[NARRATOR: Listen. I know what you're thinking. "After everything that happened, surely they'll have a nice, calm, normal episode to wrap things up, right?" Wrong. This is Jeremy High. Normal died here three years ago and was never properly buried. Also, someone's brother is about to show up. Buckle up.]
Light Through The Windows
The light that filtered through Jeremy High's windows in winter had a particular quality to it—pale gold threaded with silver, like someone had melted down distant memories and scattered them across the classroom floor. Dust motes danced in the beams, suspended in time, indifferent to the chaos of human lives unfolding beneath them.
Riyura Shiko sat at his desk, chin resting on his palm, watching those particles drift. His purple spiked hair caught the light at odd angles. His yellow star hairclip—slightly bent from the hospital stay—glinted like a tiny sun. His crooked red bow tie had given up on ever being straight and had accepted its chaotic destiny.
[RIYURA'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: Two weeks since the rooftop. Two weeks since I fell off a building and somehow lived. The doctors said it was a miracle. I think it was just bad luck for gravity. I'm too annoying to die.]
The classroom buzzed with the particular energy of students pretending to study while actually doing anything but that. Subarashī was building what appeared to be a scale model of a fighting robot out of pencils and sheer willpower. Miyaka was drawing robots in her notebook that somehow looked like plans for Subarashi's artwork, well, because it was. And Cartoon Headayami sat with perfect posture, reading a book about proper municipal waste management.
And Shoehead—freshly returned to everyone's memories, freshly returned to school—was sitting in the back corner, quietly eating what appeared to be the tongue of a sneaker.
Everything was as it should be. Everything was beautifully, perfectly wrong.
[NARRATOR: The trial was scheduled for next week. Parents had been notified. Police reports had been filed. The machinery of justice ground forward with all the grace and speed of a glacier. But here, in this moment, winter light painted everything in shades of temporary peace.]
The Meeting No One Wanted
After school, the parents arrived.
Riyura's mother looked tired—the kind of tired that settles into your bones and becomes part of your skeleton. She wore a professional blazer that didn't quite hide how worried she'd been for weeks.
Shoehead's father was there too—a figure who looked like he'd aged a decade in a month, his eyes carrying the weight of guilt that parents bear when they realize they missed something important.
They sat in the principal's office—a room that smelled like old coffee and decisions that shaped young lives. Principal Jeremy Poleheadedsandwich sat behind his desk with butler-like composure, his hands folded neatly, his thermos of coffee conspicuously absent.
"No coffee today?" Riyura asked cautiously.
"I've been banned from consuming caffeine during parent meetings after the incident last month," Principal Jeremy said with perfect professional courtesy. "Something about property damage and frightening the district superintendent."
"That's probably for the best," Riyura's mother said diplomatically.
"Probably," the principal agreed, eyeing his desk drawer where his emergency thermos definitely wasn't hidden.
The conversation that followed was heavy—full of words like "trauma," "testimony," "psychiatric evaluation," and "legal proceedings." Adult words that made everything feel more real and more terrible.
Riyura sat quietly, his hands folded in his lap, his star-shaped pupils fixed on a point somewhere past the principal's shoulder.
[RIYURA'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: This is the part where I'm supposed to be serious. Mature. Show them I can handle heavy topics with grace and matureness. But all I can think about is how Principal Jeremy keeps glancing at his desk drawer. He's going to crack. I give him ten more minutes.]
"Riyura?" His mother's voice brought him back. "Are you okay with all of this? The testimony? Facing her again?" He looked at her—really looked at her—and saw the worry lines around her eyes, the way her hands trembled slightly around her bag.
And he smiled. That signature Riyura Shiko smile—too wide, too bright, too determined to find light in darkness. "I'm fine, Mom. Really. I mean, I survived falling off a building. Court testimony is just falling off a metaphorical building. Much safer. No gravity involved."
His mother looked like she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
She did both. "You're impossible," she said, but she was smiling through tears. "That's my brand."
Shoehead's father spoke up quietly. "I want to apologize. To both of you. I didn't see what my son was going through. I didn't—" His voice broke. "I failed him. And because of that, you both almost—"
"Stop." Shoehead's voice cut through the room. He'd been silent until now, sitting in the corner, but something in his father's words made him speak. "You didn't fail me. I failed to tell you. There's a difference."
Silence hung in the air like that winter light—fragile and precious.
"We're all figuring this out," Riyura said, his voice taking on that game show host quality that meant he was about to say something profound while pretending he wasn't. "Nobody has a manual for 'what to do when your friend gets erased from reality and almost gets burned at a stake.' If that manual exists, I haven't found it. And I checked the library. Extensively."
Despite everything, people laughed. Small. Uncertain. But real.
Winter Evenings And The Choice To Laugh
The sun set early in the beggings of winter and the end of autumn—painting the sky in gradients of purple and orange and that particular shade of blue that only existed in the space between day and night, between what was and what would be.
Riyura stood on the school rooftop—the same rooftop where everything had happened—but now it felt different. Reclaimed. Like a wound that had started to scar over.
His friends were with him. Of course they were. They were always with him.
Subarashī stood at the edge, arms spread wide, face tilted toward the dying light. "THE WINTER SUN BIDS US FAREWELL! BUT TOMORROW! TOMORROW IT RETURNS WITH VENGEANCE!"
"That's not how the sun works," Miyaka said, wrapped in a scarf that looked like it could survive a polar expedition. "YOU DON'T KNOW THAT!" "I literally learned it in science class yesterday."
"SCIENCE IS JUST THEORY UNTIL I PROVE IT WRONG!" Cartoon Headayami stood nearby with perfect posture. "The angle at which you're standing is twelve degrees off from optimal sunset viewing position."
"What's optimal sunset viewing position?" Riyura asked.
"Exactly perpendicular to the sun's trajectory while maintaining spinal alignment with Earth's rotational axis." "That's the nerdiest thing I've ever heard."
"Thank you." Shoehead sat cross-legged on the ground, eating what appeared to be a work boot. "This tastes like responsibility and leather." "Why do you do this to yourself?" Miyaka asked, genuine concern in her voice.
"Because some things hurt less when you're also eating shoes," Shoehead replied matter-of-factly. Riyura pulled something from his backpack—a chicken mask, battered and beloved.
"No," everyone said in unison. "YES," Riyura declared, putting it on. "THE CHICKEN RISES AGAIN!" "Please don't do this," Headayami said. "TOO LATE!" Riyura struck a pose that was somehow both majestic and deeply embarrassing. "I AM THE ROOFTOP CHICKEN! GUARDIAN OF AWKWARD MOMENTS! PROTECTOR OF HEALING THROUGH ABSURDITY!"
Subarashī's eyes lit up with the fire of a thousand anime protagonists. "FINALLY! A WORTHY OPPONENT!" He produced a dragon mask from literally nowhere. "I AM THE ROOFTOP DRAGON! AND WE SHALL BATTLE DEAR FOE ENEMY TYPE THING!"
"Why do you both carry masks?" Miyaka asked the universe. The universe, wisely, did not answer.
What followed was possibly the most ridiculous "battle" in human history—two teenage students in animal masks running around a rooftop making sound effects while their friends watched with a mixture of amusement, horror, and deep affection.
[NARRATOR: This is healing. Not the professional kind—though they were all in therapy now, as per court recommendation. But this kind. Laughter. Choosing joy. Refusing to let trauma have the final word. This is how they survived.]
Riyura "defeated" Subarashī by tickling him until he collapsed. Which, by Jeremy High rules, counted as a legitimate victory. As the stars began appearing—distant and cold and beautiful—Riyura removed his chicken mask and looked at his friends.
"Hey," he said, his voice softer now. "I just want to say—" "Oh no, he's having a moment," Shoehead muttered. "—that you guys are the best friends anyone could ask for. Even when everything went wrong, even when the world tried to erase us, we found our way back. And that's—that's really special."
Silence. The kind of silence that held weight. Then Miyaka sniffled. "That was actually really sweet." "I know, I'm surprising myself." "Don't ruin it."
"TOO LATE!" Riyura pulled out a second chicken mask and put it on Headayami's head. "NOW YOU'RE CHICKEN TOO! EVERYONE'S CHICKEN! CHICKEN FRIENDS FOREVER!"
"I hate you," Headayami said, but he didn't take the mask off. "No you don't." "...No. I don't." They stood together as winter night settled over Jeremy High—a small group of weird, wonderful, impossible friends who'd survived something terrible and chose to keep laughing anyway.
The Trial (BRIEF LIKE REALITY ALLOWS)
The trial came and went like winter rain—cold, necessary, leaving everything feeling clean but emptier somehow. Riyura testified. His voice steady. His star-shaped pupils fixed on the judge rather than Letace.
When asked why he'd saved Shoehead despite not remembering him, Riyura answered simply: "Because even without memories, I knew something was missing. And I couldn't let that emptiness become permanent."
The courtroom was quiet. Letace was found guilty. Sentenced to psychiatric care in a secure facility. Justice, as much as justice could exist, was served. Afterward, in the courthouse hallway, Riyura's mother hugged him tight.
"I'm proud of you," she whispered. "Even though I almost died doing something incredibly stupid?" "Especially because of that."
[RIYURA'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: She gets it. She actually gets it. That's the nice thing about my mother and father. Even when I'm an absolute disaster, they still think I'm wonderful. It's statistically improbable but emotionally essential.]
The Kid With Silver Hair
February arrived with snow.
Not the beautiful, picturesque kind. The kind that made sidewalks treacherous and turned shoes into soggy regret.
Riyura stood at his locker, spinning the combination, preparing for another day at Jeremy High. His purple hair was slightly damp from the snow. His yellow star hairclip had accumulated a few tiny snowflakes. His red bow tie was, as always, beautifully crooked.
The hallway buzzed with its usual morning chaos—Subarashī was already yelling about something, Miyaka was humming a song, Headayami was lecturing someone about improper winter coat storage.
Normal. Perfect. Home. Riyura pulled out his textbooks, adjusted his bright white jumper, and—"Excuse me." The voice came from beside him. Riyura turned.
Standing in the hallway was someone he'd never seen before.
A kid—tall, wearing a white jumper with hands casually tucked into the pockets. Black shoes that somehow stayed perfectly clean despite the snow. Grayish-black fade effect pants that looked expensive. Silver hair that caught the fluorescent lights like polished metal. Pale gray eyes that were sharp, analytical, cutting.
And a white mask covering the lower half of his face.
His expression—what could be seen above the mask—was one of profound boredom. Like the universe itself had failed to impress him and he'd given up expecting anything interesting.
[RIYURA'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: New student? In Winter? That's unusual. But also, this entire school is unusual, so this tracks. Also, why is he staring at me like I'm a particularly interesting science experiment?]
"Can I help you?" Riyura asked, flashing his signature host smile. The teenager studied him for a long moment. Those pale gray eyes mapping every detail—the purple hair, the star hairclip, the crooked bow tie, the star-shaped pupils.
"You're Riyura Shiko," the kid said. Not a question. A statement of fact delivered with the enthusiasm of someone reading a phone book. "That's me! Host of chaos, defender of chicken masks, professional survivor of improbable situations—" "I'm your brother." The hallway went silent.
Everything—the noise, the movement, the very air itself—seemed to freeze.
Riyura blinked. His brain made the sound of a computer crashing. "I'm sorry, what?" "I'm your brother," the kid repeated, his voice flat and emotionless. "Half-brother, technically. Different parents. Same father. The situation is complicated. I'm here as a transfer student. We'll be in the same class starting today."
He pulled his hand from his pocket. Extended it for a handshake. His movements precise. Mechanical. "My name is—"
[NARRATOR: And that's where we're stopping. Because Volume #1 needs to end with questions. With mysteries. With the promise of more chaos to come. Volume #2 will answer who this mysterious brother is, why he appeared now, and whether he also has weird eating habits. Probably. Stay tuned, chaos enthusiasts. The story is just beginning.]
EPILOGUE: UNDER WINTER STARS
That night, Riyura sat on his bed, staring at the ceiling, his mind spinning like a broken carousel. A brother. He had a brother. Apparently. His mother had been suspiciously evasive when he'd asked about it.
His phone buzzed.
GROUP CHAT: "JEREMY HIGH CHAOS SQUAD"
Subarashī: WOAH YOU HAVE A MYSTERIOUS BROTHER Riyura: How do you know about this already???
Subarashī: I HAVE SPIES EVERYWHERE Miyaka: He was eavesdropping at your locker Subarashī: STRATEGIC INFORMATION GATHERING Shoehead: Congrats on the brother. Does he eat unusual things too? Riyura: I didn't ask???
Shoehead: You should. It's important family bonding. Headayami: This violates seventeen student registration protocols. I'm filing a report. Miyaka: Headayami please no Headayami: Headayami yes
Riyura smiled despite everything. Despite the confusion, the questions, the weight of new mysteries arriving before old ones were fully resolved.
Riyura: Whatever happens, we face it together, right? Everyone: OBVIOUSLY
Subarashī: THAT'S THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP Miyaka: You're so dramatic Subarashī: AND YOU LOVE IT
Riyura set his phone down, looking out his window at the winter stars—distant and cold and achingly beautiful. Like hope seen from far away. Tomorrow would bring answers. Or more questions. Probably more questions.
But tonight, he was just Riyura Shiko. A teenager with purple hair and star-shaped pupils and friends who would follow him anywhere. Even off buildings, apparently. Life at Jeremy High was never simple. But it was always, always worth living.
[RIYURA'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: A brother, huh? Well. Time to break out the chicken mask. First impressions are critical. And if I'm going to have a mysterious sibling, I might as well establish dominance early through aggressive poultry cosplay.]
Outside, snow began falling again—soft and silent, covering the world in white, making everything new.
[END OF EPISODE 12][END OF VOLUME #1]
[NARRATOR: And so concludes the first volume of "THE NAMES... Riyura Shiko!" A story about memory, unfunny and stupid comedy garbage, chicken masks, and for these characters choices to keep laughing even when the world gives you every reason to cry. Volume #2 promises mysterious brothers, winter adventures, and probably more people eating footwear. Because apparently that's a thing now or always has been. See you next volume, dear readers. The chaos is only beginning.]
VOLUME #1: COMPLETE NEXT VOLUME: "THE BROTHER WHO APPEARED FROM WINTER"
Coming Soon...