She grumbled her way inside without waiting for a response.

"Come on." I gestured to Nanase and Yumi, who were exchanging bewildered looks. I couldn't blame them. An empty Lawson, lights on, refrigerators humming, shelves fully stocked: it felt wrong in a way the empty streets didn't. It felt like the staff had just stepped out for a smoke break and would be back any second now.

"Is… Is this really okay?" Yumi's mouth was hanging open. "Jouji, is this really…"s

She froze mid-sentence. Because Fumi-senpai had already popped open a can of something cold and was drinking it right there in the middle of the aisle.

"Hahah. It's fine, Yumi." I reached past her and grabbed a can from the cooler. Georgia Emerald Mountain Blend. Not Boss, but it'd do. "The 7-Eleven near Kamishiro High is already, well, not all cleaned, we had Slurpees. Big cups. Some snacks. Fumi-senpai just cleaned up their chewing-gum stocks. This is just… what we do now."

Yumi. Arata Yumi.

I called her casually.

Here's the thing: Yumi and I knew each other before even Nanase knew me or her. Third year of junior high school, we were in the same juku, cram school, in Kichijoji, her desperate last-ditch attempt to not bomb high school entrance exams.

I was solely there on my mom's command.

She went to Asakaze for result would never betray effort.

I went to Kamishiro High for result must be workshopped over months of mastering the art of underachieving strategy, for slow comfortable youth memories making.

High enough that my mom wouldn't cry, low enough that nobody would ever ask me to try again.

We'd study together, walk home together, sometimes grab food at the konbini or McDonald's together. She had a boyfriend back then, one of my classmates at Ichi-chu, Touma, someone I knew but not really well. Different gang. But she was from Kamigawa Riverside Junior High, the sleepy one on the west side of town. If I remembered correctly, Rena was from there too.

And I had a little crush on her.

A little.

Now here she was, staring at me like I'd just told her shoplifting had become socially acceptable.

Maybe it had.

"Ahhh…" I exhaled after my first sip. Way too satisfied for someone drinking a konbini coffee. Like an old man after a long overtime at work.

"Yumi. Nanase." Fumi-senpai's voice cut through the store, sharper now, more serious. "Listen up. Yumi, stop crying. I'm guessing Nanase here already got the talk from Jouji on the ride over. I saw her weeping."

Nanase flinched. Yumi looked at her feet.

"We all lost people. Friends. Family. Everyone." She walked behind the register counter like she owned the place and grabbed four boxes from the hot-food warmer.

"We expect the worst if we want to survive. That's just how it is for now."

She held up the boxes. "Karaage-kun?"

Yumi and Nanase exchanged glances. Then, finally, a tiny giggle escaped both of them. They nodded.

That was the first crack in the wall.

Yumi grabbed a bottle of water and a Pocari Sweat and handed one to Nanase. Fumi-senpai was already gesturing at me from behind the counter.

"Oi, Jouji. Help me out. More Mild Seven." A pause. Her eyes flicked to the far side of the register. "And… more of that."

I followed her gaze.

The condom display.

"Heh? Fumi-tan… Come on…" I laughed, but I was already moving.

"Fumi-tan?" Yumi whispered to Nanase. Loud enough for me to hear.

Nanase just nodded, biting her lip to hide a smile.

"All of this?" I shook my head, still staring at the condom display.

"Yeah. Especially those, grab all the Okamoto 0.02 and 0.03. Those are the best. Can't feel a thing. Like going raw…" Fumi-senpai cackled.

"The hell do I know about that!" I was laughing, shoving the little boxes into her bag.

"Virgin," she said, her voice dripping with mock pity coated in amusement.

"And prideful." I gotta remind her.

Then I glanced behind me.

Yumi and Nanase exchanged wide-eyed, deer-in-headlights glances. They probably hadn't expected Fumi-senpai to be this unfiltered. With me. But then again, one look at her: the blonde streaks, the gum, the baseball bat, the legend, and honestly, what were they expecting?

Still. It must have been strange for Nanase. She'd never seen me talk to anyone else like this. Her whole picture of me was built from the Otaku Club and some mutual friends. Keira, Anri, Dodo, Yumi, and some others. People I was comfortable around, sure, but not this.

Not the Ichi-chu-survivors comfortable, the GTA comfortable, the third-year gyaru sukeban yelling at me about condom brands in an empty Lawson comfortable.

"Hey, Jouji." Fumi-senpai had moved toward the refrigerators. She was grinning.

"Can we get some beers?"

She gestured at the lineup: Asahi Super Dry, Kirin Ichiban, Sapporo Black Label, Yebisu. The full Japanese lager pantheon, all lined up in neat rows behind the glass.

Yumi and Nanase's eyes went even wider.

"Nope." I shook my head. "Nuh-uh. Not now." I kept my tone casual, matter-of-fact. "I need everyone's head intact, Fumi-tan."

She held my gaze for a second. Then her grin shifted into something else, something almost approving.

"You passed."

She looked proud. Nodding to herself.

Fumi-senpai was a disaster. She was crude, impulsive, and seemed like she'd been put on this earth specifically to make uptight people uncomfortable. But she was also logical. In the handful of hours I'd known her, she'd proven herself one of the most reliable people I'd ever met.

Just, with her own particular style.

Just, what we exactly needed.

She handed out the Karaage-kun boxes one by one.

"Th… thank you, Asou-senpai." Nanase's voice was still awkward, still working through the shock.

"Let's take this outside." Fumi-senpai made a two-finger gesture at her mouth: cigarette. "My mouth's getting itchy. It'd be cruel to make Nanase and Yumi stay indoors for this."

She grabbed her bag, now considerably heavier, and her baseball bat, and headed for the door.

"Hah… Hahah." I turned to the girls. "She's just like that. Don't mind her, okay? Let's go."

We followed her out.

Fumi-senpai was already lighting up. She offered me the pack, Mild Seven, and I pulled one out without thinking.

"Jouchi?!" Nanase's voice shot up an octave. "You… you…"

Yumi was staring too.

Right. She didn't know.

I held the cigarette between my fingers, suddenly very aware of how this looked. "Nacchi… Nghh… Haha, yeah. I never told you. Sorry."

I lit up anyway.

She broke up with me, I thought to myself.

"How long?" She was pouting. But it wasn't a real pout, more like she was trying to look disapproving and failing. Her lips kept twitching toward a smile.

"A.. About two months." I exhaled, making sure the smoke went away from her.

Something flickered behind her eyes. I wondered if she was doing the math. Around two months ago was when I'd started dropping hints about our relationship moving forward, about wanting more. And two months ago was when she'd started pulling back. Avoiding me. Finding excuses not to meet unless Keira and Anri were there.

Maybe she was connecting the dots. Maybe not.

Did I care, though?

I did.

It hurt either way.

She nodded and went quiet. Pouting again.

She broke up with me last night.

If I had lost her, I couldn't lose her again.

Wisdom from another drag.

Then Fumi-senpai, being Fumi-senpai, decided to blow up whatever fragile mood we'd managed to establish.

"What the fuck was that back there, Jouji? In front of Ninomiya? F-Cup?!" She burst out laughing.

"Ah…" Nanase's memory caught up. Her face went through the full color spectrum in about half a second.

Beside her, Yumi started laughing so hard she choked on her karaage.

Nanase smacked my arm. Hard. But she was grinning, embarrassed, but grinning.

"Ow!"

"Yes, Jouchi! What was that?! I was so embarrassed! F-Cup?! How do you even know that?!"

"Wa… Was I right, though?" I didn't know what came over me, I just said it, grinned, and got me another smack.

"Nanase, your boyfriend is hopeless!" Fumi-senpai was absolutely howling now.

"But he was right, wasn't he? I'm an E. And he told me your tits are bigger than mine, just not as big as Fumikoppai, the Kamishiro girl who's a G and a total statistical anomaly. So you've gotta be an F!"

"Jouchi!" Nanase was laughing now too, hitting me over and over on the arm.

I knew how awkward this might be for her.

And how bad it was supposed to look for me.

Talking about her breasts with the Glass Doll of Kamishiro.

What had the Jouchi who didn't even want to talk about how Oda-sensei drew female characters with exaggerated bust sizes ever since Water 7, been degraded into?

She didn't know.

That same Jouchi talked about it with Kenta, Ryo, Takeshi, and the rest of the Ichi-chu Late Night 7-Eleven gang with fervor and eagerness. Like faith, like religion.

She did not know.

And right now, I couldn't even defend myself. I was laughing too hard.

"Nacchi! Stop! Ow! You're surprisingly strong! Ergh! Ow!"

But here's the thing.

I'd never been like this with her before. Never. Not once in seven months. We'd been comfortable, sure: quiet conversations, shared manga, group study, club meetups.

But this? Laughing until my stomach hurt, getting smacked around, feeling the tension bleed out of all of us at once?

Never.

Yumi was laughing so hard tears were streaming down her face.

"Wait, okay…" I caught my breath. "Nacchi, let me explain…"

"I didn't know you were this much of an idiot and a hentai, Jouchi!" Nanase was pouting and grinning at the same time. I honestly couldn't tell which. But the light in her eyes, that wasn't going anywhere.

"Nanase." Fumi-senpai sauntered over, still laughing. "He is a hentai. All guys are hentai and that's exact science. I've been through every type: the nerdy ones, the delinquents, the ones who got held back, the honor students. And all they ever think about are tits and pussy."

Yumi and Nanase both made sounds like small animals being startled. The pure, untainted ears of these two. This was way too much.

"Damn it, Fumi-tan!" I was laughing again.

"But an idiot? Nope. Definitely not." Fumi-senpai's tone shifted, still casual, but firmer. "If it weren't for your boyfriend, the situation at Kamishiro High would probably still be chaos. Or worse: everyone'd still be huddled in a corner crying, like you guys at Asakaze." She pointed her cigarette at me. "The only reason I'm standing here right now is so our lovesick-leader here doesn't get himself in danger, or worse, killed, going to pick you up alone."

Nanase went quiet. Face red. Almost purple. She folded her lips looking at me with some kind of expression I didn't have the name yet. Her eyes were fixated on my lips, or neck, certainly not my eyes.

Yumi went quiet too.

"Heh? What's with the praise?" I snorted, rubbed the back of my neck. Being complimented like that, in front of Nanase, it was honestly kind of embarrassing, felt amazingly good nonetheless.

But I couldn't feel my cheeks.

"I… I wanna…" I staggered dramatically. And out of nowhere my hand picked my phone, flipped it open.

"Huh? What are you doing with your phone?" Fumi-senpai said confused. As confused as I was.

"Huh? Oh. This. I.. I'm fucking flustered, okay? I'm pressing home menu, and back again, menu, and back again."

I'm so fucking stupid.

All of them cracked up. "Shut up!" Fumi-senpai smacked my arm.

"Can I stop being thwacked by girls today?" I complained but I could feel my cheeks again now I was laughing along.

"And you know what else?" She turned back to Nanase and Yumi, who were still giggling. "He figured he might end up bringing one more person back from Asakaze. He said that as we got off the mopeds outside that castle you call a school. Think about it: if he'd gone alone and you two were coming back with him, what was he gonna do? Ride three on the Jog?" She turned to me. "With you in the middle, sandwiched between two cute girls, huh, Jouji?" She cackled. "Yumi's at least a D, too!"

Nanase burst out laughing now. Yumi went red and reflexively crossed her arms over her chest, but she was laughing too.

"Haa… haa? What?" I was laughing now. "I would've figured it out! The important thing was getting there first!"

"The important thing was your libido!" She shook her head at me.

Then she turned more serious. Sort of. "Nanase, your boyfriend here is a smart-ass. Ninomiya, that's textbook and cunning smart. But your boyfriend's got a different kind of smart."

Stop over-selling me!

Nanase and Yumi were still chuckling, but they were listening now. And Nanase, I swear she'd never looked this happy around me. Her eyes were still puffy from crying, sure. Most of the girls at Kamishiro High looked like that. Most of the ones at Asakaze who'd peered out the classroom door did too.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" I grinned at Nanase by reflex because she caught me staring at her a little bit too long.

Yes, it was attack before you are attacked.

"What? What look? Stop it, Jouchi!" She covered her smile with her hand, flustered, and smacked me with the other one.

"Ow! Hey! I politely asked to stop being thwacked by girls!"

Never. Not once. I'd never seen her laugh like this: eyes crinkled into crescents, shoulders shaking. Maybe a few times with Keira and Anri. But definitely never because of me.

"Here's the thing, Jouji." Fumi-senpai's voice dropped, serious now beneath the cigarette smoke. "Before we went there, back with the others, when everyone was heading home, you said you couldn't risk giving Asakaze too much information. I understood that. But then you straight-up lied to Ninomiya's face. Sengawa kids? Military vehicles? What the fuck was that?" She continued rambling, "And the Nanase thing, that wasn't you. You were clowning with the GTA kids, fine, I heard Rena talking. But you haven't done nothing over-the-top before, not even that one janken you did with Donda for Fumikoppai's head end this morning. You've a few screw loose, but you've got composure."

For a second I worried the janken might raise another question I'd have to explain.

"Wait. Lied? Jouji, you lied? That was all a lie?" Yumi's jaw dropped. Nanase was staring too, a bit of concern in her expression.

Saved by the bell.

Right. I took a deep long drag.

"Okay… yeah. I lied." I exhaled smoke toward the empty parking lot.

"Nacchi, Yumi, I'm sorry. Kamishiro High wasn't just twelve people. It's thirty-three. Three boys, the rest girls. I didn't want to give them real headcount. From what Nanase told me on the phone, Ebara yelling at the girls, and what I saw of Ninomiya there, nah. Not good. I'm taking my girlf.. ex-girlfriend out of there, and won't comply with their demands whatsoever."

Nanase's face went red again.

"And yeah, the rest? Lies. All of it. I knew you guys hadn't left the school building all day, right? No sign of activities outside the main building, from what we saw when we came in. Even the gate wasn't closed."

Nanase and Yumi both nodded.

"Ebara, he's a sports suisen?" I asked. Sports recommedation: the back door into elite schools for athletic prodigies.

Yumi nodded immediately. "Yeah. Baseball."

"Figures," Fumi-senpai muttered.

"Now Ninomiya, he's the unsettling one. Something about him rubbed me wrong."

"He's a genius. Some kind of soaring IQ snob," Fumi-senpai said. "Beat almost every teacher at shogi, go, or chess back in Midorigaoka."

Well. No shit.

"What have they been doing? Before we came?" I looked at Yumi and Nanase.

"They.. they kept us… safe, sort of, at least that's what they believed they were doing. Told us to eat and stay put," Yumi explained. "Ebara kept yelling at anyone who cried. We weren't allowed to go far, he'd follow us to the bathroom. And Ninomiya just… sat there. Giving orders to Ebara about this and that. I don't know why Ebara listens to him. Maybe because he's a third-year."

"That's why I lied to him." I looked at Fumi-senpai now. "I don't trust Ebara, and definitely not Ninomiya. I had to give them a reason to stay put, to wait for help and not go anywhere. I know it's selfish and I'm not thinking about the other girls with them right now, Nacchi, Yumi. But I can't make the girls at Kamishiro High collateral too, just in case something happens."

Nanase and Yumi were quiet.

Nanase's eyes were wide. I couldn't tell if it was a good look or a bad one.

"And the Nanase thing? F-Cup? What the hell was that?" Fumi-senpai asked.

"Ehem…" Nanase cleared her throat, trying not to smile. Still embarrassed.

I grinned a little, guiltily. "I had to make them think I was just a simpleton. An idiot, better. Not smart. Definitely not trying to outsmart him. So they wouldn't see Kamishiro High, us, as a threat, and let us go."

I let it hang for a second. Two. A drag. Exhaled.

"I was thinking worst case: what if help never comes? What if we're like this for days? Weeks? Even…"

No one spoke.

"And, for whatever reason, Ebara and Ninomiya believe Kamishiro High only has twelve people, fourteen now with Yumi and Nanase, and the only guy is some idiot named Jouji. If they decide to attack us, for whatever reason…" I let it hang for a split second. "We've got the element of surprise. Because they wouldn't know our real situation."

Nanase and Yumi faltered, then nodded slowly after exchanging glances.

They should understand now. My motives had always been about protecting everyone: the ones back at Kamishiro High, and both of them.

And Nanase.

She was… I couldn't read her face again. That one expression.

She'd never listened to me this intently before. Not even when I was dumping my stupid One Piece theories. She wasn't excited, exactly, but she wasn't uninterested either.

"Smart." Fumi-senpai started laughing. "Fucking smart!"

"See what I mean, Nanase? So you actually broke up with this smart-ass last night?"

"Jouchi!" Nanase complained, face going red again. But she nodded. At this point she had to know Fumi-senpai already knew everything.

"Nacchi, you don't have to answer…" I said.

Fumi-senpai cut me off. "So you're broken up then?"

Nanase froze. Her mouth opened, then closed. Opened again. No words.

"Because if you are…" Fumi-senpai put out her cigarette under her boot heel, looking enormously pleased with herself. "I'm fucking him tonight."

"Eeehh?!" Nanase shrieked.

Yumi made the exact same sound.

Fumi-senpai burst out cackling.

"Fumi-tan!" I was somewhere between horrified and laughing, my face splitting into a grin I couldn't control.

But then.

"N.. No… No!"

Nanase's voice came out strangled. Her mouth was a tight line. Her face was red, somewhere between tears and laughter, impossible to tell which.

"We're not breaking up."

She said no.

She said no?

"No?" I repeated what I thought.

I looked at her. She looked at me back, abruptly shaking her head.

My face had this numbing feeling from my cheeks crawling back to my ears.

Fumi-senpai was still howling.

"Haaah… whatever." Fumi-senpai waved a hand. "Nanase, if you can't give him what he needs, I'm throwing myself in. He's Kamishiro High's leader. Not official, but I'm officiating him as soon as possible. Like it or not, I need him to act and think like the leader he's been since all hell broke loose. At all times. Can't have him tangled up in a rom-com virgin teenage drama. Got it?"

Nanase just stared. Then she nodded, a little scared.

"Come on, Yumi." Fumi-senpai turned and strode toward the Honda Today.

Yumi was giggling as she passed Nanase. "Good luck, Nana-chan…" She was clearly enjoying this.

"Yu… Yumi-chan!" Nanase could barely get the words out.

"Nacchi… Fumi-tan… she's… she's a character. Don't listen to her…" I was stammering, crushing out my cigarette.

"A… a character. Yeah." Nanase nodded, dazed. Still red.

Some things didn't change.

"Le.. Let's go." I walked toward my Jog.

Nanase followed.

The four of us, two mopeds, two girls who'd been rescued from Asakaze, one sukeban who'd just declared sexual warfare, and me, the idiot caught in the middle, pulled out of the Lawson parking lot and back onto the empty road.

Behind me, Nanase's hands found my sides again. Not as stiff this time. Not as desperate. Still new. Still figuring it out.

We had about ten minutes until we reached Kamishiro High.

Thirty-three kobore-mono.

Two new ones joining tonight.

And a school full of elite survivors some kilometers north who now thought we were exactly fourteen people with one idiot in charge.

The lie would hold.

It had to.

And somewhere, behind all the laughter and the cigarettes and the tit-jokes, I thought I was already thinking about what came next.

 

[ILoveYouAll]

I really like this, the idea is interesting, though I'm wondering whether you will introduce any more fantastical elements or will the only significant anomaly be the vanishing?

 

[darkrednotmaroon]

I really like this, the idea is interesting, though I'm wondering whether you will introduce any more fantastical elements or will the only significant anomaly be the vanishing?

Click to shrink...

Thanks so much for reading! Really glad you're enjoying it so far.

The vanishing is definitely the central pillar, but it's not the only anomaly. So the further the group explores this mystery, the more they start noticing things that don't quite add up, the more weird things that tie back to whatever caused the vanishing in the first place. I'm trying to keep it grounded in the characters' psychological reality rather than going full urban fantasy, but I'm not afraid to let the mystery get stranger as the stakes rise.

The more I read, the more curious I get. Need the next chapter!

Click to shrink...

Thanks! I'm uploading regularly on a daily basis! Please look out for updates! I had just uploaded Chapter 9 and 10 yesterday, and 11 is set to be psoted later tonight!

 

[darkrednotmaroon]

Chapter 11 - Fail-Safe

The four of us rode in a loose formation, me and Nanase up front, Fumi-senpai and Yumi trailing a few meters back on the Honda Today.

Streetlamps ticked by overhead, one after another, pooling orange light onto empty asphalt and then letting the dark close back in behind us. Cherry blossoms drifted through each pool of light like something staged, like someone had set dressing on this street and then forgotten to populate it with anyone to see it. It should've been romantic. Nanase's arms around my waist, warm light, falling petals, the whole cinematic package.

It was romantic, for a while. Then it just started feeling like riding through a memorial for a town that hadn't died yet.

I was in the middle of telling her about the time Anri had tried to teach the Manken Club how to make proper melonpan and set off the smoke alarm in the rear building corridor, when the traffic light above the next intersection blinked through its cycle.

Red. Yellow. Green.

"…and then Dodo tried to open the window to clear the smoke, except it was the one that's actually lead to the corr.."

I stopped talking.

"Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck…"

I hit the brakes harder than I meant to. The Jog lurched, tires chirping faintly against the empty road, and Nanase's grip on my sides went instantly rigid as her body flung against my back.

"Nghh…!"

I felt every inch of it, the sudden press of her against me, the warmth, the give, and some old, tired part of my brain that would've spent the next ten minutes reminiscing exactly how that felt just didn't. Couldn't. There wasn't room. Whatever had just detonated in my skull was bigger than that, and for once, that scared me more than it disappointed me.

"Jo.. Jouchi?!"

Up ahead, the Honda Today's brake light flared as Fumi-senpai swung around passed us from behind, she maneuvered, was already five, six meters past us before she registered we'd stopped.

"Oi!" she called back, twisting on the seat. "What the hell, Jouji, you trying to get us all killed via moped pile-up?"

"Jouji, what… what's wrong?" Yumi's voice, small and worried, from behind her.

I sat there a second, heart going, trying to figure out how to say something that had just detonated quietly in the back of my skull, like a silent time bomb I should've defused hours ago.

"Damn it," I muttered.

Three things. Right after the moped hunt, back at the school, there'd been three things gnawing at me. Nanase. The animals. And a third thing I'd never actually finished chasing down, because right then the smell of fresh rice had hit me, courtesy of Umi and Marina-senpai's cooking, and everyone else's side dishes scavenged from bento boxes gathered around it like offerings, and my stomach had made an executive decision that lunch mattered more than existential dread.

I'd never gone back to it. It had just sat there, unfinished, at the bottom of my skull, waiting.

I think this was it. I think this had been it the whole time.

"The lights." I twisted around as much as I could without dislodging Nanase.

"It's on."

"Umm… yeah? We know. So?" Fumi-senpai walked the Honda Today back toward us, one foot dragging on the ground, deeply unimpressed.

"So?" Of course.

"No, I mean…" I dragged a hand down my face. "I don't get it. It does not click. And I don't like it when I don't get it."

"Does not click? You don't get it? It's.."

I took a breath. Okay. How do you explain a citywide power grid to a girl who, and I say this with love, had probably spent more than half of her two years of high school too busy reigning as the most feared, prettiest gyaru boss in the whole town?

"Okay, Fumi-tan. Do you know how electricity is generated?"

"Nghh… Yeah. You put it in the wall socket, and then you charge your phone. Turn the TV on, the radio on. Whatever."

She made a face and a little hand gesture, like she'd just cracked a case straight out of some Detective TV Drama.

"I'm not stupid, Jouji," She shook her head.

I felt the ghost of my own hand rise up and facepalm on my behalf.

"Ugh…" I snorted, trying hard not to laugh.

"Yeah, you're not. You're not wrong." This should be easier than explaining it to a kindergartener, it was not.

Nanase slapped my shoulder lightly and looked away, angling her face out toward the dark street like she could hide the color rising in it just by not facing Fumi-senpai directly.

Yumi was grinning behind Fumi-senpai, biting down on her own lips, not making a sound.

The two of them clearly holding their laughter in check, because laughing at the Glass Doll of Kamishiro to her face still felt like a genuinely dangerous thing to do, apocalypse or not.

"Okay. I mean, how electricity gets generated for the whole Kamishiro-cho. Hell, the whole Tokyo. For everyone."

Fumi-senpai blinked at me.

"Oh, you're right. The streetlamps. No wall sockets for them. How do they even…"

You have got to be kidding me.

"N.. no, Fumi-tan.."

I couldn't even look at Nanase and Yumi right then. These two weren't Kenta or Takeshi or Dodo, they weren't going to throw me a lifeline here, they were just going to sit there and enjoy the show.

But she wasn't wrong, either. There really wasn't a wall socket for a streetlamp.

"Listen. Think of it like this. A small, remember the word, small, socket on your wall can charge your phone. Run your TV, your radio, your microwave. But we don't have a socket for all this." I gestured with both hands at the streetlamps overhead, pretty and depressing all at once.

Fumi-senpai was listening. Following, I hoped.

"We'd need a socket a million times bigger, to cover the whole of Tokyo. Get it?"

"Ah…" Fumi-senpai nodded.

"That giant socket, TEPCO manages it."

"Oh, yeah. I know TEPCO."

"Good. Now, if you had a charger and a wall socket, but nobody ever plugged it in or pulled it out, would your phone charge itself?"

"No. Obviously not. So what's your point?"

"Jouji's point," Yumi said slowly, the horror dawning in real time, "is that right now, in that giant socket, wherever it is, no one is suppo…"

Nanase's arms tightened around my waist.

"Exactly! Yumi gets it!" I said, way too enthusiastic for the actual content of what I was saying.

I had to thread this carefully, explain it to Fumi-senpai without making it sound as bad as it actually was.

"My point is, that giant socket TEPCO runs is basically a massive automatic generator supplying the whole city. But here's the thing." Careful, don't fry her brain with jargon. "That giant socket is managed by people. Like, imagine it's about the size of one of those hangars where Super Sentai robots get stuffed and recharged between fights. A lot of people gotta be in there running it."

Nanase let out a small, helpless laugh behind me, half amusement, half something more nervous underneath.

"Super Sentai robots?" she repeated, like she was testing how ridiculous it sounded out loud. "Jouchi, that's such a way to compare it."

"It's not stupid! It's a valid comparison!" I couldn't help snorting.

"I didn't say it was stupid." I could hear the smile in her voice without turning around. "I said it was a way."

I turned back to Fumi-senpai, still grinning. "And yeah, managed by people. Like you managing your own charger, plugging it in, and when your phone battery hits a hundred percent, you pull it out. Otherwise the battery…" I gestured for her, trusting her enough to finish it.

"Overloads. Swells up. Breaks. Needs replacing," She said it flat, but she said it right. Common knowledge.

"Exactly! Now if you're done charging your phone and you still mount the charger to the wall socket, what's going to happen?"

"My… My mom would yell at me…" She said it, nodding.

Nooooo!

"Ye.. Yes.. That's because it could be dangerous. Even when phone chargers have fail-safe, it still has the risk of overheating and may cause fire damage. That fail-safe system will terminate any electrical activity when no electricity is being used, when no phone is connected to the charger."

"Ah.." She nodded again.

"Now that's one phone. Now think bigger. If there's no one at TEPCO to pull the plug when the power's not being used, because you see, no people, no office buildings, no pachinko parlors, no factories, and the giant socket just keeps making electricity anyway, because nobody's there to shut it off, where does all that unused electricity go?"

"Go where?" she muttered.

"It can't go anywhere! It backs up. Overloads. And the principle is similar with your phone charger mounted in the wall socket with no phone connected. If it has a fail-safe, the electricity would trip immediately, and so... lights out. But when that system failed, it overloads, it doesn't gently shut off, it trips, or it fries, or it just dies. Then… same-same, lights out."

I didn't have to explain that part twice to Nanase or Yumi. They were from Asakaze. They'd catch up fast.

"No way." Fumi-senpai shrugged. "Looks fine to me."

"That's why I said it doesn't click. I don't get it. And I don't like it when I don't get it."

Beat.

"A system like that should have some kind of auto-trip, like I said, a fail-safe that shuts the whole grid down the second something goes wrong. Earthquake, tsunami, God forbid," waving my hand in front of my face, "because this, this much unused electricity with nobody managing it, should be exactly the kind of something-going-wrong that trips it. And if there's nobody left to override that fail-safe manually, there's no way we should still have power. Streetlamps. Traffic lights. Shop signs. Vending machines. All of it, running normal. Like nothing happened."

"So you mean…"

"I mean it shouldn't be running at all. Not this long. Somebody's supposed to be keeping this going, and there's nobody left anywhere to do it. The fail-safe should've kicked in hours ago."

The cold in my chest wasn't just from the night air anymore, and it wasn't shutting me up either. "Bu.. But I read before that it could also last for probably one or two days, so we might be living on borrowed time here. Extra time. Injury time, whatever you want to call it. And it could trip any minute."

Nobody said anything.

The traffic light above us finished its cycle, red, yellow, green. The streetlamps kept lighting an intersection none of us were crossing, for nobody, the petals still drifting down through the orange glow like the town hadn't gotten the memo that it was allowed to stop pretending.

"Okay," Fumi-senpai said, quieter now. "So we've got a clock. We just can't see how much time's on it."

She stared at me for a long moment, chewing her gum slower and slower, the exact rhythm she used when she was recalibrating exactly how much of an idiot she'd decided I was. This time, I watched the number go down instead of up.

"What happens," Yumi said, small, from somewhere behind Fumi-senpai's shoulder, "if it just stops? Tonight? While we're all asleep?"

Nobody answered that one either.

Nanase's arms tightened around my waist again. Not scared-tight. Just present. I felt her forehead rest against my back for a second, like she needed somewhere to put her face onward that wasn't the empty street.

"Let's go," I said. "We need to get back either way. We'll figure the rest out later."

I let the throttle roll forward again.

---

The school gate came into view a few minutes later, stone pillars, an empty guard box, warm yellow light spilling out of the main building's windows like the whole school was holding its breath waiting for us to come home.

It was home now.

We rolled the mopeds to the main building entrance and killed the engines, beside the other five mopeds. The quiet that followed was somehow louder than the engines had been, just static and, faintly, someone laughing from inside.

"Come on." I swung my leg off the Jog. Nanase slid off after me, a little stiff from the ride, and Yumi practically fell off the Honda Today the second Fumi-senpai stopped moving.

We went in through the main doors, past the shoe-lockers, Nanase hesitated at the genkan line out of pure habit, actually looking for her indoor slippers before catching herself, and I didn't say anything, because honestly, same, and turned left from the stairwell.

I heard 1-A before I saw it.

"…no, that corner's already Sayaka-chan's, you can't just annex it because you got here first…"

"I did get here first!"

"That's not how annexing works!"

I slid the door open.

Classroom 1-A did not look like a classroom anymore.

The desks had been shoved wall to wall, stacked two-high in the back like furniture in a moving truck. The windows were cracked open a few centimeters each, and someone had rigged a couple of the classroom curtains, pulled down off their rails and repurposed, over the gaps to keep the worst of the night chill out without sealing the room shut entirely. Practical. Just like what I asked.

In the space the desks had left behind was a mega-bed: a patchwork continent of futons, blankets, and cushions covering most of the floor, none of it school property. Real futons, proper ones, the kind you'd find folded in a closet in somebody's house, because that's exactly where they'd come from. Donda's raiding runs through the Showa-era residential blocks nearby had apparently gone successful. Strips of masking tape marked territory here and there, names scrawled in different handwriting: Sayaka, Kaede + Chisato, Eri, Mai, Yua, Hana, Asuka, one long strip that just said MOE'S. DO NOT TOUCH. I MEAN IT.

And, I clocked it a beat late, but once I noticed it I couldn't stop noticing it, more than half the room wasn't in uniform anymore. Sweatpants, club tracksuits, oversized T-shirts, someone in what looked suspiciously like pajamas raided from a house two streets over. Hair damp in a few cases. Somebody had gotten the showers running in the gym's bathroom, and word had spread fast.

Donda was in the middle of it all, cross-legged on a stack of folded blankets like a throne, handing them out one at a time to a small line of girls with the gravity of a man distributing state secrets.

"One per person until everyone's got one," he was saying. "Then we do seconds for those in dire needs. We are not doing a blanket free-for-all, I refuse to preside over that kind of chaos."

"Donda, it's a blanket, not a kidney."

"It is exactly as serious as a kidney, Eri, it is April and it gets cold at night and I will not have anyone shivering on my watch."

He looked up, saw us in the doorway, and his whole face lit up like we'd walked in with a truckload of snacks.

"Jouji! You're back. Wait." His eyes landed on Nanase and Yumi, and the blanket in his hands froze mid-handoff. "Wait, you actually, you got her?!"

"Yeah," I said.

The room noticed us at that point, in that specific way a room notices something all at once. Conversations dying mid-sentence, heads turning, someone actually standing up off the mega-bed like they needed a better look.

Nanase went very still beside me. I felt her shoulders creep up toward her ears as the nekoze kicking in on instinct, too many unfamiliar faces at once, all looking at her.

Yumi, on the other hand, had gone quiet in a completely different way. She was just staring, at the blankets, the tape labels, Donda's little kingdom of stolen blankets, the damp-haired girls in borrowed pajamas laughing about corner real estate like the world hadn't ended ten or eleven hours ago. Her eyes had gone a little wide, a little wet, in a way that had nothing to do with fear.

"Is this… a sleepover?" she said, faintly. "Are we having a sleepover. In a classroom. During the…"

It was such a small, dumb thing to fixate on. But I understood exactly why she was fixating on it. This wasn't what she'd had at Asakaze. Whatever Ninomiya and Ebara had going on, it wasn't this.

"We're calling it 'communal sleeping arrangements,'" Donda said, with the dignity of a man defending his master's thesis. "It sounds better than 'we were scared to sleep alone so we shoved all the futons together,' which was your boyfriend's idea, by the way." He pointed his chin at me.

"I… I'm not Jouji's girlfriend!" Yumi's face went red instantly. "This one is." She gestured at Nanase, a little too emphatically.

The room's attention swiveled, all at once, onto Nanase.

Nanase froze. Then, because apparently under extreme social pressure her brain defaulted straight to the most formal thing it had on file, she bowed, a full, stiff, textbook bow, like she was meeting a teacher's parents for the first time.

"Ha..Hasegawa Nanase. Second year, Asakaze Minami. Nice to… nice to meet you all."

A beat of silence. Then somebody near the back laughed, not unkindly, and it broke whatever tension had built up.

"I… I'm Arata Yumi!" Yumi bowed too, a half-second behind Nanase, like she'd only just realized she should probably do the same thing.

Donda set his blanket stack down like the moment demanded his full attention. "Welcome to Kamishiro High. We have futons, snacks, and communal trauma. Population: thirty-five, as of tonight."

Fumi-senpai shouldered past me into the room, surveyed the mega-bed with the expression of a general reviewing troops, and grunted approvingly.

"Not bad," she said. "Better than the ryokan we got stuck in on the Shuugaku Ryokou. Thin walls, worse futons, and Nao's roommate snored like a chainsaw."

That one landed weird in my chest before I could stop it.

Second-years go on Shuugaku Ryokou every autumn. Fumi-senpai's grade had gone last year, back when she was still a second-year. It would've been my turn this autumn, along with everyone else in my grade. Kyoto, probably. Or Hiroshima. I'd half-heartedly started a savings tin for spending money back in March.

Guess I'd be keeping the tin.

"Well," I said, before the thought could sit there too long, "at least nobody here snores like Nao-senpai's roommate. Probably. Untested variable."

"Oi." Fumi-senpai elbowed me. "That's slander, you don't even know her and everyone here."

"Exactly. Untested."

A couple of people laughed. Good. I'd take it.

"Okay," I said, mostly to Nanase now, quiet enough it was just for her. "This is… yeah. This is where we live now, I guess."

She didn't say anything right away. Just looked again at the mega-bed, the tape labels, Donda's blanket throne, the girls in borrowed pajamas, and something in her face softened, the warmth in it unmistakable now, nothing like the tight, careful expression she'd worn almost the whole ride here.

"It's…" she started.

"Yeah," I said. "I know," I nodded.

Before anyone could say anything else, a figure emerged from the far corner of the mega-bed, stepping carefully over the masking-tape boundary that read MOE'S. DO NOT TOUCH. I MEAN IT., and padding toward us with two plastic bottles in her hands.

Fumiko.

Tanaka Fumiko, the kind of person who somehow ended up in Rikei, Science, despite being, by all appearances, the single most clueless person on earth about almost anything a person could name.

A mystery.

She wasn't in uniform anymore. That was the first thing I noticed. And I noticed it because the alternative was noticing the second thing, which was that the T-shirt she'd changed into, probably raided from someone's house, probably not sized for a girl with her particular specifications, was stretched about as tight as a T-shirt could be stretched without technically qualifying as a different garment entirely.

White shirt. See-through.

Inside: Yellow.

Don't catalog it. Do not catalog it.

Nanase is standing right next to you, Jouji.

"Umm…" Fumiko stopped in front of Nanase and Yumi, holding out the bottles. One was green tea, the other was Pocari Sweat. Her big, earnest eyes blinked up at them with the pure, unclouded sincerity of a shrine maiden who had no idea what her own body was doing to the fabric of reality.

"You must be thirsty. The ride here looked very bumpy. I'm Tanaka Fumiko. Second-year. Class 2-F. Umm…" She paused, processing something. "I was the one who fainted this afternoon. But I'm okay now. Welcome."

Nanase accepted the green tea with both hands, like she was receiving a ceremonial offering. "Th.. Thank you, Tanaka-san. I'm Hasegawa Nanase."

"Me too, I'm Arata Yumi. Thank you so much." Yumi took the Pocari Sweat.

Fumiko beamed. A completely guileless, sunshine-level smile. "You're both very pretty. And you, Nanase-chan. Your hair is so short and cute. And your…" She tilted her head, her gaze dropping, innocently, genuinely innocently, the way a child might notice a particularly large watermelon at the supermarket, to Nanase's chest. "Oh. You're like me!"

No she's not like you, Fumiko!

Yes, Nanase does have, but she hides it, and it's obvious…

Her posture, the way she hunches and curls.

Her uniform isn't tight. Her uniform just… fits.

…

Yeah, if you stared long enough, you'd know.

I give up.

Nanase made a sound that wasn't quite a word.

Fumi-senpai, who'd been watching this unfold with a fresh stick of gum in her mouth, let out a bark of laughter.

"Fumikoppai!" She strode over, still laughing. "You can't just say that to someone you just met."

"Why not?" Fumiko blinked. "It's true. Her uniform may not be tight like mine. But she has big boobs, see? You just have to look long enough. That means we're the same."

I'm so dead.

"Fumi… koppai..," Yumi whispered the nickname under her breath, eyes going from Fumiko's chest to Fumi-senpai's to Nanase's in rapid succession.

Yumi went red, Nanase went blue.

I could see the mental math happening behind Yumi's eyes. The Lawson conversation coming back: your tits are bigger than mine, just not as big as Fumikoppai.

"So you're the G-cu..," Yumi breathed, then immediately slapped both hands over her mouth.

Fumiko tilted her head the other way. "Yes. G. My mother is even bigger. J, K, I forget the letter. But my father loves her very much when she wears something tight. He says she's shaped perfectly," She said this with the same tone someone might use to report the weather.

"I like clothes that fit properly. So everyone can see that I'm shaped like my mother, and that one day my husband will love me like my father loves my mother."

I can't.

This was the longest conversation I'd had with Fumiko and it was already about her parents.

Fumi-senpai doubled over. "Oh my god. Oh my god, Fumikoppai. Never change."

"Fumi-tan…" I was trying very hard to look at the ceiling. The ceiling was safe. The ceiling had no cup-size implications. "Maybe… maybe Fumiko-chan really should wear something looser? Since we've got three boys here…"

My eyes went, on instinct, looking for backup: Makoto, just then coming in through the door from somewhere, and Donda, whose eyes had gone wide, screaming Jouji, don't you dare, even with Yua sitting right next to him.

"Eh?" Fumiko turned to me, genuinely puzzled. "Why? Oh." Her eyes widened, like she'd just solved an equation on the board. "Because boys like looking at them?"

The room had gone quiet. Half the girls were watching this with expressions ranging from horrified sympathy to barely-contained glee.

"Fumikoppai," Fumi-senpai managed, wiping a tear from her eye. "Yes. Exactly. Boys like looking at them. And we have three boys here. So maybe, just maybe, you should grab one of those oversized sweaters from the raided clothes pile."

"But I don't like oversized sweaters," Fumiko said, with the calm, implacable logic of someone discussing tax policy. "They don't fit properly."

However, that was it. That explained everything. The eternally tight uniform. The never-quite-buttoned-right blazer.

It wasn't vanity. It wasn't obliviousness. Fumiko just genuinely believed clothes should fit the body and not the other way around, and she had never once considered that her definition of 'fit properly' was everyone else's definition of 'that button is fighting for its life.'

Fumi-senpai was howling now. Actual tears. "Fine! Fine, Fumikoppai. Keep the T-shirt. Let the boys suffer. Natural selection."

"Suffer?" Fumiko looked vaguely concerned. "Does looking at me make you suffer, Jouji-kun? Don't you like it?"

Don't look down.

Do not look down.

And then I did.

Shit.

"Noooope. I'm.. I'm fine. Totally fine. I like it. Of course. What's not to like? Everything looks perf.. Ow!"

Nanase, beside me, had gone from purple to another shade of red I didn't have a name for yet. But she was also, I swear, biting her lip to keep her from laughing. Her fingers were on my arm, pinching me. Real hard.

"Nacchi!"

She stayed silent, looking at me, still biting her lip.

"Ah." Fumiko nodded sagely. "Are you okay, Jouji-kun?"

"I… I'm fine… Jealous girlfriend…"

Why the hell did I say that, I never knew.

Thwack.

Nanase gave me a light slap on the arm, right where it was pinched.

I was getting used to this love language.

"Okay, okay! Well, Nanase-chan, Yumi-chan, please call me Fumiko! And after this we're gonna have dinner, and then you guys should change too, and take a shower too later! We still have forty-seven tops and outers, t-shirts, blouses, dresses, sweaters, jackets and hoodies, and sixty-two pants, trousers, skirts, in various sizes! Also underwear, there are still eighty-six of them, various models, some even in pair to choose from! And there are so many cute and sexy ones for our size, Nanase-chan! If you need anything else, you just ask!"

Then she turned and padded back to her corner of the mega-bed, stepping carefully over the DO NOT TOUCH tape, apparently having concluded that all social obligations had been satisfactorily discharged, rattling off the stolen-clothes inventory the whole way like it was a grocery list.

"Fu.. mmm…"

That was the last thing out of Nanase, apparently even her Asakaze-honed brain short-circuiting trying to run fumiko.exe. Not responding.

I didn't have a response to that either.

The power had no right to still be running. But then again, neither did we. I'd spent the whole ride back trying to calculate how much time we had left before the lights went out, and the answer I got was a classroom full of girls in borrowed pajamas, a guy handing out blankets like a feudal lord, and a girl who genuinely believed that T-shirts should fit the body and not the other way around.

The fail-safe hadn't tripped yet.

And so were we, apparently.

 

[darkrednotmaroon]

Chapter 12 - Home

It was Nanase who noticed Umi first.

Or maybe Umi noticed Nanase. Either way, I caught it, that half-second pause where two people's eyes meet across a room and you can see the gears turning, the facial-recognition software booting up behind the pupils like in a sci-fi Hollywood movie, the wait, I know that face moment that happens before anyone says anything.

Umi was sitting cross-legged near the window, a clipboard balanced on her knee, even now, even post-apocalypse, Umi had a clipboard, and she'd been in the middle of murmuring something to Marina-senpai when her gaze caught on Nanase and just stopped.

Nanase, meanwhile, had gone still in that specific way she goes still when she's processing something unexpected. Her nekoze straightened by maybe half a centimeter. Her mouth opened a fraction.

"Umi-chan?"

"Nana… chan?"

They said it at almost the same time. Quiet. Tentative.

I blinked. "Wait. What? You know Nanase, Umi-san?"

Umi looked at me, then back at Nanase. Her expression was calm, Umi's expression was always calm, but there was something flickering behind it. Recognition, sure, but also something like reassessment. Like she was fitting a new piece into a puzzle she'd already half-solved.

"Ni-chu," she said simply. "Same class. Two years."

"Ni-chu," Nanase echoed, nodding. "Class 2-A and 3-A, both years. We weren't close, but…"

"We weren't," Umi agreed. And then, a tiny smile, barely a shift in the corners of her mouth. "Different circles. But I remember you. Top of the year. Always."

Nanase's face went red again. "I… you were top too, Umi-chan. In different subjects."

They looked at each other for another beat. Two years in the same classroom, same forty kids, same cramped desks, same lunch periods, and they'd probably exchanged fewer than a hundred words across all of it. Different orbits. Umi with her restaurant-family practicality, Nanase with her otaku shyness. Ships passing in the hallway.

But here, now, in a classroom that wasn't a classroom anymore, surrounded by thirty-odd strangers and the end of the world, that thin thread of shared history was suddenly a rope.

"It's good to see you, Nana-chan," Umi said.

"You too, Umi-chan." Nanase's voice was still small, but genuine. "I'm… I'm glad you're here."

Nana-chan. In seven months of dating her, I'd never heard anyone call her Nana-chan except Yumi, Keira, and Anri. But of course I hadn't. She'd gone to Ni-chu. I'd gone to Ichi-chu. Two years of her life I'd never seen.

Two years of her life I was still finding pieces of.

I turned away from the Ni-chu reunion just in time to catch the other one.

Rena had gotten up from her spot near the blanket-distribution zone. She'd been helping Donda pass out the last of the futons, her long black hair with that single pink streak, tied up high in a loose messy ponytail, her gyaru-ish loose socks somehow still immaculate despite everything. And she was walking over to welcome the newcomers, I could see it in her posture, the easy, friendly, Rena way she approached everyone.

Then she saw Yumi.

And Yumi saw her.

And something I didn't have a name for passed between them in the space of about half a second.

Rena stopped walking. Just for a beat, less than a beat, really, the kind of pause you'd miss if you blinked. But I didn't blink. Her easy, welcoming smile flickered, then reset itself, like a TV signal cutting out and coming back a little too fast.

"Ah, Yumi." Rena's voice was bright. Deliberately bright. "You're… you're here too. With Nanase. That's good. That's really good."

"Rena." Yumi's voice came out thin. And she didn't say it like someone greeting an old friend. She said it like someone identifying a thing they'd hoped not to find. "Yeah. I'm… We're… Nanase and I were together. In 1-A. At Asa.. Asakaze."

"Th.. That's good," Rena repeated. A beat too long. "Really good."

Then she turned to Nanase, and her smile, Rena's real smile, the one that had gotten her through GTA, through Takeo's on-again-off-again nonsense, through the first hours of the vanishing without breaking, clicked back into place.

"Nanase. Can I call you Nanase-chan? Welcome. I'm glad you're okay. I've heard a lot about you. I'm Rena. Ichinose Rena."

Nanase's face did something complicated.

Wait… she wouldn't know…

But Yumi and Rena were…

Ahh, that's too much for me…

"Tha.. thank you, and yes, of course, Ichinose-san." Nanase's voice was polite. Careful. The nekoze was back in full force, her shoulders curling forward until it looked like she was bowing. "Jo… Jouchi had also told me about you."

Yeah, I did. Wait, did I ever?

Maybe I did and I forgot.

I meant the handful of times Dodo had been there when the Otaku Club went out and invited Nanase along. Nanase also knew about GTA. Just knew, though.

"Jouchi, huh?" Rena's eyes flicked to me, and that flicker was loaded with about six different things I couldn't parse. "Yeah. He's been busy. Your ex-boyfriend's kind of a big deal here, Nanase-chan."

"Bo.. Boyfriend," Nanase said correcting her.

Ah…

"Ah, yeah… Rena-chan sort of… knows..," I said, before either of them could dig any deeper.

Nanase only bit her lip. At this point she probably just assumed that everyone knew.

"Hush… of course I know. Jouji told everyone that you broke up with him last night. We all know," Rena said it lightly, sweeping the whole thing under the rug without breaking stride.

Ugh.

"Anyway, I'm happy that you two are still… and Nanase-chan. Please call me Rena too."

"Mm-hmm." Nanase nodded. A little too quickly. "Th.. Thank you, Rena-chan."

"Of course. Always." She gestured toward the blanket zone. "Donda's got futons. I should… We should get them set up. Nanase-chan, Yumi, you guys need anything, just ask. Okay?"

"Okay," Yumi said. Quiet. Still not quite meeting Rena's eyes.

And Rena, Rena, who never backed down from anything, who'd once told a third-year to his face that his band sucked and he should quit music, retreated to the futon-distribution zone without another word.

I filed that away.

Yumi and Rena. Two girls from Kamigawa Riverside Junior High who apparently knew each other, and apparently had history, and apparently neither of them wanted to talk about it in front of anyone else.

I didn't know what it was. Didn't have the bandwidth to chase it.

But I noticed.

Nanase, beside me, was still watching Rena retreat. Her expression was unreadable, mouth pursed, eyes tracking, and I felt a question forming behind her lips that she didn't ask.

Maybe she was wondering about Rena and Yumi too.

Maybe she already knew about it.

Or maybe she was wondering something else entirely.

Either way, she didn't ask.

I let the settling-in continue for another few minutes, let Nanase and Yumi get their hands around drinks, let Donda fuss over their futon placement because he was very insistent that newcomers got the warmest spot, near the window where the afternoon sun had been hitting the floor all day, let Fumiko offer them both an unsolicited analysis of which snack crackers were the best and why, and then I walked to the front of the room.

The teacher's podium was still there, pushed against the blackboard. I didn't get behind it. That felt wrong. Instead I leaned against the edge of the desk nearest the board, arms crossed, waiting for the conversations to die down on their own.

They didn't. Not right away.

"Oi," Fumi-senpai said, from where she'd perched herself on the windowsill. "Our loverboy leader wants to talk. Shut it."

That did it.

The room went quiet. Thirty-some faces turned toward me: girls in borrowed pajamas, some still in rumpled uniforms, Donda cross-legged on his blanket throne, Fumi-senpai chewing gum by the window, Nao-senpai leaning against the back wall with her arms folded and her undercut catching the fluorescent light, Sayaka and Eri and Chisaton and Yua and Moe and Riko-senpai and Marina-senpai and Nagisa-senpai and everyone else whose names I'd been collecting all day like full-art Pokémon cards.

And Nanase. Nanase, sitting near the middle of the mega-bed, Yumi beside her, and now Umi too, and Marina-senpai, her green tea untouched in her lap. Looking at me with those big eyes.

"Right," I said. "So. First, thank you. For letting me be selfish."

A few confused but also knowing glances.

"I went to Asakaze this afternoon. With Fumi-senpai. To get Nanase and Yumi. I didn't put it to a vote. I just went. Because she was my… she's still my girlfriend… and I couldn't leave her there." I glanced at Nanase. She'd gone pink again. "And Yumi too. Obviously. Yumi, you're also, I mean, I would've…"

"Dude," Donda said. "Stop digging."

A ripple of laughter. Good.

"Right. Anyway. Thank you for tolerating that. It was selfish. It was a personal risk that involved Fumi-senpai and two mopeds and a situation that could've gone a lot worse than it did." I took a breath. "And now I need to tell you what we actually found there. Not the cleaned-up version. The real one."

The room shifted. People sat up straighter. Fumi-senpai's gum-chewing slowed.

"Asakaze Minami High has people, like us. Twenty now. It was exactly twenty-two when we get there. Twenty girls, two boys. Ebara Takumi, second-year, sports suisen, baseball. The kind of guy who thinks yelling at crying girls is leadership. And Ninomiya Shinji, third-year. Smart. Dangerous-smart. Beat teachers at shogi and chess back in junior high. The two of them are running things."

I paused. Let it sink in.

"When we got there, I didn't tell them the truth about us. I told them Kamishiro High has twelve people. One boy, me. The rest girls. I told them Sengawa kids and military vehicles had been spotted. I told them help was coming and they should stay put and wait."

"Wait, why?" That was Eri. The shortwave-radio Eri, the kind of girl who asked questions because she actually wanted answers.

"Because Ebara followed girls to the bathroom. Because Ninomiya sat there giving orders like he already owned the place. Because they hadn't let anyone leave the building all day." I looked around the room.

"And because, if this situation lasts longer than we hope, and they decide they want what we have, I wanted them to underestimate us. Fourteen people now, including Nanase and Yumi. One idiot guy. Not thirty-five. Not organized. Not a threat."

Silence.

"You lied to them," Sayaka said slowly. She understood rules. "You deliberately gave them false information to… what… set a trap that might never spring?"

"I gave them false information so that if it does spring, they walk into thirty-five people they weren't expecting instead of fourteen." I met her eyes. "It's not a trap. It's insurance. If nothing happens, if help comes, if this all resolves, then they never know the difference and nobody gets hurt. But if it doesn't…"

"If it doesn't," Fumi-senpai cut in from the windowsill, "we're not the ones caught with our pants down. Ninomiya was not the kind of guy you give accurate troop numbers to unless you're absolutely sure he's not a threat. And we're not sure."

"You know him?" Riko-senpai asked, surprised.

"Knew him. Past tense. Ninomiya was my classmate at Midorigaoka. And 'know' is a strong word for 'watched him psychologically dismantle a shogi club captain in under ten minutes when he's not even in the club.'" Fumi-senpai popped her gum. "He's not violent. That's not his thing. He's the kind that makes you think losing was your idea. And he's a snobby show-off."

I nodded. "So. That's the real situation. Asakaze has people. They're not evil, I believe that. They're scared kids, like us. But the ones in charge aren't the kind of people I'd trust with our headcount. So I didn't give it to them. And I'm telling you now because you deserved to know the truth."

"Even though we could've stopped you?" Chisaton's voice, from the front, beside Kaede, Yua and Donda, loud, because she always talked loud, wearing that bright, sunshine smile that made it impossible to tell if she was actually upset. "Even though you already did it?"

"Especially because I already did it." I rubbed the back of my neck. "You couldn't stop me. You couldn't talk me out of it. I took the decision away from everyone. So the least I can do is be honest about what happened while I was gone."

Another silence. But it wasn't a bad silence. It was the silence of people chewing on something, turning it over, finding it, maybe, not as bitter as they'd expected.

"Jouji." Donda raised a hand like we were in class. "Question."

"Shoot."

"Did you at least bring back snacks?"

The room cracked up. The tension broke, clean and sudden, and I felt something loosen in my chest.

"Lawson at Kamiyama crossing," I said. "Karaage-kun. Canned coffee and soda. Fumi-senpai cleaned out their Mild Seven and chewing-gum inventory for us."

"And more condoms," Fumi-senpai added helpfully.

The room was laughing now, real laughter, the kind that had been in short supply all day. Nanase was laughing too, face red, shoulders shaking. Yumi had her hand over her mouth. Even Nao-senpai cracked a smile from the back wall.

I let it ride for a few seconds. Then I straightened up.

"One more thing," I said. "And this one's bigger."

The laughter tapered off. People settled back into their spots on the mega-bed, on the windowsills, against the walls. The room felt different now, less like a briefing and more like a campfire. Everyone leaning in. Everyone waiting.

I looked at Fumi-senpai. She raised an eyebrow at me, gum pausing mid-chew.

"Fumi-tan," I said. "Can I do the poor toilet bastard bit again?"

The room went, "Heeee?"

Not everyone. But enough. Maybe half a dozen girls who'd clearly never heard anyone call the Glass Doll of Kamishiro, 'Fumi-tan.' The earlier 1-B meeting crew and the girls from the going-home convoy all heard that before and some faces are still tight.

"What?! I only called her 'Fumi-tan,' I asked politely if I could call her Fumi-chan. She told me to fuck off. So I went with 'Fumi-tan' and she was okay with it!"

"I was not, you son of a…" But the laughter drowned it out.

Sayaka's jaw actually dropped. Chisaton burst out laughing. Riko-senpai looked like she'd just been handed a very interesting piece of gossip.

Nagisa-senpai was grinning ear to ear. She was enjoying this more than anyone else.

Nanase was smiling, though I caught a flicker of disapproval in her eyes that I could only hope was jealousy. Yumi's face did the same thing. They looked like they were both fast-tracking through the realization, with their Asakaze-honed instincts, that nobody else in this room had been exposed to 'Fumi-tan' courtesy of Shigeru Jouji until right now.

Fumi-senpai, for her part, threw a blackboard eraser at my head.

I ducked. Barely.

"Hahahahah! Do it, idiot." She was laughing, full, open, the kind of laugh that said she was enjoying this way too much too.

"But what's poor toilet bastard?" Marina-senpai adjusted her glasses, her grin not yet faded.

"Yeah, that guy..," I said, holding onto my laughter.

Fumi-senpai… Ah, I'd just say Fumi-tan for now.

Thank you.

Fumi-tan was already cracking up again.

I pushed off the desk and walked to the center of the room, where everyone could see me. .

Nanase, sitting cross-legged on the mega-bed, her green tea forgotten, looking at me with an expression I couldn't fully read, the one I didn't have the name for it yet. Her face was doing that thing she did back at the Lawson: eyes a little wider than usual, mouth slightly parted, the nekoze loosening by many degrees.

Whatever's in your head right now, Nacchi, I thought, it's making you about a hundred times cuter than usual.

Focus. Don't get distracted by your own girlfriend.

"Okay," I said, turning to the whole room. "Here's the thing. Fumi-senpai and I talked about this earlier today. Back when it was just the two of us trying to figure out why the hell we were still standing here while everyone else was gone. The first 7-Eleven run."

I paused. The room was dead quiet now.

"We've all been thinking about this the same way. Everyone vanished. We got left behind. Right?"

Nods. Murmurs. Someone, Yuki and Asuka, I think, whispered, "Right," or, "Yeah."

"We got clues. The empty roads. No cars. No mopeds on the road. Anyone who went home, or went on a raid with Donda this afternoon, would know that. And people vanished right in front of us, I mean, you guys. I was asleep," I giggled. They remembered, and some of them laughed.

"There should have been crashes. Cars. Trucks. Mopeds. Bikes. Kamishiro-chuo-dori should've been stacked with wrecked vehicles like a pile of my brother's Legos. But they're not. They're empty."

A pause.

"But then there's one specific thing, Makoto's friend's one shoe, in the locker! Think about it. What can you imply from all that?"

One second. Two seconds.

"Ah! Shige… Jouji-san! Anything someone was using or holding would go with them!"

"Exactly!" It was Shimizu Mai, the other Shimizu. My year. I hoped I wasn't wrong.

"Ah! So Kenji was holding the other shoe, he hadn't put it on the…" Makoto chimed in. He looked more and more like a man than a kid by the second.

"Nice." Easy to follow.

"But think about it like this. If you're an alien, or an evil entity, Kamen Rider villain or whatever, and you'd decided you wanted to abduct hundreds of thousands of people, do you really want their cars? Their bikes and mopeds? Do you want the grocery bags from ten thousand grandmas?"

Chuckles started to ripple. Some nodded, smiling.

The warm-up.

"Do you want the Bekesu Boys with their unfinished cigarettes?"

Donda snorted hard, laughing in front of Yua and Chisaton and Kaede. "Fuck..," he exclaimed it low and just cracked up, and it drew even more giggles and laughter.

The build-up.

"Do you want that bastard in the toilet with his shit still hanging halfway out his ass?"

It was at the exact moment that I knew I should've put comedian above prime minister on my list of future career choices.

I saw it in slow motion, everyone curling forward, backward, sideways, holding onto each other. Choking on their own.

1-A had just turned into a comedy-show.

Everyone. No exceptions.

Nanase included.

For all the months I'd known her, I'd never once seen her lose all her composure over a joke. She was laughing out loud with Yumi.

Rena, in the far back, and Nagisa-senpai were hugging, cheeks touching, laughing. Yua and Chisaton were smacking Donda's back. Umi, the calmest of us all, had to hide her face, one hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking. Riko-senpai, Marina-senpai, Airi-senpai were all in tears. Makoto was flat on the floor, and beside him were Karin, Asuka, Yuki, and a handful of other first-years, none of them holding it together any better.

And I still couldn't see any of them clearly, because I was thinking about shit.

Literal shit.

"Ewwwww! Jouji-kun, that's disgusting!" Fumiko agreed, still laughing so hard. "I don't want that on my spaceship!"

Even Fumiko got it.

And everyone was just a total mess.

Fumi-tan.

She was my first audience. She already knew what she was walking into. She was no better than when she first heard it.

I was laughing now too, couldn't help it.

It took more than thirty, forty seconds for the laughter to finally die down.

Still with watery eyes, I had to continue.

"Haa… Haa… So yeah… yeah… okay…"

Breathe.

"Now we can all agree on one thing. There should be no shit, literal shit, hmph, in some alien ship, or wherever they took everyone. Alright?"

A few people nodded. But ripples of giggles were still there.

"So, now, I want you all to think about this. Follow me."

Now I was sounding more like an illusionist than a comedian.

"Imagine there's a world, a carbon copy of ours, like a mirror world, for example. And today, roughly eleven hours ago, during morning assembly, this empty world took a 'snapshot,' registering every non-moving, non-used, non-held things only. So no cars, no bikes or mopeds on the roads. No Makoto's friend's other shoe. Because those things were…"

They looked like they were catching up.

"And, at that exact moment, the vanishing happened." A pause. "Look, I know it's gonna sound stupid, but at this point, if a chicken suddenly walked into 1-A and barked at us, I wouldn't be surprised anymore."

I said it flat. But it got some chuckles.

"But…"

Pause.

"Hear me out. No cars on the road, no Makoto's friend's other shoe, but everyone else, our families, our friends, seven hundred kids who were at morning assembly, the entire population of Kamishiro-cho, or maybe all of Tokyo, or maybe Japan, Asia, the whole world, they vanished."

Another beat.

"But that's from our perspective."

Eyes started to widen. These people caught up quick.

"But what if, from their perspective…"

"…we're the ones who vanished?" Asuka finished it, cutting in abruptly with the question.

All eyes turned to her, the sunflower of the first-years.

The sunlight followed the sunflower now, the order was wrong it should be the other way around, but it was too late for anything to feel strange anymore.

"Yes!" I said. "Asuka-kun's right."

Straight to first name.

"What if the real world is still going on out there, exactly like it was this morning, except we're not in it? What if something spilled us out? Took us, the ones who happened to be in the right place at the right time, or the wrong place at the wrong time, whatever, and dropped us into a copy? A mirror? A world that looks exactly like ours except nobody's home?"

I looked around the room. Some faces were processing. Some were frozen.

"But I want you all to focus on this one thing I'm gonna say. If my theory is somehow correct, then we can breathe a little bit. Because then we know, or at least we can choose to believe, that our families, our friends, our teachers, our pets. They're not vanished. They're still in the real world."

A beat as I saw realization hit some of the faces.

Some mouths gaped. Some eyes went watery in an instant.

"Right?"

Slowly, but surely, everyone smiled, with a glimmer of hope in their eyeballs.

This is what we needed.

A glimmer of hope.

And me. I needed it just as much.

"So… So… My… my mother and father might still be cuddling… or… having sex on the couch right now? They're not gone?"

Fumiko. Of course.

She said it with teary eyes and a cracked voice, hands shaking like she'd just pulled the best fortune for a year long.

Some people snorted through their own cracked voices.

Giggles. Heads shaking.

But clearly, hope.

"Ye… yeah. You could think that way, Fumiko-chan. But maybe they'd also be panicking, because they lost their daughter. Yeah?"

"Ye… yeah. They should be. They love me so much."

That one got more giggles, and laughters.

And I thought, everyone would agree on that one thing.

Fumiko represented everyone, whether she knew it or not.

I continued.

"So, for the sake of them, until we can come back to them, we've gotta give our best. Survive here. Stay alive. Alright?"

I got nods again. Some with tears.

And smiles. Genuine smiles.

"So here we are. Kobore-mono."

The Spilled Ones.

"Like a bowl of rice, some of it spills out when you move the bowl too fast. We're like that. I feel like that. The world kept moving forward in time. But at the moment of the vanishing, like I said, it took a snapshot of the things that don't move, and we're the rice that spilled out of the bowl. So we didn't…"

Murmurs.

"Kobore-mono," someone whispered. I couldn't tell who. One of the first-years, maybe.

A second. Two.

Yua continued, "Like, like when you pour tea and some of it goes over the edge. It's still tea. It's just not in the cup anymore."

That was a beautiful paraphrasing that immediately got nods and yeahs.

"Kobore-mono," Donda said, testing it. Then he grinned, that big, stupid, soccer-ace grin I'd known since this morning.

"I like it. Sounds like a band name."

"Everything sounds like a band name to you," Yua said beside him.

"Because everything should be a band name."

The room laughed. But it was a different kind of laughter now, softer, warmer. The kind that comes after a deep breath.

I looked around at all of them. Thirty-two girls. Two other boys. One classroom that wasn't a classroom anymore. And a name for what we were.

"We don't know if it's true," I continued. "The mirror-world thing. It's just a theory. It's stupid. It fits the facts we've got, but that doesn't make it right. We could be completely wrong. But…" I paused. "I don't like it when I don't get it. And I still don't get it. Not fully. Not yet."

I looked at the faces in front of me.

"But this?" I gestured at the room, the mega-bed, the tape labels, the borrowed pajamas, the girls who'd stopped crying long enough to laugh, the two new faces from Asakaze, one of them being my girlfriend, Nanase.

"This… I like this."

"This… I can hold onto."

The room was quiet that you can feel people breathing together.

"We're the spilled ones," I said. "We're not the ones who got left behind. We're the ones who got poured somewhere else. And if we're stuck in this cup together," I spread my hands, "then we might as well make it a cup worth being in."

Donda started clapping. Slowly. Sarcastically.

Some of them started clapping and laughing too.

"Speech. Speech. Ten out of ten. Very inspiring. I'm tearing up."

"Shut up, Donda." He was annoying that I could only grin. I wouldn't have him any other way.

"No, no, genuinely moved. The poor toilet bastard.. Ow!"

"Shut up, Donda." Now that was Yua, laughing and slapping his thigh hard.

The room dissolved into something easier. Conversations restarting. Fumi-senpai calling me an idiot from the windowsill. Sayaka and Eri murmuring to each other, the words kobore-mono passing back and forth between them like a stone they were turning over.

And Nanase.

Nanase was still sitting cross-legged on the mega-bed, her green tea long forgotten, looking at me.

Smiling.

Whatever had been in her face before, it had settled into something quieter. Something steadier.

She caught me looking and immediately looked away, face going pink.

A hundred times cuter tonight.

Let me exaggerate it, a million times.

I walked over and dropped down beside her on the futon. Not too close. But not far, either.

"Hey."

"Hey." She didn't look at me. But she didn't move away.

"That was…" she started.

"Stupid?"

"I was going to say 'good.'" She glanced at me sideways chuckling. "You're… different. When you talk to everyone. Different from how you are with me."

I didn't know what to say to that.

So I asked a question instead.

"Good different or bad different?"

She considered the question. Actually considered it, the way she'd consider a One Piece lore question or a test problem, turning it over, examining it from different angles.

"Good," she said, nodding, holding back a grin that gave her away anyway.

That landed somewhere in my chest and stayed there.

"Okay," I said, holding back mine.

"Okay," she said.

And we sat there, side by side, on a stolen futon in a classroom that wasn't a classroom anymore, surrounded by thirty-odd kobore-mono and the hum of fluorescent lights that shouldn't have been working and the drifting petals of cherry blossoms outside the curtained windows.

I should have been sad. Worried. The world might have ended. My family was gone. My friends too.

And yet.

I was somewhat happier than I'd been in years.

Right now…

At least they're all smiling now.

We needed a win.

We needed this.

I wonder how long I can keep doing this.

I didn't even want to think about how I'd still have to scare them again.

With the electricity problem.

Later tonight.

 

[darkrednotmaroon]

Chapter 13 - Frequency

Marina-senpai stood up from her spot, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose with the efficiency of someone who'd just remembered she had responsibilities.

"Alright, everyone!" Her voice cut through the post-speech murmur with the practiced brightness of a Student Council Cultural Representative who'd spent two years herding cats through school festival planning. "It's time to get dinner ready. Food and Kitchen Division, that's Umi-chan, me, and anyone else who signed up, let's move to Home Ec. We've got thirty-five mouths tonight, and the rice isn't going to cook itself."

A few groans. A few laughs. The rustle of people getting to their feet.

Umi, who'd been sitting near Nanase and Yumi the whole speech, rose smoothly and brushed off her oversized uniform skirt. The Yamato Nadeshiko calm utterly intact, as if she'd just been asked to step out for a routine errand rather than cook dinner for thirty-five stranded survivors in the apocalypse.

"I have to go, Nana-chan," she said to Nanase, smiling quietly.

"U.. Umi-chan…" Nanase hesitated, then, in a smaller voice, "Can I help?"

Umi paused. Looked at her, really looked at her, the way she'd looked at her earlier, that reassessment still flickering behind her calm eyes. Two years in the same classroom. Never friends. Different circles. And now here they were.

"You cook?" Umi asked.

"Ye.. Yeah. I sometimes cook for my family at home…"

Of course. Nanase is the second daughter of four sisters.

"Me.. Me too, Umi-chan.. I.. I can wash rice and help with anything!" Yumi said.

Umi's mouth did that tiny, almost-smile thing again. "Great! It's okay, Yumi-chan. We can teach you."

Nanase and Yumi got up. And before they followed Umi toward the door, Nanase glanced back at me, just for a second, with something in her eyes and expression that kept showing up today.

The one that I didn't have a name for it yet.

But I liked it. I loved it.

"Ah… Yu.. Yumi-chan?!"

The voice came from across the room. Riko-senpai had just gotten to her feet, and her eyes had landed on Yumi like a guided missile locking onto a target.

"Yumi-chan! It is you!"

Yumi, who'd been gathering herself with Nanase to follow Umi to the kitchen, froze. Turned. And then her face, which had been cycling through various shades of overwhelmed ever since we'd walked through the door, broke into the first real, uncomplicated smile I'd seen from her all day.

"Riko… Riko-neechan?!"

"I knew it! I knew I recognized you when you walked in, but I was like, no, it can't be.." Riko-senpai was already crossing the room, arms outstretched, and she wrapped Yumi in a hug that lifted her half an inch off the mega-bed. "Oh my god! Look at you! I can't believe you're here! You're so tall now! You were this tall last time I saw you!"

"Riko-neechan, we.. we were already in junior high the last time you saw me…"

"Details! Irrelevant details!"

Yumi was laughing, actually laughing. "You still live still in Fujimigaoka, right, Riko-nee?"

"Fujimigaoka, yes! The same block! Your grandmother's house is still there, the one with the persimmon tree…"

"She moved to Hokkaido a year ago."

"She what?! No one told me!"

They were talking over each other now, the way childhood friends do when they've got years of catching up to compress into thirty seconds. Riko-neechan. Yumi-chan. Two stations from Kamishiro, Fujimigaoka, a quiet little pocket of the west-side suburbs where apparently Riko-senpai and Yumi had spent childhood moments together.

"Wait," I said, looking between them. "You two know each other?"

Yeah. I know.

You know each other? Is trending apparently.

"Childhood friends!" Riko-senpai still had Yumi in a half-hug and showed no signs of releasing her. "Her grandmother lived three houses down from mine. Yumi-chan used to come visit every summer and every New Year's. We'd play in the park, catch beetles, complain about homework, she was the little sister I never had!"

"Riko-neechan taught me how to ride a bike," Yumi said, her voice muffled slightly by Riko-senpai's shoulder. "And how to climb the big sakura tree in the park without falling."

"And you fell anyway! Twice! I had to carry you home both times!"

"You told me you wouldn't tell anyone about that!"

"I'm telling everyone! It's a reunion!"

The room, which had been dispersing toward various corners, had paused to watch this with varying degrees of amusement.

But Rena.

Rena had been standing near the blanket-distribution zone, midway through folding a stray futon, and when Riko-senpai had called out Yumi's name, she'd gone very, very still.

I saw it. I don't think anyone else did, almost everyone was watching the childhood-friend reunion, the wholesome chaos of Riko-senpai fussing over Yumi's hair and asking about her grandmother. But Rena's hands had stopped moving on the futon. Her shoulders had tensed. And her eyes, Rena's easy, warm, cat-in-a-sunbeam eyes, had gone careful.

"Umi-chan!" Riko-senpai called out while hugging Yumi from behind.

"Kitchen can have Jouji's girlfriend, but Yumi-chan.. Yumi-chan belongs to Logistics and Living. She's mine. Childhood-friend privileges. I'm invoking them."

Umi only smiled and giggled.

"Okay…" She said gracefully.

"Yes, this girl can't hold a knife anyway!" Riko-senpai continued.

"I can hold a knife!" Yumi protested.

"Debatable," Riko-senpai said, finally loosening the hug enough to look at her.

"Remember the watermelon incident, summer 2004?" Yumi grinned.

"We don't talk about the watermelon incident of summer 2004," Riko-senpai said gravely. "We only remember it in silence."

Yumi was laughing again. Bright, open, the kind of laugh that made her whole face change. And Riko-senpai was beaming, one arm still draped over her shoulder, already steering her toward the logistics corner where Sayaka and Eri and Chisaton were sorting through the day's supply inventory. I could catalog soap, shampoo, toothbrush and paste only from this distance.

"Rena-chan!" Riko-senpai called over her shoulder. "Come meet Yumi-chan properly! You're going to love her. She's with us now in Logistics! She's the little sister I never actually had but emotionally adopted. We climbed trees together. She fell. Twice."

Rena didn't move.

For a beat, just a beat, her face did something I couldn't read. Then she smoothed it over, set down the futon, and walked toward them.

"Yumi," she said. Her voice was even. Friendly. The voice of someone meeting a stranger at a party. "Welcome to Logistics."

Yumi's laugh had faded. Not entirely, the warmth from Riko-senpai's reunion was still there in her cheeks, but it had dimmed a notch. Like someone turning down a dimmer switch just slightly.

"Tha.. thank you, Rena." Yumi's voice was careful now. Polite. "I'll.. I'll do my best."

"Hmm?" Riko-senpai looked between them, puzzled. "Yumi-chan, Rena-chan… You already knew each other and something happened between you two?"

I watched this scene unfolded before me, Riko-senpai just casually asked them that.

Nanase's eyes went wide beside Umi.

I knew it. Nanase knows something about them.

"It's.. It's nothing," Rena said quickly. Too quickly. "It's.. Umm.. We went to the same junior high.."

"Ye.. Yes, that," Yumi said. And then, even quieter, "We were classmates.. but it's.. it's fine. Really."

The silence that followed was barely a second long. Riko-senpai, who missed exactly nothing, opened her mouth, "Boys?"

Rena and Yumi's faces had this expression screaming oh shit.

Aahh…

Ah.. Well.. I mean..

Just because the world ended I assumed something like Yumi was probably Rena's rival from junior high, who both aimed to become the Hokage, the one left the village and the other stayed.

This apocalypse has mind-fucked my brain good.

Boys! What else? This is normalcy!

Everything for normalcy counts.

It was none of my business but, hell, I was totally in for any spicy youth gossip right now to recalibrate my broken train of thoughts.

It was pretty clear that Nanase even snorted a little and tried so hard to fold her lips.

"This is nonsense! Rena-chan, Yumi-chan! You both are my little sisters now," she casually pulled Rena with her other arm now, and Yumi was still in the other arm.

"Listen. We got thirty-five people to take care of, including ourselves. So whatever you girls have, we'll talk about it over shower later after dinner! Alright?!"

"Ri.. Riko-senpai.. It.. It's oka.," Rena muttered.

"Yea.. Yeah.. It's okay, we don't ha.." Yumi too.

But both were cut off.

"Nu-uh! No buts. I'll have you both wash each other's back," Riko-senpai giggled.

I could imagine that. Fuzzy. But I could.

"Ah! And Nanase-chan will take shower with us as well after dinner! I gotta see what she's hiding down there!" Riko-senpai casually said it.

Nanase was blushing furiously again with one hand covering her chest. Her embarrassed smile was always cute.

And that one did the heavy-lifting to crack smiles from both Rena and Yumi.

Also Umi, who was immediately covering her chuckles with her hand.

"Exactly," Rena muttered and her eyes turned to me, "You know what Nanase-chan, almost everytime Jouji talks about you, it was always about the short hair, the Dracula teeth, and the big tits. He once said I won't have the slightest chance, Nanase-chan, because you are his type through and through. Now I really have to see that for myself!"

"Rena-chan! I.." My eyes widened at her, my grin was as stupid as a grin could be.

Riko-senpai and Yumi immediately fell into laughter that made heads turn in the room. Umi snorted quite hard and looked away.

Nanase stared at me with her eyeballs throwing daggers, lips folded, her nose grew about a centimeter, cheeks: a Coca Cola can, not the less sugar one.

Here it comes.

I reflexively gave her my arm.

"Jouchi!"

Thwack!

She smiled widely, embarrassed for the countless time today. She hit hard.

"O.. Okay! We can all ogle at Nanase-chan's boobies later. But for now, help me make 1-B into a proper izakaya!" And Riko-senpai took them both away towards the door.

I couldn't find any words for how easy Riko-senpai diffused it, whatever Rena and Yumi had going on. The Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications.

Nanase exhaled beside me and Umi, still fuming from the embarrassment I swear there was smoke coming out her ears.

"Something with them, Nacchi?" I finally asked, not out of curiosity really, a filler question to make her stay around longer.

"Ye.. Yea.. I.. I mean, no.." Nanase obviously didn't wanna talk about it. She giggled. "Do.. Don't ask me that, Jouchi, it's not your business anyway!" She said it in amusement. "Le.. Let's go, Umi-chan.."

Umi just giggled and nodded to Nanase. "Alright, Jouji-kun. We'll see you around," She said, gracefully.

Nanase just threw a glance and a little hand-wave at me.

They headed towards the door.

---

Almost everyone had filtered out of 1-A by then. The kitchen crew followed Umi and Nanase toward Home Ec. The Logistics and Living squad tailed Riko-senpai into 1-B, already buzzing with the sound of desks being rearranged and supplies being sorted. I caught a glimpse of Fumi-tan still talking with Nagisa-senpai, Nao-senpai, Saki-senpai, and a few others at the far end of the mega-bed, laughing about something, the easy laughter of people who'd known each other long before the world ended.

And me? I was suddenly, awkwardly, a third wheel to the entire room.

My mouth tasted like something had died in it. Coffee, cigarettes, no toothbrush. Lovely.

I dropped my bag at the edge of the classroom, fished out my Discman and grabbed the first CD my fingers touched. The Strokes. Room on Fire. Fitting.

The entire world was on fire, and I was very much in a room.

I took out a Mild Seven from the pack, lighter already in my other hand, and headed for the hallway. Near the shoe-lockers, I passed Makoto and a first-year girl, Hana, if I remembered correctly from Rena's list. Nakajima Hana. They were hauling what looked like tablecloths from the staff room.

"Wha.. What's that for?" I stopped mid-stride.

Makoto grinned. "Hahah, Riko-senpai's orders, Jouji-senpai."

Hana nodded along, a shy smile on her face. She had that first-year energy, still finding her footing, still defaulting to polite. "Ri.. Riko-senpai said she wants the dinner tables in 1-B to look nice."

I laughed. Of course. Riko-senpai wasn't going to let the apocalypse get in the way of proper presentation. "Hahah, okay. Eh, Makoto, those two acoustic guitars in the Light Music Room? Secure them. We'll use them for night watch later."

He straightened up like I'd just handed him a mission from the Prime Minister, grinning wide. "Ye.. Yes, Senpai. Understood!"

Hana just shook her head and laughed quietly as I walked past them.

Near the main entrance, I found Donda and Yua parked by the vending machines, sitting on the low ledge. His arm was around her shoulder. She was leaning into him. The two of them laughing about something private.

"Oi…" I called out as I walked past. "Okaasan, Otoosan… Get a room." I snickered

"Well, that's the plan, son!" Donda shot back, laughing. "She's playing hard to get tonight."

Yua smacked his shoulder, face red. "Jouji-kun, don't listen to him!"

I grinned and kept walking. Seeing them like that, actually laughing, actually together, like the world outside hadn't just been erased, it grounded me.

Reminded me why I was doing any of this.

Then I stopped.

Something something.

Not electricity.

I turned around, slipped the cigarette back into the pack, and headed for 1-B instead.

Rena was in the corner, mid-task, sorting through what looked like a pile of tablecloths. I pulled her aside.

"Re.. Rena-chan."

"He? What's up, Jouji?"

"That list from earlier," I said, keeping my voice down. "The one with medical conditions?"

"Oh. Already gave it to Airi-senpai. She's probably in the infirmary, doing inventory on the meds."

I nodded and made a beeline for the infirmary.

The room smelled like antiseptic and old bandages. Airi-senpai was there, as expected, but she wasn't alone. Beside her, sorting through boxes of pill packets, was Kawamura Shizuka, my classmate from 2-B.

Both of them had changed out of their school uniforms into something more practical. Airi-senpai wore a simple long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up, tracksuit bottoms, her ponytail pulled tight. Shizuka had on a loose hoodie with similar track pants, the kind of outfit you throw on when you know you're going to be on your feet all night.

"A.. Airi-senpai." I stepped inside.

"Ka.. Kawamu.."

"Shizuka is fine, Jouji-kun." She cut me off with a small laugh. "We're classmates, you know."

"Ah. Right. Shizuka-san. You're part of the Medical team too?"

"Yeah. I've been Health Committee since elementary school," She said it smiling casually. "Guess it finally paid off. Hehe."

Good. So she's a natural Iinkai.

That was reassuring.

"What is it, Jouji-kun?" Airi-senpai didn't look up from the boxes she was organizing.

"Oh, yeah. Umm… Rena gave you the attendance list with health, medical conditions, right, Airi-senpai?"

Both of them looked up at that. "Oh! Yes. Nice call on that, Jouji-kun." Airi-senpai smiled.

"But you don't have to worry about a thing," Shizuka added.

"Eh?"

"We're all clear. No one has any chronic conditions."

"Really?"

They both nodded.

I exhaled and chuckled. "Hah... Okay. Good."

Relief.

"Umm… but can I ask you both a favor?" I continue.

They both exchanged glances then looked at me.

"I want you to measure everyone here. Weight and height. Then calculate BMI for at least fifteen people, randomly."

They exchanged a look again, confused. "Wha… Why, Jouji-kun?"

"Nghh… how do I explain this… just calculate it first." I fumbled for words. "You don't have to tell me how much everyone weighs. Hahah." I laughed, and they laughed along with me. "Maybe it's good to track stuff like that. From the data, maybe, we can figure out a good diet plan for everyone. Right?"

I fumbled for words, not because I didn't have a reason, but because the actual reason would make me sound like I was two steps away from building a bunker and these two girls didn't need to be dreaded now.

I'd just walked past Makoto and Hana, all clumsy first-crush energy hauling tablecloths, and then Donda and Yua outside acting like they'd been married since the Meiji era.

I wanted to see the first pair become the second someday.

That was going to take food. Lots of it. Over a timeline I didn't feel like doing the math on yet. Not in the first day of whatever this is.

I had to stay negative and positive at the same time.

Translation: Be prepared for the worst with a smile and teen spirit.

They looked at each other again. Then back at me. Something clicked behind their eyes.

"Okay. That actually makes sense," Shizuka said and nodded.

"Hehe," Airi-senpai suddenly laughed, "I never thought that Shigeru Jouji-kun, the one who always looked so uninterested in any class-rep meeting, would be the one who actually lead us now."

Oof.

"Ha.. Hahah. Yeah, that's.. that's me.." I could only grin. My reputation preceded me.

"Ah! I knew it! I saw you multiple times, Jouji-kun, before we were classmates in 2-B. But I couldn't really remember from where. You were a class-rep?! I was in 1-E and also the class secretary, so I often attended class-rep meeting too." Shizuka chimed in.

"Ye.. Yeah.. I.. was the class.. no, the commander, of this very big useless gang in the history of Kamishiro High, the GTA of class 1-B," I said laughing.

"Eh? You are?! Hahahahah! That's the silliest gang ever, Jouji-kun! I also have friends from 1-B, Mika-chan, Akiko-chan, from the swimming club! They are always proud to be part of the GTA. I'm quite jealous of your class. You guys are so solid," Shizuka said with glimmer in her eyes.

"Ah? Really? Hahah. Mika and Akiko? Yeah... They are practically two peas in a pod. They come in a package." I laughed.

"So the GTA was 1-B? Yeah, I heard about that too. The first-year made a gang that's consisted of a whole class. That's super… different…" Airi-senpai giggled.

And for a split second there, the way they looked at me, talked to me, laughed with me. I almost forgot how pretty they were. And the realization hit me again.

Okay, stop, Jouji. Calm down, cowboy. You have Nanase. And a crazy sukeban who already declared sexual warfare. Enough.

I had probably accustomed to the empty streets without people out there on my way to Asakaze, but I still couldn't adjust myself that everyone, every girl here was attractive.

"O.. Okay. The BMI stuff, If not tonight, maybe tomorrow. If possible, before dinner tonight. And… Please don't tell anyone that I was the one who asked." I giggled.

They exchanged glances. And laughed again. Then nodded.

Shizuka immediately asked Airi-senpai if she could go inform Nagisa-senpai, she was already moving before Airi-senpai finished nodding.

So tonight it was.

I ended up being their first subject. Weight. Height. The whole thing. Then I got out of there, my heart still doing something weird from the way Airi-senpai and Shizuka had both looked at me.

I made it to the front entrance and finally lit that cigarette.

Finally standing at the end of the world with my first post-apocalyptic front-to-back record.

Starting with What Ever Happened?

---

My phone was completely useless except as a flashlight in the dark of night.

Drag. Exhaled. Flipped the clamshell open. Flipped it shut.

The flashlight from the tiny screen was pointless anyway. The hallway lights were still on. Classroom 1-A, 1-B, and a few rooms still had their lights on.

I still couldn't figure out how to bring up the fact that the lights could go out any time now, but at least the heaters wouldn't. Kamishiro High ran on kerosene stoves mounted to the walls, fuel-based. Ancient. This building was practically a historical artifact.

I'd complained about any ancient-aspect of this building time after time.

But now, I was actually thankful for that.

But what about water? What happens when the water stops running? What do we drink? What are we gonna cook with? What are we gonna wash ourselves with?

Drag. Exhaled.

"…npai!"

A faint sound creeped under You Talk Way Too Much.

I tossed a look and Makoto appeared in the doorway.

"Oi?"

"Food's ready. Izakaya 1-B is open for business!" He was grinning, a completely different face from the tense, terrified kid I'd seen that morning.

I stubbed out the cigarette and followed him inside.

---

The desks had been pushed together into long communal tables, covered with the tablecloths Makoto and Hana had hauled in. White, with a faded floral pattern, probably from the Home Ec storage or the staff room earlier. Someone also had raided the staff room for those little sitting cushions, and they were laid out around the tables in uneven clusters.

It wasn't a restaurant. It wasn't even a proper izakaya.

But with thirty-five teenagers sitting around in a classroom lit by fluorescent lights, steam rising from bowls and plates, the low hum of conversation filling every corner, it was close enough.

Airi-senpai and Shizuka slipped in behind me, looking like they'd just finished measuring the last few stragglers. Shizuka was wiping her forehead with her sleeve. Airi-senpai was adjusting her ponytail, the way she always did when she'd just wrapped up a task.

The kitchen crew was still in their aprons. Umi, serene as ever, was setting down a massive pot of rice. Marina-senpai was directing traffic, glasses slightly fogged from steam.

And Nanase. Nanase was setting bowls down on the table with the careful precision of someone who'd done this a hundred times at home. Her apron was slightly too big for her, the strings tied in a tight bow at the back. She moved differently in it. More sure of herself.

My wife.

I blushed a bit in the doorway.

You're creepy, Jouji.

I walked inside and found me a seat beside Donda.

"Alright, everyone! Sit down, sit down!" Marina-senpai clapped her hands together. "Before I explain the menu, I want to say… tonight's dinner is something special."

A few people exchanged glances. Donda, already seated with chopsticks in one fist, looked up. "Special how?"

"Tonight's main dish," Marina-senpai announced, pushing her glasses up with dramatic flair, "is a recipe that came straight from Nanase-chan here."

A ripple of surprise went through the room.

Nanase's face went red immediately. Her shoulders hunched, the old nekoze reflex kicking in. "Ma.. Marina-senpai, you didn't have to.."

"It's true! You told us exactly how to make it. We just followed your instructions!"

"What is it?" Yua asked from her spot beside Donda.

"Ginger pork with shredded cabbage and miso soup with tofu and wakame," Umi answered quietly, that tiny almost-smile on her face. "Nanase-chan said her mother makes it. She walked us through every step."

The room erupted in scattered applause and whistles. Donda was banging his chopsticks on the table. Yumi, seated with Riko-senpai at the logistics corner, was clapping with genuine enthusiasm.

Meanwhile I almost fainted from this ache in my heart.

Good ache.

Ginger pork. She remembers.

Nanase looked like she wanted to disappear into the floorboards. But she was also smiling, that double crooked-toothed, fanged smile that had earned her the Dracula nickname.

"Nanase-chan! Sit here, sit here!" Riko-senpai patted an empty cushion beside her. Rena was on Riko-senpai's other side. Yumi was there too, and whatever tension had been between her and Rena earlier seemed to have settled into a cautious truce, they weren't looking at each other, but they weren't avoiding each other either. Progress.

But Nanase, after a moment's hesitation, walked towards Riko-senpai and whispered to her, then she continued walking after Riko-senpai's lips widened into a smile. She walked through others and sat down next to me instead.

"Jo.. Jouchi."

"Nacchi."

I wasn't nervous at all.

She sat down, folding her legs under her, and I could see her ears were still pink from Marina-senpai's announcement. She pulled at the strings of her apron, untying it with quick, nervous fingers. "Do.. Don't say anything."

"Anything."

"Jouchi!" She complained and giggled.

I shrugged. "You… You remembered."

She looked at me, and for just a second, the embarrassment cracked into something softer. "I.. I know."

Right. She did know. Seven months of text chains. She knew.

"Was it really your mother's… recipe?" Because I never heard about that part.

"N.. No.. I lied so they'd just… Let me… make your fav…"

"O.. Okay.. Yeah, yeah, yeah…" I nodded quickly so she didn't have to finish her sentence.

"Okay."

"Okay… Tha… Thank you." I bowed.

Why the fuck did I bow?!

"Mm-hmm." She bowed back.

I might die for real.

The food came around in a rhythm that felt almost normal. Rice bowls passed from hand to hand. The ginger pork was laid out on shared plates: thin slices, glistening with sauce, bedded on shredded cabbage. The miso soup steamed in mismatched mugs and bowls. Side dishes materialized from the kitchen: pickled radish, cold tofu with green onion, even a plate of rolled omelet that Umi had apparently whipped up at the last minute.

I ended up seated between Nanase and Donda. Across from us were Yua and, unexpectedly, two people I hadn't really talked to yet.

One was Kobayashi Rina. Second-year, Class 2-F, Rikei. Same class as Rena, Umi, and Fumiko. I recognized her from the attendance list but this was the first time I'd actually sat down near her. She had this short, bouncy hair that framed her face and a laugh that came easily. She was already deep in conversation with Yua about something, gesturing with her chopsticks.

Next to her was Miho-senpai. Sakamoto Miho, third-year, Class 3-E. She was one of those upperclassmen you see in the hallways and vaguely register but never actually talk to. She had a calm, big-sister energy. The kind of senpai who'd help you find your classroom on your first day and then never mention it again.

"Jouji-kun.." Miho-senpai said, catching my eye. "You're the one who's been running things. I never said thanks for that. So thank you."

Whoa. She bows.

"I.. I wouldn't say running. More like… stumbling in a direction and hoping people follow."

Rina laughed. "That's basically what running things looks like, Jouji-kun." She called me casually. Good.

"Haha, yeah. I'll take it."

The conversation flowed easily after that. Donda was telling a story about the scavenging run, how he'd nearly fallen through a rotten floorboard in some old house, and how Nao-senpai had grabbed him by the collar without saying a single word. Nao-senpai went catching up with the scavenging team almost immediately after she arrived with the going-home convoy.

Miho-senpai shared that she'd spent the first five or ten minutes after the vanishing hiding in the third-floor bathroom, too scared to come out, until she heard voices downstairs and realized she wasn't alone. Rina also talked about when she suddenly stood alone, with only a few girls, and saw Fumiko collapsed on the ground near her.

Normal conversations. The kind of conversations teenagers have when they're getting to know each other. Except the context was the end of the world.

I caught Rena watching me from across the room. She was sitting with Riko-senpai and Yumi and, surprisingly, Fumi-tan, who'd finally migrated over from her corner with Nagisa-senpai. Fumi-tan caught my eye and raised her chopsticks in a mock toast, eyebrow arched, smiling nonetheless, I see you, Jouji, telepathically.

I looked away. Looked at Nanase.

She was eating quietly, her movements small and neat, the way she always did. But every now and then she'd glance up at me, and there it was again, that expression I still didn't have a name for.

"Oi, Jouji." Donda elbowed me. "You're spacing out. Eat your pork before I steal it."

"You steal my pork and I'll tell everyone about the porn stash you found in the teacher's desk."

"Dude!"

The table erupted.

Yua was laughing so hard she had to put down her chopsticks. Nanase snorted, actually snorted, and then covered her face slightly while still trying to swallow. Rina was staring at Donda with theatrical judgment. Miho-senpai just shook her head, the big-sister energy somehow intensifying.

"This is slander!" Donda protested. "I was securing educational materials!"

"For what subject? Anatomy?"

"It was Yua's idea!"

"Don't drag me into this!" Yua smacked his arm again.

Apparently me and Donda shared this mutual curse of being smacked by our girlfriends. It was still new to me. But I preferred that over what I and Nanase had for the last seven months.

I leaned back, letting the noise wash over me. Thirty-five people in a classroom that smelled like ginger and miso and steam. Laughter bouncing off the walls. Eri started to use her shortwave radio and set it to a station that was only playing static, but the gesture itself was optimistic, someone, somewhere, still believed there might be someone broadcasting.

Nanase's shoulder was almost touching mine now. She hadn't moved closer on purpose. I don't think she was even aware of it. But she was there. Warm. Real. Not a text on a screen. Not a voice on the other end of a phone.

And I realized that her right hand went down.

So my left reached under the table and found it.

She flinched, just slightly, then her fingers curled around mine.

She moved in her own way.

"Jouchi…" She whispered.

"Mm-hmm…" I said. I felt the heat on my cheek. Not from the steam of the miso soup.

She squeezed my hand once. Twice. Hard. But gentle. She was like feeling it for a brief two or three seconds as if saying yeah we can do this now but I need to finish my food, and maybe we can do this again the next time.

Then she slid off her hands of mine. Carefully. Gently. Wrapped her fingers at my wrist and held it for another second, and immediately went for the chopsticks again.

I still remembered how our first handholding date ruined by whatever made us a couple of awkward teenagers. How she pulled her hand off of my hand and immediately asked if we should go home because it was starting to get too cold.

This was different. Super different.

Across the room, Fumi-tan looked at us briefly. Smiled a different kind of smile. Not competitive. Not challenging.

Just… smiling for a second, then she start telling Rena something and Rena suddenly laughed so hard.

I didn't know what to do with that.

So I did what I always did. Ate my ginger pork. Made another joke. Let the room carry me throughout the dinner time.

 

[darkrednotmaroon]

Chapter 14 - Secret

The cleanup was fast. Almost military. Umi, Marina-senpai, and the kitchen crew moved like a well-oiled machine, plates vanishing from tables, leftovers wrapped, counters wiped down. Nanase was right in the middle of it too, carrying a stack of bowls toward the Home Ec room with the efficiency that reminded me that she was the second daughter of four sisters. A very beautiful older sister who was just accepted at Todai, Tokyo University, and twin cute little sisters.

I watched her for a moment longer than I probably should, then caught myself and looked away.

Stop staring at your girlfriend again, Jouji. Again.

But then my brain, helpful as always, circled back to the thing I couldn't stop thinking about.

Electricity.

Water.

The lights were still on. The hallway fluorescents hummed that same tired hum they'd hummed since I was a first-year. But for how long? The grid wasn't going to maintain itself. Somewhere out there, a power plant was running on automation, and when that automation failed, when whatever fail-safes tripped, we'd be in the dark. Literally.

And water. The taps still worked. But what happened when the water tower ran dry? What happened when the pumps stopped?

Should I talk about this now? Should I not?

I didn't know. And not knowing made my fingers itch for a cigarette.

I grabbed a chair from classroom 1-A, hauled it to the front entrance, and sat down.

Then back again. For two more.

Three chairs now lined at the entrance perch. Our night watch station. The gate was closed, the street beyond it empty, the streetlights still casting their lonely orange glow over asphalt that no one was driving on. Inside, the vending machine hummed, its glass panel spiderwebbed with cracks courtesy of Donda and his bat.

I cracked open a can of Boss Coffee and lit a Mild Seven.

Almost nine. Twelve hours since the vanishing.

Twelve hours.

Drag. Exhaled.

From inside, through the walls of 1-A, I could hear laughter. The kind of laughter that didn't stop, that built on itself and spiraled. Chisaton's voice, unmistakable, bright and slightly too loud. Eri's sharp giggle. Sayaka and Moe chiming in. Then Rena's laugh cutting through it all. They sounded like a group of girls at a sleepover, not survivors of the end of the world.

One big gang now. Just like that.

I smiled despite myself.

Then footsteps. Soft. Careful.

Nanase appeared in the doorway, carrying a towel, a change of clothes, and a small pouch with what looked like soap and shampoo and toothbrush. She'd taken off her uniform and had changed into something more comfortable, a loose sweater and tracksuit bottoms.

"Hey. Smoking again."

"Nacchi? Hahah. Ye.. Yeah." I chuckled.

She sat down on the empty chair next to me.

We sat in silence for a bit. Not awkward. Just quiet. The kind of quiet that felt okay.

"My dad smokes," she said eventually. "So I'm actually used to the smell."

"Hahah, yeah. I know. You told me before. Are you settli.."

"Jouchi." She scooted her chair closer cutting my words off.

"Hmm?"

"I… Ngh… I want to apologize properly. About… the breakup. I…"

"Hmm? Hahaha. Nacchi, I already forgot about that. What matters is you're here now. You… You're safe." I was nervous. I could hear it in my own cracked voice.

But the I took a deep breath.

Well, here it is. Now or never.

"I… I also want to apologize. For never really… what's the word… being honest with you? About who I am. I'm different when I'm with you. Like you said." I kept going. Because if I stopped now I'd probably never say it again. "I... was scared. Scared that if you knew the real me, you'd feel… I don't know, ill or something. And it'd push you away. So I always tried to maintain this image. This cleaner, the safer version of... Because I…"

"Jouchi."

"I didn't want things to get too awkward between us. Didn't want us to be stuck in that weird space where we couldn't even talk unless it was about One Piece or Laruku or Keira, An.."

"Jouchi!"

"Hee?"

She laughed. Just a little. But it was real.

"Yeah. I understand. I was probably too… too passive too. Too... scared." Her voice went soft, embarrassed.

"Mm-hmm. Yeah. I know you were scared. That's why I'm not going to be like that with you anymore. I enjoy being myself, Nacchi. Do I care if you might not like me? Of course I do. But today I learned that being myself in front of you… I like it. And I like how I made you smile. How I made you laugh. Ugh, that's so cheesy. Hahah."

She laughed again. Then she took a deep breath.

"I've liked you, Jouchi. From the first time we met. Because you were always funny. Always fun to be around. You always looked like the person who'd be the most uninterested in the room, but when you actually liked something, you got so excited about it. And you were funny with Kei-chan and An-chan, and with Dodo-san and the other Manken kids," she said then lower her volume a little bit, "But when we started dating, all of that just… disappeared. And I kept telling myself, maybe you just want to keep up a good image in front of me, exactly what you said. But I was also… I was also… umm…"

"Also bad at saying what you mean? Embarrassed?"

She nodded, holding back a smile.

"And then," she continued, "you started talking about stuff in you texts and I.."

"Ah, yeah. I... I know. It.. Umm.. It must have made you very uncomfortable.. I.. I'm sorry. I… like… I wanted to.."

She nodded again then continued. "I.. It was not that I was uncomfortable.. I was.. more.. like.. I.. I didn't know if you were…"

"I were…"

"Th… The right person to…" She trailed off.

"Oh…" I only muttered cutting her off.

I filed that right away. I couldn't believe she said that.

But I did immediately understand where she came from.

We were two people who couldn't hold hands without one of us pulling away like we'd touched a hot stove. She'd never seen me relax, not really, and I'd never seen her stop calculating long enough to just exist next to me. So of course she wondered if I was the right person to take that next step with.

Stupid me.

How could she not? The relationship had been stuck in the awkward limbo where holding hands still felt like a conspiracy, and suddenly I was sending texts that basically gave her the mental image of me seeing her in nothing but a towel.

Yes, I did send one like that.

And I immediately texted her it was Dodo who sent that.

"So you… didn't know if I was the right… umm…" I muttered.

"I didn't. Yeah…" She nodded.

Strangely, I didn't feel awkward at all talking to her about all this.

"Umm… Wha.. What about now?"

Hold it, Tiger!

She snorted then looked at me with that expression again.

"Now… Umm…" She trailed off too.

And I waited. Waited for her to say the next words.

My mind went is this it? is this it? is this it?

But then.

"Jouchi." She suddenly touched my arm. "This turned… blue…"

"Hahah. Yeah. You pinched me, remember?"

She burst out laughing.

"Does it hurt? Sorry. I was just…"

"Of course it hurts." I grinned. "But… This is real, Nacchi. I'll wear it like a badge of honor."

Her face went red and she only smiled and nodded. Honestly it was kind of hard to tell in this light. But I knew it was there.

"I like it," she said, straightening her back a little. "I like this 'Jouji'."

"Haa? The different 'Jouji'?" I snorted.

"Yeah. The good different."

"It… It's who I actually am, Nacchi. I'm sorry I couldn't be like this with you before. Apparently it took… whatever this is… for me to stop being awkward and actually just being... And in the end you're just… And, of course… I also wanted to say tha.."

She hit my arm. Lightly. "Jouchi! Stop rambling!" She laughed.

"Hahah. Hey. I'm adjusting. Talking to you has always been hard. And it's never been this easy either. You get it."

"I get it. I… feel the same." She folded her lips. A smile underneath. I loved her so much when she did that.

"So. Anything I should know more about this real 'Jouji'?"

I was caught off-guard she actually asked that.

A drag. Exhaled.

"I… Umm… Yeah so I want to be honest with you from now on. And I'm still afraid if you end up hating me. But I hope you'll understand and still like me anyway... And I still also think that being with you while I can.."

"Jouchi!" She laughed and smacked my arm again.

"What?!" I grinned back.

"You're just… Yeah. So… what?" She didn't even know what to say.

I took a deep deliberate breath.

"I don't like Dragon Ball. But I don't hate it. I also don't like Naruto, Bleach, and most other shounen. One Piece is the only exception. I don't like L'ArcenCiel, especially hyde, because he got way too much attention from you. I don't like J-Rock and J-Pop in general. Maybe a few songs. I like Remio for example. I like western music, you knew that, but you didn't know I'm a total hopeless otaku for it. I could name any Beatles song by just listening to the first two or three seconds of it. I hate Kamen Rider now. I stopped liking it when they started casting ikemen for the main roles. It ended at Hibiki for me. So I've got into American superhero comics since high school started. My favorite is X-Men. I watch porn. Not a little, not too much. Just a healthy amount. All my Ichi-chu friends, they're not good or normal kids like I always told you. Kenta, Ryo, Takeshi, Aoi, Sora, Junpei, they're all degenerates and they always talk about Nami and Robin's bikini in between arcs and cover arts, when they're not talking about their dating experiences, which always made my ears bleed. And also I secretly really like Bulba…"

"Hahahahahahah!"

God! She laughs so hard that it stopped me.

She was genuinely cackling now.

"What?! You asked…" I shrugged and laughed with her.

"I… I… Jouchi… I never knew any of that."

"Yeah. I don't lie, Nacchi. I just don't tell you everything. Like I said, I was afraid that…"

"Umm. Yeah. You traitor."

"See? That's my point!" I grinned real wide.

"But I'll take this 'Jouji' any day."

I looked at her eyes. That expression again.

"Jouchi, I actually was really concerned about us." Her voice went quieter.

"You. I knew you were smart. Your grades were always above average. At least that's what I knew early on, around the middle months of us dating. And then suddenly you went to Bunkei. I felt sad. I thought maybe I was the cause…"

"Wha.. Nacchi!" I stopped her right there and realized how stupid I indeed was all this time.

Oh my God.

Oh my fucking God.

"Hee?"

"Nacchi. I... I was eligible for Rikei. But I.. I want to be the future Prime Minister." I couldn't help grinning. "So I chose Bunkei. I said to my mom that if I were to save Japan from sinking, I'd do it from the comfort of my desk. I won't drown myself in calculus and white coat and mud!"

Her eyes went wide. "Tha.. That's ridiculous!"

She hit my arm again, trying very hard not to laugh.

"Ridiculous? No. It's valid. And I wouldn't have to see Fujisawa again." I said. "Nah, yeah, that's actually the reason..." I continued resting my back again on the chair.

She laughed even harder.

"So.. I was worried for nothing?" She asked. Still grinning.

"Nah.. You were worried for you care." I grinned back.

"Jouchi. You're impossible." She giggled and shook her head, not in disappointment.

"I am. That's why I didn't… you know… I didn't want you to know the real me. Maybe. I don't know. Would that be bad?"

"Maybe," she said. She snorted and nodded.

"You never told me any of that."

"Yeah. I never did."

A silence for a bit.

"But you must have told Rena-chan everything then." Her voice wasn't flat. Just quiet.

"Yeah… What?!" I turned.

What?

She smiled. Looked down for a second.

"I know, Jouchi."

"You know… Umm.. About.."

"Yeah. Was that started since around two months ago too."

Okay, she knows.

I nodded. "Mo.. More or less."

"I… I didn't care about that." Her voice was soft, no judgement in it. "If anything, Jouchi, I felt relieved," She stopped for a bit. Took a long breath.

"At some point, I felt like I couldn't be the girlfriend you wanted. I was too scared. You became too stiff. And we became too awkward. You can be yourself with her. And I can't blame Rena-chan either, Jouchi. I just met her. And I don't think she's a bad person. Even after Yu.."

"Yumi?"

"Ah. No. I mean… yeah, Yumi-chan knows her. But it's unrelated." Nanase clamped her mouth shut and smiled. She'd almost let something slip.

"How did you know? If you don't mind me.."

"Eri-chan."

"Eri?"

She nodded. "Eri-chan. Yamaguchi Eri. Your classmate in 1-B, Jouchi. She is a Ni-chu kid too, 3-A, same with me, Kei-chan, An-chan, and Umi-chan. She knows we are dating. The last time the Ni-chu alumni hung out at An-chan's house, she mentioned that you were really close with Rena-chan. And I was… yeah…"

Yamaguchi Eri from GTA. Supposed to be in 2-A now.

"So you didn't really care and actually felt relieved?"

She nodded again.

"I'm sorry, Nacchi. I…"

"No. No. It's okay. I wasn't completely right either, because I just went along with it and didn't say anything, Jouchi. And I knew you still wanted our relationship to work. I was too scared to end it too. I didn't want you to be…"

"Sad?"

"Yeah."

A few seconds pause.

"And then last night you still broke up with me anyway." My voice sounded a bit flat and mocking unintentionally.

I lit another cigarette.

Then she continued.

"Mitsu-nee. She just got accepted to Todai."

"Ah, yeah. You texted me about that around two… three weeks ago."

"Jouchi, I… I never told you this, Mitsu-nee is a good big sister, yes, but she's also always been the benchmark for everything in my life. Academics. Home. Appeals. Everything. Otousan, Okaachan, they're so proud of her. Honestly, sometimes at home I feel like I can't breathe," she let out a wry laugh, "The pressure from the three of them, demanding this, demanding that. If it weren't for Kirara and Chiyo still being cute and little, I think I would've gone crazy."

I stared at her. This was the most she'd ever told me about her family. Seven months of dating and I'd never heard any of this. She'd always just said 'my sister's smart, my mother's thesis got accepted for some big journal, my father chairs his department at Chuo,' and left it at that.

"And… umm… when I found out you went to Bunkei, right around the same time Mitsu-nee got into Todai, and her boyfriend got into Kyodai… Umm.. I jumped to the conclusion that you didn't make Rikei because your grades dropped, and… maybe… because of me. Those last two or three weeks, I was really…"

Oh my God.

"Nacchi. I… I'm sorry. I should've told you. And yeah, you weren't wrong to finally break up with me then." I could understand it now. All of it.

"No, Jouji. I was. I was wrong." She shook her head. "I never made any effort to understand you better. Or to open myself up either. Because I was hiding behind the comfort of how we were dating, which was clearly nothing like how other couples are. Anri-chan with Koujirou-kun. Yumi-chan with Ryohei-kun. I…"

I'm so fucking stupid.

"Nacchi."

I really couldn't say anything to that.

"Yeah. I was wrong. Because this morning, when I sent you that last text, I felt relieved. But then I was sad. I still didn't want to hurt you. It was just me. And… and…"

She started sniffling. Hard. The bad kind.

"And when it happened. When people vanished. The first thing I saw when I checked my phone was your text. I…" Her voice cracked.

"And… I… I could only text you back. I… Then you texted me right away. You called me. You told me to wait for you. You really came and got me. And after that, you reminded me that I broke up with you. And despite that, I got to see you. I got to see the real you, with everyone here who's smiling, despite the… whatever this is. And it's because of you, Jouchi."

I had no words.

"And it became clear to me just then. The moment you told me that I had to be strong, that I had to take care of everyone here too. You saw me as a person. Not as someone who needed help. Not as someone who was crying this morning. Not as someone who texted you saying she was scared. Then you banter with Asou… Fumi-senpai. You banter with everyone. You literally made everyone here laugh, cry, good crying, because they have hope. I mean, you… give them hope."

She paused for two, three seconds.

"Including me."

She paused again, collected herself.

"And I was so fixated on the idea that I might be the reason you went to Bunkei. And also that I needed someone smart, academically brilliant, because I was insecure from the pressure of my family situation. At Asakaze, all the boys are smart, Jouchi. But what did we get? Ebara. Ninomiya. And I knew plenty of boys like them there. Like Mitsu-nee's boyfriend too."

"I… I…" She was suffocating.

"Na.. Nacchi… Please… Just…"

She mustered up a deep breath, stopping me there.

"And then I realized, Jouchi, breaking up with you was the stupidest thing I ever did."

"Na.."

She wiped her eyes and let out a small, embarrassed laugh.

And there I was. Feeling like the biggest idiot in what remained of Tokyo's western suburbs.

I'd spent seven months dating this girl and somehow convinced myself she wasn't capable of this. Of feeling things this deeply. Of articulating them. She was the one who froze up when I held her hand back in January. The one who took three hours to reply to a text asking if I wanted to meet up.

But here she was, laying out her entire family situation, her insecurities, her regrets, with more emotional coherence than I'd managed in nineteen years of being Shigeru Jouji. The girl who broke up with me because she was terrified of being a burden, had been carrying the heaviest burden in the room the whole time.

I felt stupid. Genuinely, profoundly stupid. And disappointed. Not in her. In me.

"Nacchi. I'm sorry. I…"

"No. No. I…"

She was so messed up. I never saw her like that.

I drag my cigarette deep. A deep one. Exhaled.

"Nah.." I straightened my back and smiled at her. "We'll just apologize together. How about that?"

She nodded, giggling through the last of her sniffles.

"Mm-hmm," she said. "I… I'd like that."

"Yeah." I nodded back.

"I… I don't know, Jouchi. Like you said, we don't know how long this will last. If even help is coming. If we can go back to our world. I'm scared. I don't want to think about it. And being here, with everyone from Kamishiro High…"

She glanced back toward the classroom, where the girls' laughter was still spilling through the windows like nothing had happened, like the world outside wasn't a ghost town.

"It feels unreal already. I'm just grateful that I'm here now."

I nodded because I didn't know what else to say. So I said the only thing that felt honest.

"I… I want to move forward with you, Nacchi. But this time, just be me. The one that's anything you thought I wasn't. And most of that was my fault too. For not being honest when I'm around you."

"Me too." She took a breath. "I don't wanna be afraid anymore. And I take that back. Properly. My breakup text." She smiled at me.

"Mm-hmm." I nodded, then let a grin creep under my folded lips, the exact expression she always did. "But you can't unsend it."

"You can delete it." She was grinning back now. Her voice had mostly returned.

"I won't. I've saved it. Marked it as favorite."

"What for? It's embarrassing!"

"For our children to see."

Smack.

I laughed. She laughed. Her face was probably red. Still hard to tell in this light, but I'd bet my last Mild Seven on it.

And then my hand moved. Not consciously. Not planned. It just lifted off my lap and found hers. My fingers slipped between hers.

"Ah. It moved by itself."

"Liar," She said.

But then she gripped back. Her fingers wrapped around my palm the way they had back in 1-B, that three-second taste test. Except this time she didn't let go.

One second. Two. Three. Four. Five.

I stopped counting. My brain was playing a highlight reel of every single hand-holding attempt I'd ever made with this girl. The movie theater where she'd kept both hands firmly in her lap, gripping her own mittens like a lifeline. The one time I'd tried to interlock fingers on the train and she'd suddenly become fascinated by the advertisement above the door. And the last one, the longest three minutes of my life in Inokashira Park.

This was the anti-version of all those memories. This was my hand in hers and hers in mine and neither of us was going anywhere.

If happiness had a physical form, it would be a nineteen-year-old girl's fingers wrapped around yours on a cold April night at the end of the world. If my life were a shounen manga, this would be the two-page spread. The color page. The one readers would tear out and tape to their walls.

I was losing it. Completely losing it.

Someone check my pulse.

"We're so left behind," she said, giggling.

"I don't care." I paused. "No, I actually cared. But at this point, I'll take any progress. We'll catch up soon."

She nodded, giggled, embarrassed. I fell for her again. Harder. Like the first seven months had been a trial version and this was the full release.

And then her head dropped to my shoulder.

My brain produced the Windows shutdown jingle and rebooted into a blank blue screen. I was a desktop computer from 1998 trying to run software from 2008. The CPU was overheating. Somewhere in the back of my skull, a tiny error message popped up: System resources critically low. Close some programs and try again.

I wasn't closing anything. Let the whole system crash.

"This is nice," I managed, my voice about two octaves higher than normal.

"It is." She giggled.

I couldn't see her face from this angle. Maybe that was for the best. If I saw her expression right now, I might actually ascend to a higher plane of existence, and we still had thirty-three other kobore-mono to feed.

"Jouchi." Her voice was quieter now. "Did something ever happen between you and Rena-chan? I mean…"

"No. Not really. Just…"

"Just like this?"

"Not really. We were close. Like, we'd sit next to each other, arm around the shoulder, she'd latch into my arm sometimes. And we texted a lot. Mostly me venting about you, her venting about Takeo. Her ex. Already graduated."

"You held hands?"

"Like this? No. Never this."

"So I win?"

I snorted. "What are you saying?"

She just laughed.

"Yeah. You win."

"And for some reason," she continued, "you also told Rena-chan about my hair. And…"

"Big…"

"Hentai." But she giggled.

"I always talk with facts, Nacchi."

"And you stared too much at Fumiko-chan's."

"That was your fault."

"How?"

"If you wore something like Fumiko, I'd stare at you too. Both, actually."

"Jouchi!" Another smack. But she was laughing now, real one, pulling my hand against her stomach as she doubled over.

And then we just sat there. Her leaning on my shoulder. Hands still locked together.

"Nacchi…" I turned my head slightly.

She shifted, resting her chin on my shoulder, and suddenly our faces were centimeters apart. I could only see her eyes. Not the whole face, because the human eye has a tragically limited field of view and you can't adjust the range ring like on my dad's secondhand Canon SLR. Human eyes are garbage hardware. Absolute bottom-tier specs.

The main entrance door swung open.

We both jumped.

"Nanase-chan! Shower time!" Rena appeared in the doorway, Yumi and Riko-senpai right behind her, along with Umi, Marina-senpai, and a few others from the kitchen crew.

"Ah! I… Yes… Rena-chan…" Nanase was flustered, but our hands stayed locked.

"Cozy out here in the cold, huh?" Rena's grin was pure poison. The good kind.

I couldn't fire back. For once, Rena had me completely disarmed. We had just been talking about her, and now here she was, smirking like she'd heard every word through the wall.

The others were already heading toward the gymnasium. Yumi flashed Nanase a wide grin. Riko-senpai grabbed both Yumi and Rena by the arms. "Come on, don't interrupt them! Nanase-chan, catch up, okay?"

"Jouji should come too! Just wait by the door. Imagine us all in there!" Rena yelled back, which sent Riko-senpai and Yumi into hysterics. And Yumi was actually cackling because of Rena now.

Nanase snorted and smacked me again.

"Why me? Rena-chan said it."

"You're imagining about it."

"Of course I'm imagining about it." I grinned.

"The yesterday Jouji would've said, 'Oh no, I'd never…'" She said, mocking me. For the first time in seven months we were together.

"You… Rena-chan… Yumi… Riko-senpai... Marina-senpai… the others… all showering together… Ow!"

"Jouchi!" She smacked me again, laughing. "You're really a hentai!"

"You like it." I grinned.

"I didn't say that."

"You still like it."

Her smile didn't falter. Not even a fraction.

She was so precious.

Another figure stepped through the door.

Who else?

The Glass Doll of Kamishiro. Already in a blue and white baseball jacket, black tank-top inside, and shorts, towel and bath supplies in hand. She planted herself directly in front of us.

Her eyes swept over me and Nanase. Sharp. But not hostile.

"Fumi-tan. What?" I said, still giggling.

"You gonna say it?"

"Say what?"

"The clock. The one we can't see the numbers on."

I slumped back into the chair. The electricity. The water. All of it came rushing back like a cold draft through an open window.

"Fuck. Yeah."

Nanase straightened beside me. She'd remembered too.

"Asou-sen…" she started.

"Fumi."

"Fu… Fumi-sen…"

"Fumi."

"Fumi-neechan…"

Fumi-tan burst out laughing, loud and unguarded. I was laughing too.

Couldn't help it.

"What?!" Nanase looked between us.

"You really are perfect for Jouji." Fumi-tan shook her head.

"Huh? What do you mean?" Clueless. Completely clueless.

"Never mind. What were you gonna say?" Fumi-tan dragged an empty chair over and sat facing us, grabbing a Mild Seven from my pack on the floor.

"I think… you should bring up the electricity thing tomorrow, Jouchi. Not tonight." Nanase's voice was quiet but certain. "I'm worried that the mood right now is so good, and if you bring it up…"

"If the lights go out while we're sleeping…" I talked back.

"Jouji. Listen to your girlfriend. Not because she's Asakaze smart," Fumi-tan exhaled smoke, "because she's right."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. I agree with her. The moment Nanase heads to the gym bathroom, your brain is going to spiral straight into how to make everyone's night a horror movie." She pointed her cigarette at me. "I don't want that. Not tonight. Not when everyone is laughing, realizing this isn't so bad. Save it for tomorrow."

"Fumi-neechan's right, Jouchi."

I nodded slowly.

"And you." Fumi-tan continued. "You don't have to be right at all times. Rushing everything you think is important. Think about the others. Think about yourself." She gestured toward the 1-A windows, laughter still spilling out. "This is what we all need right now. If the lights go out tonight, so be it. If it gets cold, we sleep huddled together. Nanase will hold you. I'll hold you. We can sandwich you."

Nanase choked on a laugh.

"Fumi-tan!" I was laughing too. But I also felt lighter. Relieved.

"Okay. You guys are right."

"Right. Now that's sorted." Fumi-tan leaned forward. "Nanase. I've been meaning to ask. Can I fuck him?"

"Fumi-neechan!" Nanase nearly aspirated her own saliva.

I cackled along. She actually did it. She actually asked Nanase for permission. This woman's brain was wired completely differently from every other human on the planet.

"No! Of course not!" Nanase was shaking her head, laughing too hard to breathe.

"Huh. Well. I tried." Fumi-tan shrugged.

"Can I still fuck him if you don't know about it?"

Nanase just shook her head, laughing, mouthing "no" without any sound coming out.

"Fine. Tonight you're sleeping next to me. You're holding me. Otherwise I'm creeping into Jouji's separate futon."

"Fu…" Nanase folded in half, clutching her stomach.

Fumi-tan crushed her cigarette under her heel, stood up, and hooked her arm through Nanase's, pulling her to her feet. "Come on. Shower. We've got things to compare."

"Fumi-neechan!" Nanase was still laughing as she got dragged toward the gymnasium.

I let my brain do what teenage brains do when they're presented with certain images. Nanase. Fumi-tan. Rena. Yumi. Riko-senpai. Umi. Marina-senpai, and the others. All in one gym shower. Steam. Soap. The various cup sizes that started all the staring in the first place. My mental catalog was running at full capacity.

I was going to hell. A very specific, very warm hell.

"Wanna come, Jouji? You haven't showered either, right?" Fumi-tan called back with a grin.

"I'm good." My face was probably visible from the International Space Station. "I'm not good, actually."

I lit another cigarette and chugged the rest of my Boss Coffee.

They'd gone about five or six steps when Nanase stopped. "Wait, Fumi-nee," She said to Fumi-tan, then walked back and sat beside me.

"Oi, F-Cup! Come on!" Fumi-tan yelled.

We both cracked up for a bit.

Nanase leaned in close that it made me shudder. Her lips near my ear.

"We… We can't do the x's anymore so…"

Chuu.

Wetness on my right cheek.

I could only see her eyes. That was how close we were.

"I.. I'm a small G by the way. Bye, Jouchi…"

This time my brain was a Fujitsu FMV running on Windows 98 on a Pentium II with 32 megs of RAM, with a hard drive that hadn't been defragmented since the Obuchi cabinet.

The hourglass icon spun. And spun. The whole system was frozen, a single process consuming one hundred percent of available resources: Nanase.exe has performed an illegal operation <teasing>.

By the time the hourglass disappeared, Nanase and Fumi-tan were already ten or fifteen meters away, Fumi-tan's arm still linked through hers, their silhouettes shrinking toward the gymnasium.

Nothing else mattered.

I touched my cheek and stared at the empty street like it held the secrets of the universe, as I was just exposed to one of the most important for sure.