The classroom door creaked shut behind them, but the silence clung like cobwebs, stretching from the rooftop into the stairwell.
Rika's grip on Renji hadn't loosened. Her fingers dug into his sleeve as though he were the only thread holding her above water. She hadn't spoken since the girl vanished. She didn't need to, Renji could feel her trembling through the thin fabric of her blouse.
They descended the stairwell slowly, every echo of their footsteps too sharp, too loud.
Renji's mind was a battlefield map, piecing together fragments. That wasn't a hallucination. Not stress. Not imagination. Something....someone had revealed itself to them. The way she'd looked at Rika, the way she'd claimed her without words, burned hotter in his skull than any firefight he'd ever survived.
Twice now!
Halfway down, Rika finally whispered.
"Renji… she wasn't just looking at me."
Her voice cracked, the words small but razor-sharp.
