Yanase stared blankly at the asphalt outside, her gaze fixed and heavy. It was nearly eight o'clock. She had already picked through most of her snacks, yet she was no closer to figuring out where she belonged.
Was there even a girl who befriended Shoyo-kun at this point in the story? she asked herself, desperately scouring her memory for any detail of the anime. The only girl I remember is Yachi-chan, and she doesn't show up until later. She let out a heavy, defeated sigh and slumped over, resting her head on the cold counter. Her eyes drifted aimlessly across the colorful rows of instant ramen.
Suddenly, a sharp vibration from her bag jolted her upright. She scrambled through her things until her fingers closed around a flip phone adorned with cute stickers. It was jarringly familiar, decorated almost exactly like her old smartphone, but in an outdated, tactile form. Flashing on the screen was a single contact name: Onii-chan.
With trembling hands, she pressed the button and lifted it to her ear. "H-hello?"
A loud thud echoed from the other end, followed by the sound of someone scrambling. "Yana-chan? Where are you?" The voice was raspy, thick with a worry that felt far too real to be fictional.
Yanase bit her lower lip, her fingers nervously bunching the fabric of her skirt. "Um... I wasn't feeling well," she murmured, her mind racing to find a believable lie. "I'm just... resting for a bit at a convenience store."
A long, heavy sigh echoed through the speaker. "You should have texted me, Yana. I could have picked you up."
Yanase's fingers tangled in the fabric of her skirt again. "Sorry..." she breathed, her voice dropping into a barely audible whisper.
"I'm coming to get you," the voice on the other end said, followed by another tired sigh. "Which convenience store are you at?"
She quickly read out the street signs she could see through the window. The call ended abruptly with a calm, clipped, "Okay."
Yanase slowly lowered her hand, staring blankly at the flip phone in her palm. When did I ever own a flip phone? Her chest tightened, her thoughts spinning into an absolute frenzy. The realization hit her like a bucket of ice water: she had been so utterly consumed by her own fangirling; so mesmerized by seeing Hinata and Kageyama in person, that she had completely ignored the glaring, terrifying truth. Something was fundamentally, dangerously wrong with her reality.
A few minutes later, the glare of a bicycle headlight sliced through the darkness outside. A young man skidded to a halt right in front of the store windows. He scanned the interior, his eyes locking onto Yanase through the glass before he gave a firm, demanding wave of his hand.
Yanase hesitated, her heart hammering. Reluctantly, she forced herself off the stool, muttered a quick thank you to the cashier, and stepped out. The cheerful, comforting ambience of the convenience store's background music faded behind the heavy glass door, leaving her stranded in the cool night air.
She stared at the guy waiting for her. He looked older, clean-cut, and carried himself with the poised confidence of a captain from a prestigious academy. There was an uncanny familiarity to his features, like a face she had seen dozens of times a day, plastered across pages or screens, and yet, he felt entirely distant.
Fear coiled in her gut. She froze a few paces away, completely paralyzed by the paradox: she didn't know this man, and yet she did.
Noticing her hesitation, the guy frowned. He kicked down the bicycle stand and marched directly toward her. When his hand abruptly flew up toward her face, Yanase instinctively flinched, shutting her eyes tightly. She cowered like an abused puppy bracing for a blow from a giant fist.
But the strike never came. Instead, all she felt was the gentle, shockingly cool press of his palm against her forehead.
"You don't seem to have a fever," he noted. His voice was a soothing contradiction, raspy yet soft, like the rhythmic weight of waves crashing against a shoreline.
Yanase could only shake her head in a stiff, silent nod. A shadow of confusion crossed his features, but he didn't press her. Instead, he reached out, effortlessly sliding her bag off her shoulder to hang it on his own. "Let's go," he said, his tone striking a delicate balance between a firm command and a sweet invitation.
Yanase blinked, her resistance fading into a quiet compliance. She followed him and carefully settled onto the back of his bicycle. With the metallic clank of the kickstand, they glided off into the night. The streets were hushed; not with an eerie silence, but with a peaceful, slumbering stillness that seemed to wrap around them.
"The next time you're feeling sickly, just text me or Hina," he said with a short, exasperated huff. "We'll come pick you up." The sheer assurance in his voice acted like a hearth, radiating a warmth that pushed back the bite of the evening air.
Hina? Why does that sound so familiar?
They soon arrived at a modestly large, two-story house, its warm windows cutting sharp rectangles of light into the dense blackness of the night. Yanase slid off the back of the bike, her feet hitting the pavement as she stared up at the unfamiliar structure.
"What are you standing out there for?" the guy asked, already pushing the front door open. With a quiet sigh, Yanase followed him inside.
The moment she crossed the threshold, a chill ran down her spine. The house was eerily familiar. The exact placement of the furniture, the paint on the walls, even the faint scent in the air, it hit her with a wave of Deja vu so violent it nearly stole her breath. It felt as though she had walked into this exact living room every single day of her life, yet she had no memory of it.
"Yana-chan?"
A soft voice called out from the kitchen. A woman, likely in her late thirties, stepped into the hall with an apron still tied around her waist. Relief washed over her features as she hurried over, gently cupping Yanase's face in her hands. "Where on earth did you go at such a late hour?" her voice was thick with worry.
Yanase's expression shifted between utter confusion and deep guilt. "Sorry..." she mumbled, just loud enough for the woman to hear.
With a soft sigh, the woman pulled her into a brief, warm hug. "Go take a bath and come down for dinner, okay?"
Yanase nodded silently. As she turned toward the stairs, a strange sensation took over, her body began moving entirely on its own. She didn't have to think about where to turn or which door to open; her muscles simply navigated the layout of the house by instinct. Her feet led her straight to her bedroom, where her hands automatically grabbed a towel before guiding her directly to the bathroom.
After a long soak that did very little to untangle her knot of chaotic thoughts, Yanase stepped out of the bath. She changed into a pair of cozy pajamas she found waiting in 'her' room and slowly traced her steps back down to the dining room.
Gathered around the table were the people she now presumed to be her family. There was the woman who claimed to be her mother, the guy who had picked her up on the bicycle, undoubtedly her older brother, and a second guy who looked completely identical to him. Twins. The new brother looked at her and sneered playfully.
"Out on a date or something?" he teased, a mischievous glint in his eyes.
"Hina, stop that," their mother scolded gently as she took her seat at the head of the table. She turned to Yanase, her expression instantly softening into a calming smile. "Come on, Yana-chan, sit down before it gets cold."
Yanase managed a small, tentative smile and took her place among them. Together, the family chorused a synchronous "Itadakimasu," and their late dinner began.
As they ate, Yanase quietly observed the three of them across the rim of her bowl. It was a bizarre sensation; despite the fog in her mind, sitting here felt deeply, undeniably comforting, as if she had been part of this exact routine for her entire life.
The moment dinner drew to a close, Yanase politely excused herself and retreated upstairs. She closed her bedroom door behind her, shutting out the world, and threw herself face-down onto the mattress. Exhaustion pressed heavily into her bones.
Letting out a long sigh, she rolled her head to the side, her gaze drifting toward the corner of the room. A desk stood there in the shadows, cluttered with textbooks, loose papers, and the typical knick-knicks a high schooler might collect. It all looked so ordinary.
Slowly, the weight of the day caught up to her. Her eyelids grew impossibly heavy, and she let herself slip down into a deep, dreamless sleep.
~
Yana-chan...
A voice echoed somewhere from the deepest pits of the darkness.
Yanase-san...
Another voice. Different. Grounded.
Onee-chan...
Then came two more; small, high-pitched, and laced with a familiar innocence.
Yana...
That last voice... it was calm and soothing, wrapping around her like the warm embrace of a mother's comfort.
Then came the dam break. A blinding flood of memories fractured the darkness, exploding into her mind with terrifying velocity. Countless moments from her past collided violently with her present. Her mother. Her twin younger sisters. Her best friend. Her school. Everything. Her actual hometown, the house where she had grown up, the specific barking of the neighborhood dogs.
And then... the headlights. That final, blinding glare of white was the last thing she had seen before waking up in the school infirmary. As the two lifetimes crashed into one another, the truth solidified with a sickening thud: this was not her world.
A violent gasp ripped from Yanase's throat as she jolted upright in bed. Her face was drenched in a suffocating mix of sweat and hot tears. Her lungs burned as she panted, her breathing dangerously fast. She looked frantically around the room. It was the exact same space she had gone to sleep in; the same desk by the window, the same textbooks mocking her from the shadows.
"It's not... a dream," she choked out, a ragged cough rattling her chest.
Fresh tears welled up, spilling over her cheeks as her chest heaved. Her cries were completely silent, swallowed up by the heavy, suffocating darkness of three o'clock in the morning. Everything was coming back too fast, making her heart ache with a physical, agonizing pain. She remembered her mother's smile. Her father. The gleeful, mischievous cheers of her little siblings. Chiho's mother-like scolding.
She stared down at her palms, her skin wet and glistening with her own tears. "So... I'm dead?"
She forced the words out into the empty room, a desperate, pathetic attempt to reject the truth. But the silence offered no comfort. It was already too late.