They teach you to be punctual like it's a virtue and not a way to learn exactly where the day will shove you next. The bell rang. We all pretended it was the start of something important.
My name is Ryuhei Harusato. Sixteen. Average height, tired eyes, hair that never listens. If you want the short version: I go to school, I breathe, I count the tiny predictable beats between one forced smile and the next. If you want the long version… Well, you wouldn't like it.
Sayuri Minami was already at my desk when I slid into the chair. She had that quiet kind of brightness that doesn't shout but makes the corners of the room kinder. Her notes were neat, the kind that looked like a promise.
"Late again," she whispered, smiling like she owned mercy for the day.
"Traffic," I said. It was always traffic. A small lie that draped like a blanket over the usual truth: I move slowly because making a wrong step is expensive.
Sayuri didn't push it. She never did. That was part of the problem.
Then Yuto Masaki dropped himself into the chair beside me, grin first. He always entered a room like it was his to claim. "Ryuhei, you look like you dragged a whole storm cloud in with you."
"Maybe I was swept by the thunder, too," I muttered.
He laughed like I'd just handed him the perfect setup. "Thunder? That'd explain your hair. Looks like it lost a war this morning."
Sayuri covered her mouth with her hand, trying not to laugh. "Don't be mean, Yuto."
"Hey, I'm not mean," Yuto said, slouching back, arms folded behind his head like he was on break at the beach instead of in a grey classroom. "I'm observant. I'm practically a scientist. I study Harusato's face every day, and today the readings are off the charts."
"Congratulations," I said. "You're the first scientist to get expelled for talking too much."
Sayuri's laughter slipped free that time, light and warm. It filled the space between us like sunlight sneaking through blinds.
(Irony works best when hidden in small exchanges. Three students at a desk, their lives drawn in tiny chalk lines. But the cracks are already there. Look closely enough and you'll see it, how easily chalk breaks.)
The classroom buzzed with the low static of a hundred voices trying to matter. Mr. Oda hadn't arrived yet, which meant the room belonged to us. Yuto thrived in that chaos. He leaned forward, tapping my desk with his pencil.
"Alright, Ryuhei, quick question," he said. "If we're all characters in a story, who's the protagonist?"
"Not you," I said automatically.
Sayuri tilted her head. "Why not Yuto?"
"Because the protagonists don't announce themselves," I said. "They're too busy suffering quietly."
"Ouch." Yuto clutched his chest in mock pain. "What about you then? You're definitely brooding enough for it."
"Brooding isn't a qualification," I said. "It's just… unavoidable."
Sayuri smiled faintly, pen still moving across her notebook. "If this really were a story, I think Ryuhei would be the type who hides the important parts until it's too late."
I blinked at her. "That's oddly specific."
She didn't answer. Just kept writing, her letters neat as measured breaths.
The bell rang again. Mr. Oda entered with his usual sharp clap of hands, silencing the room like someone shutting a door. "Alright. Eyes up. The test begins now."
Test papers shuffled across desks like tired leaves. Yuto groaned so loudly the back row laughed. "Man, I was born allergic to math."
"You're just allergic to effort," I muttered.
"Same thing."
Sayuri nudged my elbow. "Don't forget question seven. He likes to trick people with it."
I nodded, even though I'd already memorized the patterns. That's all tests were, patterns repeated until they pretended to mean something.
Halfway through, Sayuri tapped my shoulder again and pointed toward the window. At first, I thought she was just stalling. Then I saw it too.
The sky had always been pale, patient. But now it looked scuffed, as if someone had rubbed the color raw. A tremor ran through the air, so subtle I thought it was my pulse.
Then came the strike.
Not thunder. Not construction. Not anything this world should have been capable of. A single, clean percussion that split the hallway's noise into two halves.
The lights flickered once. Twice. A dozen phones glowed awake in startled palms. Murmurs rose and fell, a tide of panic rehearsing its lines.
Mr. Oda steadied his hand on the desk. "Everyone stay calm."
"Yeah, sure," Yuto whispered beside me. "Because earthquakes usually knock politely first."
Sayuri gripped her pen so tightly it almost snapped. Her eyes, though, they weren't afraid. They were searching.
(I told you the cracks were already there. What you see now is just the dust shaking free.)
Another sound. Low this time, like the groan of metal stretched too far. The windowpanes rattled. The floor buzzed under our shoes.
I stood before I knew why. My body moved like it had been waiting.
Yuto frowned. "What are you doing?"
"Listening," I said.
"To what?"
"To something that doesn't belong here."
He stared at me for a second too long, then shook his head with a nervous laugh. "You get weirder every day."
Sayuri's hand brushed my sleeve. "Ryuhei," she whispered. Her voice was softer than the chaos around us, but it reached me anyway. "Something's coming."
She wasn't wrong.
The air warped, bent, cracked. At the center of the room, space folded in on itself like paper crushed by an invisible fist. Desks scraped backward. A girl screamed.
And then, he appeared.
A figure standing where the fold had been. Same height as me. Same hair, though longer. Same tired eyes, though sharper, older. He carried himself with an ease I'd never learned, like every step was permission the world had granted him.
He smiled. A mask of cocky confidence that didn't belong on my face, and yet, it fit.
Sayuri gasped. Yuto swore under his breath.
I couldn't speak. I could only stare at the shape of myself standing a few feet away.
The other me tilted his head, studying me like a puzzle piece he'd been waiting to place. Then he smiled wider, teeth flashing like the edge of something dangerous.
"Finally," he said. His voice was mine, only heavier. "I found you."
He took a step closer.
My heart hammered, but my feet didn't move.
"To break you free," he whispered.
And for the first time, I wondered if I'd been asleep my whole life, only now waking up.
(The story doesn't start when a bell rings. It starts when something breaks. And this, right here, is the sound of it breaking.)