[Flashback – 3 years earlier]
The school bell rang through the hallways, muffled beneath the constant hum of noise.
Rushed footsteps, laughter, animated conversations — like everyone was in a hurry to live, to talk, to move.
Haruto, however, walked in silence, eyes fixed straight ahead. He was sixteen, but in his head, he felt a hundred.
Not from maturity… but from emptiness.
— "Did you see the news this morning? The Ikebukuro Agency says reality might, like… implode in three years!"
— "You still believe that crap? 'Era of Chaos'? Please. Fake news."
— "No, seriously. Apparently it's based on some insanely strong concesptual emissions. I believe it."
— "Meh, sounds like another excuse to scare everyone."
Haruto only half-listened. These kinds of rumors made the rounds every month under a different name:
"The Great Fracture," "The Awakening Lines," "Quantum Collapse"...
But it always boiled down to the same thing — a prophecy of total collapse.
Turning a corner in the hallway, he stopped.
In front of him, two older boys were shoving a student to the ground. Papers scattered. The kid's voice trembled.
Haruto watched. For a long moment.
His hands tensed slightly. His legs took one step forward… then stopped.
He looked around.
No one did anything.
No one really looked.
So he turned away.
> "Don't try to change the world, Haruto. Because with or without you… nothing will change."
His mother's voice, etched into his memory, whispered those words like a grim lullaby.
He resumed walking. Straighter. Slower.
•••
[Back to the present – sushi bar]
CLICK.
A sharp sound — like something shifting — cast silence over the alleyway.
The bar was still there… but frozen.
The light seemed duller, the colors washed out to a metal gray, the sounds distant.
Like some lucid dream.
And the man.
Still standing. Cloaked in shadow. Unmoving.
One step.
The ground trembled.
Two steps.
Haruto instinctively stepped back.
It felt like reality itself was sinking.
The alley distorted in places — subtle bends, quiet shifts.
Three steps.
The man stopped just a few meters away. Hood pulled down over his face, hands in his pockets.
Old torn gray jeans. An ageless dark green hoodie.
A faint white glow, almost invisible, pulsed softly around him.
> "Haruto..."
The voice was cold. Not threatening. Not inhuman. Just… frozen.
Haruto tensed.
> "Wh… who are you?"
No response.
The man tilted his head slightly.
> "You still cling to your 'balance', don't you? Even now. Even here."
"What are you talking about?!"
Reality pulsed.
Buildings seemed to draw closer.
The ground rippled faintly.
Everything was unstable — like Haruto was the only real person left.
> "You live in a comfortable cage, Haruto. But you're not the one holding the key."
Gritting his teeth, Haruto felt a strange tingle in his chest.
Something new.
Not fear.
Anger.
He looked up. And stopped backing away.
> "You don't know anything about me. So shut up.
You think you're above the world just because you make the ground shake?
You just seem like a parasite trying to act cool."
Silence.
The man didn't move.
Everything stilled. Almost too still.
The colors remained dull.
The textures, flat.
Ambient noise — faint until now — vanished completely.
Haruto let out a heavy breath, then turned to leave.
He walked past the man without even daring a glance.
A quiet sigh.
— "Where are you going?"
Haruto stopped.
He turned around.
The man was slowly pulling on the straps of his hood.
A cascade of silver strands fell across his cheeks.
No eyes visible. Just that white aura — denser now… more threatening.
CLICK.
The same old server, offering a plate of tuna. Searching where his last customer did go...
> "Haruto-kun? Where did you go?"
CLICK.
The hooded man.
Sitting at the counter. Hands clasped.
A strange symbol glowing above his head.
Haruto is able to recongnize this sign before the reality switch again.
> "Is that... the Shifting symbol?"
CLICK.
Inside the bar now.
Footprints on the floor.
A strange reflection in the mirror.
CLICK.
His mother's phrase — but broken, warped, like it was being screamed underwater:
> "Don't… cha...nge… the wor… Ha-"
CLICK.
The ground vanished.
Haruto is falling into a deep void...
CLICK.
And on the last switch.
He woke up on the pavement. His clothes torn from the constant shifts.
He was back in the dull, grayish reality…
The man was gone. Completely.
He got up. Looked around.
Everything seemed calm again. Comforting.
> "Finally… some peace and quiet… But how do I quit this gray world n-"
But then, Haruto felt it again — that powerful shockwave (even stronger this time).
A wave that froze the blood in his veins.
A silhouette.
Another one — but very different from the hooded man.
There, in the distance. Floating.
A bright, incandescent orange flare.
Crackled piece of hourglass, watches, clocks... Floating around him.
An entity impossible to define — yet unmistakably human.
A man with no age.
Eyes as cold as the void.
He watched Haruto with an amused, almost tender expression.
And then he spoke, his voice echoing like a cosmic vibration:
> "Tsk. Now this... is a surprise."
•••
[END OF CHAPTER 2]
> Haruto is slowly losing his normal rhythm of life —
A rhythm he always wanted, now teetering at the edge of an abyss.