*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*
The door to a small college apartment rattled like it was about to fly off its hinges.
"Kentaroooo! Wake up! You're gonna be late again!"
Her voice was playful, but underneath the singsong tone was a threat. One sharpened by experience.
Inside, Kentaro Takamiya groaned and rolled over, limbs tangled in his blanket like a human sushi roll. He slapped blindly at his alarm clock, squinting at the red numbers behind blurry vision.
A couple of aggressive eye rubs later, the nightmare became real.
"…It's 9:50?! HOLY CRAP, I'M GONNA BE LATE!"
He screamed like someone had just kicked the door down with a gun.
And then he moved.
He launched out of bed like it owed him money, crash-landed into his tiny bathroom, brushed his teeth in a furious blur, splashed water in his hair to part it down the middle, and gave his face a quick slap to wake him up fully.
He grabbed his backpack from the wall hook, slung it over his shoulder, and bolted out the door without a second thought.
It wasn't until he reached the front gate that Tenka's eyes went wide.
Not annoyed.
Not playful.
Just stunned.
And very, very red in the face.
"…Kentaro?" she whispered.
He raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? And jeez, why is it so cold? The sun's out."
It wasn't cold.
In fact, it was a perfect 17 degrees, a warm breeze drifting through their normally chilly city of Oshawa.
Then came the breeze.
That fateful gust of wind.
Kentaro looked at her. She was avoiding eye contact, staring anywhere but him.
Then he looked down.
And again.
And that's when his brain short-circuited.
A car rolled by. An old man in the passenger seat leaned out the window and took a picture like Kentaro was Bigfoot on a morning jog.
"…AHHHHHHHHHH WHAT?! HOW DID I FORGET?!"
He turned and sprinted back to the apartment, realizing the cruel truth:
In his blind panic to not be late for the first day of college…
He'd forgotten to put on clothes.
Aside from his boxers, Kentaro had run out in public wearing exactly nothing.
Tenka covered her mouth with both hands, cheeks still flushed as she tried to stifle a laugh. She didn't quite succeed.
Ten minutes later, Kentaro reappeared in a wrinkled white shirt and black jeans, trying to look like someone who hadn't just been publicly humiliated.
He trudged toward her, defeated.
"S-sorry you had to see that. But did you… I mean, you saw everything, right? That was real? I didn't dream that?"
Tenka nodded once, then giggled.
"You're lucky no one called the cops."
Kentaro sighed, scratching the back of his neck. "Okay, but did you see that old guy take a photo? I'm probably trending on a local Facebook group right now."
"You might be."
Tenka stepped beside him, brushing back a strand of her long black hair. She stood at barely 5'4", with sharp red-brown eyes that almost looked black in daylight. The kind of quiet beauty that made her one of the "Top Ten" girls in their year, though she'd never admit it herself.
To Kentaro, she was just Tenka. His childhood friend. The one who used to steal his pencils and fake cry when teachers got involved.
Still, even he had to admit, she was different now. Calmer. Colder, maybe. But still her.
"Honestly, Kentaro," she said, smirking. "I knew this was gonna happen."
His smile dropped. "You really think that low of me?"
She crouched slightly, met his gaze with a tilt of her head, and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
"Even if you're the most useless person on the planet, I'll still be with you."
The words hit harder than they should've.
He'd heard her say similar things before. But never like that.
There was something real behind it this time.
They stared at each other for a second longer than necessary, then Tenka straightened up and turned to the sidewalk.
"Let's go. We're late, but let's not miss the whole day."
She started walking.
Kentaro stood there a beat longer.
Why did that line stick with him so much?
He couldn't figure it out.
But he shook the thought and jogged to catch up.
As they walked side by side, the wind threading gently through the trees, the city unusually quiet for a weekday morning.
Kentaro didn't speak. He just kept looking ahead, distracted by what Tenka had said earlier.
"Even if you're the most useless, I'll still be with you."
She'd said that before, tons of times, but something in her voice had shifted. Less teasing. Softer, maybe. He didn't know how to place it, but it lingered. Not in his mind, exactly, but somewhere beneath it.
Then it happened.
A ripple in the air, barely visible, like the shimmer of heat off asphalt.
But the day was cool. And it wasn't heat.
Just for a second, the space ahead of them folded. Like light bending through cracked glass. It pulsed, collapsed inward, and vanished.
Gone. Just as fast as it came.
Kentaro stopped walking.
"...Did you see that?" he asked.
Tenka didn't break stride. "See what?"
"That shimmer. It was like the air... glitched or something."
She finally glanced at him, her face calm as ever.
"I didn't see anything."
Her tone was casual. So normal it almost sounded rehearsed.
Kentaro looked again, back at the empty patch of street, and rubbed his eyes like maybe it was just him.
"Probably nothing," he muttered.
But for the next few steps, neither of them spoke.
And though Tenka's gaze was steady, her hand lingered at her side.
Not on her bag. Not in her pocket.
Over the ring she always wore.
*
When they arrived at their college they noticed something was off straight away, the hallway was too quiet.
Kentaro and Tenka stood outside the lecture room, where the buzz of morning class should've spilled through the door. But there was no noise. No clatter of chairs, no muffled voice of Mr. Tachibana mid-lecture. Just silence.
Kentaro leaned toward the slim glass panel cut into the door, peering through.
Full house.
Every seat was filled.
But something wasn't right.
"That's… strange," Kentaro muttered.
Tenka tilted her head. "What is it? Why aren't we going in?"
Her voice was low, confused but calm.
Kentaro didn't answer right away. His mouth opened slightly, lips parting into a disbelieving half-whisper.
"Tenka, uh… this might sound weird but… everyone's in their seats, and the crazy thing isn't that they're here."
He squinted.
"It's that they're not moving."
He took a step back.
Tenka raised an eyebrow, skeptical. But she moved past him and leaned into the glass.
And froze.
Inside, the professor stood mid-sentence, chalk hovering inches from the board. The students sat upright at their desks. All of them. Every single one. Not blinking. Not twitching. Not breathing.
Like mannequins cast in place.
Tenka's face didn't change, but her eyes narrowed slightly.
"Turn around. We're not going in."
She whispered it flat. No panic. Just finality. The kind that made you listen without thinking.
"But,"
"Now, Kentaro."
She didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to.
Kentaro followed, heart thudding harder with each step. He didn't know why, but he didn't question it either. They moved down the hall, past two identical classroom doors, past a window with no view.
Everything looked the same. Same paint. Same floor tiles. Same disorienting stillness, like walking through a perfectly looped photo.
Kentaro's lungs were on fire by the time they stopped. He bent forward, hands on his knees, gasping. Two minutes of running, and he was ready to die. Meanwhile, Tenka stood next to him like she'd barely jogged.
She looked at him. Not annoyed. Just disappointed. The kind of look that said,
"Really? That's all you've got?
Kentaro didn't respond. He didn't have the breath or the pride to pretend.
Before he could speak, she'd already moved ahead.
Another door. Another room.
Tenka peered in.
Same story.
Students frozen. The professor caught mid-demonstration, a pen hanging motionless in the air, defying gravity. The whole room paused like a broken recording.
She stepped back, hand resting against her chin.
Kentaro finally caught up, breath ragged.
"What's going on?" he panted. "You clearly know something, right? The way you've been acting, the way you pulled me back, what is this?"
Tenka didn't flinch.
"I don't know," she said, voice level. "I wish I did. This is… weird."
She stared through the glass again, scanning the unmoving crowd.
Kentaro's expression fell. He wasn't sure what he expected, but it wasn't that. It made the silence feel heavier.
Finally catching his breath, he began to look inside of the classroom through the glass.
It was then something tugged at him. A presence in the classroom, just past the first few rows.
He leaned closer.
Eyes darted from one student to the next. Every face frozen in a bland, unblinking pose, until one girl stood out.
Or rather… didn't.
Silver hair.
Not dyed. Not bleached. Silver.
Like melted moonlight poured over her scalp, framing her face in strands of light. It shimmered even beneath the harsh, flickering fluorescents. Her skin was pale, not sickly, but cold. Smooth like porcelain, like the air didn't touch her the same way it touched everyone else.
Her eyes, what little he could see, were downcast, shaded by lashes, but there was something alive behind them. Something alert. Watching.
The uniform fit her perfectly. Too perfectly. Pressed white shirt, not a wrinkle in sight. Black skirt aligned straight to the knees. Every button fastened. Every strand of hair tucked behind her ear with surgical precision.
She didn't look like a student.
She looked like a photograph.
Kentaro stepped closer.
Something about her distorted the space around her, like she was the center of gravity in the room. The desks, the walls, even the still air felt like it bent around her shape.
Without thinking, his hand reached for the door.
It opened with a soft click.
"Ken, what are you doing?" Tenka snapped, turning around just in time to see the door parting.
Her voice caught mid-sentence.
Kentaro had already stepped through.
And the girl with silver hair didn't move.
But for a brief second.
He swore her eyes flicked upward.
And met his.
Tenka rushed in behind him, her footsteps fast but silent. She didn't shout this time. Her voice wasn't calm either. It was tight, urgent, like the kind that comes when someone you care about is about to do something catastrophically stupid.
"Kentaro, get back here. Now."
But he wasn't listening.
He kept moving, eyes fixed on the girl five rows up. The lecture hall dipped into descending stairs, each one creaking under his steps. He wasn't thinking clearly. Or maybe he wasn't thinking at all.
He didn't know why he was walking toward her.
Maybe it was instinct.
Maybe it was curiosity.
Maybe it was the pressure in the air, the kind that warned you something was wrong long before your brain caught up.
The whole place felt like the inside of a forgotten dream. The kind that starts familiar and ends somewhere else entirely.
Tenka didn't call out again. She just watched him move, her presence at his back like a thread pulled too tight.
He reached the third row.
That's when he felt it.
A hand on his shirt, tight, trembling.
He turned.
Tenka's face wasn't blank anymore.
It was pale.
And worse, it was scared.
Truly scared.
He hadn't seen her like that in years. Tenka, who never flinched, who never raised her voice, now had her jaw clenched, her eyes wide, and her hand locked around his sleeve like it was the last thing tethering him to the world.
"Out. Now. You stupid prick," she hissed, voice cracked with panic. "We're gonna get hurt. Or worse."
Her words hit like a slap, and not just because of the tone.
Because she meant them.
Because Tenka never panicked.
And this time, she was terrified.
Kentaro nodded, throat dry. "Yeah… okay."
He turned to follow her out. But something made him look back. Just once.
Just for a final glance.
At the girl who hadn't moved an inch. At the silver hair and porcelain skin and eyes like violets soaked in stormlight.
She hadn't even stood up.
But the air was still breaking.
And then he noticed it....