I woke with my head throbbing painfully, the world slow to come back into focus.
Confusion clouded my thoughts as I struggled to understand what had happened. It was already
morning—bright and ordinary—and the events of the previous night felt like fragments of a
half-remembered dream, dissolving the moment I tried to examine them too closely.
I made my way back home, still trying to make sense of the inexplicable feeling that
something around me had shifted. The air itself felt different, charged with an energy I could
not identify.
As I entered the dining area, the aroma of freshly cooked food filled the room. My
father—who was almost never home before noon—was sitting at the table. He looked up, and
his eyes widened with visible relief. "Sakura, where have you been? We were worried sick
about you," he said, his voice filled with genuine concern.
I blinked, momentarily taken aback by his display of emotion. It was extraordinarily rare for
my father to express such open affection. "I... I'm sorry, Dad. I don't even know where I was," I
stammered, trying and failing to piece together the events of the previous night.
My mother—who usually appeared supremely disinterested in domestic matters—was
standing by the stove, stirring a pot of soup with quiet concentration. She turned to me, a small,
warm smile playing on her lips. "Come, sit down. Your favourite soup is almost ready. You
must be hungry," she said softly.
My younger brother came thundering down the stairs and joined us at the table, sliding into
his chair with barely contained energy. "Sister, you're back! I thought you'd vanished or
something. You missed an absolutely epic battle in my game last night," he exclaimed, his eyes
shining with excitement.
I took my seat slowly, feeling a confusing mixture of gratitude and unease at this
unexpected display of familial togetherness. "I don't know what happened," I admitted quietly,
"but I'm glad to be back. Everything feels... different."
My father reached across the table and patted my hand gently—something he had not done
in years. "Sometimes things change in mysterious ways, Sakura. But what matters is that we're all here together now," he said, his eyes holding a tenderness I had almost forgotten he was
capable of.
As we ate, conversation flowed freely, breaking the heavy silence that usually enveloped
our meals. We shared stories, laughed at silly things, and for a brief, glorious moment it felt like
a perfectly normal, happy family gathering. I marvelled privately at the strange twist of fate that
seemed to have drawn us all closer overnight.
In the midst of our conversation, my mother leaned in close and whispered, "Sakura,
tomorrow is your birthday, isn't it? I know we've been busy and distant lately—but I haven't
forgotten. I have a surprise planned for you." Her words filled me with a peculiar mixture of
anticipation and wariness. Birthdays had never been a grand affair in our family, and the
thought of a surprise made me deeply curious—and slightly nervous.
The rest of the meal passed in a warm blur of laughter and genuine connection. I could not
help but feel a tentative glimmer of hope that perhaps this newfound harmony might extend
beyond this one morning and become a lasting new normal.
It was strange, yet a wave of happiness washed over me regardless. I desperately hoped this
wasn't all just a dream.
[At School]
As I approached my classroom the next morning, an unusual silence enveloped the corridor.
I hesitated at the door, puzzled by the absence of the usual pre-class noise, then tentatively
pushed it open. The class was already seated—quietly, attentively—every student bent over
their books even without a teacher present to enforce the peace.
Thoroughly perplexed, I began making my way toward my usual seat at the back of the
room, fully intending to continue my well-established tradition of dozing off the moment the
teacher's back was turned.
"Sakura, why are you sitting there?" The teacher's voice rang out sharp and clear the
moment she entered, startling half the room.
"I apologise, ma'am, for falling asleep in your class," I blurted reflexively, already bowing.
"It won't happen again."
The entire class dissolved into laughter. I looked up in confusion. The teacher was smiling.
"I'm not angry with you, Sakura. I was simply asking why you're sitting at the back when your
assigned seat is at the first bench, second row."
I stared at her blankly. First bench. Second row. I, Sakura Chiba—the girl who had ranked
last at the previous mid-terms and whose primary skill in the classroom was sleeping without
getting caught—was assigned to sit in the front row.
Feeling thoroughly bewildered, I followed the teacher's instructions and relocated to my
designated seat, which felt uncomfortably exposed, impossibly bright, and entirely too close to
the whiteboard.
"Now that everything is settled," the teacher said pleasantly, "let's begin."
I spent the entire lesson gnawing on the inside of my cheek and trying to resist the urge to
pinch myself. Why did everything feel so impossibly surreal? The teacher's uncharacteristic
warmth, my inexplicable new seating arrangement—none of it made any sense. Could this still
be some elaborate dream I hadn't woken from yet?
Exhausted from the long and disorienting day—and from the unusual effort of actually
paying attention in class—I let out a heavy sigh as the final bell rang. "Finally," I muttered,
slumping back in my chair. "And I couldn't even catch a single nap sitting this close to the
front."
Yua appeared beside my desk, dropping into the empty seat next to mine with a dramatic
groan. "Tomorrow is this month's mid-term exam and I haven't studied a single thing. It must be
nice being ranked second in the class, huh, Sakura?"
I shot upright as if electrocuted. "What? Second place? Me? Are you absolutely sure you're
not joking right now, Yua?"
Yua blinked at me. "Why would I joke about something like that? I'm just stating a fact."
Confusion and disbelief crashed over me like a wave. What in the world was happening to
my life? It felt as though the very fabric of reality had been quietly, methodically rearranged
while I was unconscious on a mountainside. I pressed my fingers to my temples and stared at
the ceiling.
Someone, somewhere, was going to have to explain this to me. And soon.