SECRETIVE ARC - EPISODE 1
[CONTENT WARNING: No abilities, no supernatural elements, just regular Jeremy High chaos.]
[NARRATOR: Some stories happen in worlds where psychic powers don't exist yet in talk. Where preservation techniques are science fiction for now. Where the biggest threats are social manipulation and psychological warfare instead of government conspiracies. Today, we enter an arc that was too gruesome that Riyura hated to mention the incident ever since—Jeremy High junior year, one year before graduation, where Riyura Shiko and his friends are just weird teenagers at their weird school. No abilities talk. No bloodline curses talk. Just—high school talk. Regular, painful, regular Jeremy High high school. Today, a transfer student arrives with a perfect smile and predatory eyes. Today, Miyaka's pencil collection grows by three. Today, Subarashī bothers Yakamira with explosively heroic energy as usual. Today, everything seems normal. Everything seems fine. Welcome to the tragedy of Hariko. Welcome to when smiles hide knives.]
PART ONE: THE MORNING THAT STARTED NORMAL
Monday. February 2025. Junior year at Jeremy High. One year before graduation. One year before everything would change in the current timeline—but in this year, before that story. Nothing supernatural would ever happen just yet. Just Jeremy High people being Jeremy High people.
Riyura Shiko arrived at school with his characteristic purple hair slightly less wild than usual—he'd actually brushed it this morning, miracle of miracles. His yellow star hairclip was positioned naturally instead of crookedly. His red bow tie was tied properly. He looked—he looked almost well put-together.
[RIYURA'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: Junior year. Somehow I've survived two years at Jeremy High without dying, getting expelled, or accidentally joining a cult. That's—that's actually impressive by this school's standards. Today's Monday which means Subarashī will be unbearably energetic, Miyaka will steal at least one pencil from someone, Yakamira will be aggressively analytical about everything, and I'll make terrible jokes to cope with the absurdity of existence. Just another normal day. Please let it be a normal day.]
He entered the classroom to find chaos already in progress.
Subarashī stood on his desk, arms spread wide in his classic superhero pose, shouting: "YAKAMIRA! MY RIVAL! MY ETERNAL FRENEMY! FACE ME IN GLORIOUS COMBAT OF WITS AND COURAGE!"
Yakamira sat at his desk, completely ignoring Subarashī, reading a thick book about probability theory. His silver hair caught morning light. His pale gray eyes didn't even glance up. His entire posture radiated "I am choosing to pretend this loud person doesn't exist."
"YAKAMIRA!" Subarashī jumped from his desk to Yakamira's desk, landing with theatrical flourish that somehow didn't disturb any of Yakamira's carefully organized materials. "YOU CANNOT IGNORE THE FLAMES OF MY HEROIC SPIRIT! WE ARE DESTINED TO BE ETERNAL RIVALS! IT'S WRITTEN IN THE STARS! IN THE—"
"If you don't get off my desk," Yakamira said without looking up from his book, "I will calculate the exact trajectory needed to throw this eraser and hit you in the throat hard enough to make you stop talking for exactly four minutes and thirty-seven seconds."
"THAT'S THE SPIRIT!" Subarashī declared, pumping his fist. "THREATS OF VIOLENCE! THAT'S HOW RIVALS COMMUNICATE! WE'RE BONDING!"
"We're not bonding," Yakamira replied, still not looking up. "You're being aggressively annoying and I'm tolerating it because asking you to stop would require more energy than ignoring you."
"THAT'S BASICALLY FRIENDSHIP!" Subarashī announced.
Miyaka appeared beside Subarashī, matching his energy with disturbing precision. She stood on Riyura's desk now, arms spread in an identical superhero pose.
"BROTHER!" Miyaka declared—she and Subarashī weren't actually siblings but acted like twin agents of chaos. "WE MUST DRAW! WE MUST CREATE! WE MUST—" She pulled out three pencils from nowhere. "—WE MUST ADD TO MY COLLECTION!"
"Where did you get those pencils?" Riyura asked, genuinely curious.
"Found them," Miyaka replied innocently, which definitely meant she'd stolen them from someone. "This one's a mechanical pencil with 0.5mm lead—perfect for detail work! This one's a standard #2 with a moderately worn eraser—good for shading! And this one—" She held up a chewed pencil with barely any eraser left. "—this one has CHARACTER. It's LIVED. It has STORIES."
"That's a gross pencil," Riyura observed.
"That's a STORIED pencil," Miyaka corrected. "Every tooth mark is someone's anxiety. Every eraser smudge is someone's mistake corrected. This pencil has witnessed LIFE."
"You have a weird obsession," Yakamira said, still not looking up from his book. "You have a weird obsession with pretending Subarashī doesn't exist when he's literally standing on your desk," Miyaka countered.
"YAKAMIRA NOTICES ME!" Subarashī declared victoriously. "MIYAKA SAID MY NAME IN HIS VICINITY! THAT'S ACKNOWLEDGMENT! WE'RE BASICALLY BEST FRIENDS NOW!"
"We're not best friends," Yakamira replied. "WE'RE RIVALS WHICH IS BETTER THAN BEST FRIENDS!" Subarashī announced. "I'm going to calculate how much force I need to push you off my desk without actually hurting you," Yakamira said.
"THAT'S CONCERN FOR MY WELLBEING! YOU CARE ABOUT ME!" Subarashī was genuinely delighted. "I don't want to deal with the paperwork if you get injured," Yakamira clarified.
"PAPERWORK IS A FORM OF CARING!" Riyura watched this exchange with fond exasperation. This was normal. This was his friend group. This was—
"Attention students," Principal Jeremy's voice came over the intercom. "We have a new transfer student joining us today. Please welcome him appropriately. Which for Jeremy High means don't immediately traumatize him or involve him in whatever weird schemes you're currently planning. Looking at you, Subarashī. Oh and Riyura to!"
"I'M NOT PLANNING SCHEMES!" Subarashī shouted at the ceiling. "I'M PLANNING HEROIC ADVENTURES WHICH ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!" "Yeah... what he said?" Riyura replied too.
"They're not different," Yakamira said. "THEY'RE SPIRITUALLY DIFFERENT!"
The classroom door opened. A student entered—average height, neat appearance, friendly smile, completely unremarkable except for his eyes. His eyes were—wrong. Not obviously wrong. Subtly wrong. Like he was smiling with his mouth but his eyes were doing something else entirely.
[RIYURA'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: Okay. So. New transfer student. Seems normal. Seems friendly. Seems—seems like he's performing friendliness instead of actually being friendly. I've spent enough time performing cheerfulness to recognize when someone else is doing it. This kid—this person is wearing "friendly transfer student" like a costume. Why do I feel like this is going to become my problem?]
"Hello," the transfer student said, his smile perfect and empty. "I'm Korosu Hariko. I transferred from a school in Osaka. I'm—I'm excited to be here. I've heard Jeremy High is very—unique."
"UNIQUE IS ONE WORD FOR IT!" Subarashī announced, still standing on Yakamira's desk. "WELCOME TO CHAOS ACADEMY WHERE EVERYTHING'S WEIRD AND THE NORMALCY DOESN'T MATTER!"
"Please get off my desk," Yakamira said. "NEVER! THIS IS MY HEROIC PERCH!" "Your heroic perch is violating my personal space," Yakamira replied.
Korosu Hariko watched this exchange with his perfect empty smile. Then his eyes—his wrong eyes—locked onto Miyaka and Subarashī specifically. Lingered on them. Studied them. Something flickered across his face. Something that might have been recognition or hatred or the desperate need for all three simultaneously.
Then the smile returned. Perfect. Empty. Wrong.
"I hope we can be friends," Hariko said, walking directly toward Miyaka and Subarashī. Not toward Riyura. Not toward anyone else. Just—them. Specifically them.
"FRIENDS!" Subarashī declared, finally jumping off Yakamira's desk to approach Hariko with explosive enthusiasm. "YES! FRIENDSHIP! I'M SUBARASHĪ! THIS IS MY SIBLING-IN-CHAOS MIYAKA! WE MAKE ART AND CAUSE PROBLEMS! SOMETIMES SIMULTANEOUSLY!"
"We made a comic once about a hero who saves people with the power of aggressive positivity," Miyaka added, pulling out a crumpled paper covered in terrible drawings. "It's called 'The Annoying Savior' and it's loosely based on Subarashī bothering Yakamira until problems solve themselves through sheer exhaustion!"
"I hate that comic," Yakamira said from his desk. "YOU'RE THE MAIN VILLAIN IN IT!" Subarashī announced proudly. "I'm aware," Yakamira replied. "You made me a vampire for some reason."
"BECAUSE YOU DRAIN THE ENERGY FROM ROOMS WITH YOUR ANALYTICAL COLDNESS!" Subarashī explained. "That's actually accurate," Riyura agreed. "I'm surrounded by idiots," Yakamira muttered.
Korosu Hariko laughed—a perfect, practiced laugh that sounded genuine but felt manufactured. "You all seem—fun. I'd love to see more of your art. Maybe—maybe we could work on something together?"
"REALLY?" Miyaka's eyes lit up. "YOU WANT TO MAKE ART WITH US? NOBODY EVER WANTS TO MAKE ART WITH US! EVERYONE SAYS OUR COMICS ARE 'AGGRESSIVELY NONSENSICAL' AND 'HURT TO LOOK AT'!"
"They called our last one a 'crime against panels,'" Subarashī added. "That's because you drew sound effects that took up more space than actual story," Riyura pointed out.
"SOUND EFFECTS ARE IMPORTANT! HOW ELSE DO YOU KNOW THINGS ARE EXPLODING?" "Things don't need to explode in every panel," Yakamira said. "YES THEY DO!" Subarashī and Miyaka declared simultaneously and kind of in unison.
Korosu Hariko's smile never wavered. But something in his eyes shifted when he looked at them. Something hungry. Something wrong. "I'd really like to be friends," Hariko repeated. "I think—I think we're going to get along really well."
And Riyura—Riyura felt ice settle in his stomach despite not understanding why.
PART TWO: THE LUNCH WHERE SOMETHING FELT WRONG
Lunchtime. The friend group gathered at their usual spot—corner table in cafeteria where they could be weird without bothering normal students.
Miyaka had arranged seventeen pencils in a precise rainbow order on the table. She was examining an eraser with the intensity of an archaeologist discovering an ancient artifact.
"This eraser," Miyaka declared, "is from the 1990s. I can tell by the texture. By the way it crumbles. By the—" "That's a regular eraser from the supply closet," Riyura interrupted.
"NO! THIS IS VINTAGE!" Miyaka insisted. "THIS ERASER HAS HISTORY!" "That eraser has dust," Yakamira corrected. "HISTORICAL DUST!" Subarashī was sketching on a napkin—terrible drawing of a stick figure with a cape fighting what might have been a dragon or possibly a very angry cloud.
"This is my new hero concept," Subarashī explained. "CAPTAIN ANNOYING! His power is being so persistently cheerful that villains give up out of exhaustion!"
"That's just you," Yakamira said, eating his precisely portioned lunch with mechanical efficiency. "EXACTLY! I'M THE HERO!" "You're the cautionary tale," Yakamira corrected. "SAME THING!"
Korosu Hariko approached their table. "Mind if I join?" "THE MORE THE MERRIER!" Subarashī declared before anyone could object. Hariko sat. Directly between Miyaka and Subarashī. Not across from them. Between them. Close enough that their shoulders almost touched.
Miyaka didn't seem to notice, too focused on her eraser archaeology. But Riyura noticed. Noticed how Hariko positioned himself. Noticed how his perfect smile stayed locked in place. Noticed how his eyes—his wrong eyes—kept darting between Miyaka and Subarashī with that hungry, desperate expression.
"So," Hariko said, his voice friendly and empty, "tell me about yourselves. I want to know everything. What you like. What you do. What makes you—you."
"WELL!" Subarashī launched into enthusiastic explanation. "I'M SUBARASHĪ AND I BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF HEROIC SPIRITS AND AGGRESSIVE POSITIVITY AND BOTHERING YAKAMIRA UNTIL HE ADMITS WE'RE FRIENDS—"
"We're not friends," Yakamira interjected. "At least not in heroic terms, only in normal terms... somehow?"
"—WHICH HE SAYS EVERY DAY BUT HIS ACTIONS BETRAY HIM!" Subarashī continued without pause. "I MAKE TERRIBLE ART WITH MIYAKA! I RUN THE HERO CLUB WHICH ONLY HAS THREE MEMBERS INCLUDING ME! I BELIEVE THAT WITH SUFFICIENT ENTHUSIASM ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!"
"That's scientifically inaccurate," Yakamira said. "SCIENCE IS JUST ENTHUSIASM THAT LEARNED MATH!" Subarashī countered. "That's—that's not even remotely correct," Yakamira replied.
"And I'm Miyaka!" Miyaka added, finally looking up from her eraser. "I collect pencils! And erasers! And sometimes desk fragments if they have interesting carvings! I make art with Subarashī! I believe that every pencil has a story and every eraser has witnessed countless mistakes being corrected which makes them basically historical documents! I—"
"You have a weird obsession with school supplies," Yakamira interrupted. "YOU have a weird obsession with pretending you don't enjoy our company," Miyaka countered.
"I don't enjoy your company," Yakamira said. "I tolerate your company because removing you from my life would require more effort than ignoring you."
"THAT'S BASICALLY FRIENDSHIP IN IT'S OWN WAY WITH US!" Subarashī declared. "It's absolutely not that," Yakamira corrected.
Korosu Hariko listened to this exchange with his perfect smile. But something flickered behind his eyes. Something painful. Something that looked almost like—recognition? Memory? Grief?
Then it was gone. Replaced by the smile. The empty, perfect smile.
"You both seem—amazing," Hariko said, and his voice carried weight that didn't match his casual tone. "Really. You're—you're exactly what I was looking for."
"FRIENDS!" Subarashī declared. "WE'RE MAKING A FRIEND! MIYAKA! WE'RE POPULAR NOW!" "We were never popular," Miyaka corrected. "WE'RE LESS UNPOPULAR NOW!"
"That's not how popularity works," Yakamira said. "YOU DON'T KNOW HOW POPULARITY WORKS! YOU'RE A HERMIT!" "I'm not a hermit. I'm selectively social," Yakamira replied. "YOU HAVE THREE FRIENDS AND ONE OF THEM IS YOUR BROTHER!" Subarashī announced, pointing at Riyura.
"That's accurate," Riyura confirmed. "Thank you for that assessment," Yakamira said dryly.
Korosu Hariko watched this chaos with his perfect empty smile. And Riyura watched Hariko. Watched how he positioned himself between Miyaka and Subarashī. Watched how he studied them. Watched how something hungry and desperate lurked behind that smile.
[RIYURA'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: Something's wrong with this kid. I don't know what. I don't know why. But something about how he looks at Miyaka and Subarashī—it's not friendly interest. It's not normal new-student curiosity. It's—it's predatory. Like he's studying prey. Like he's planning something. I should—I should probably warn them. Except they're both aggressively friendly people who wouldn't believe me without evidence. And I have no evidence. Just bad feeling. Just instinct screaming that this transfer student's smile hides something dangerous. When it comes to him, my charms with my friends will never come to be. I can tell just by looking at how everyone get's along with him easily.]
"Hey, Hariko," Riyura said carefully. "Why did you transfer to Jeremy High specifically? Most people try to avoid this school. We have—a reputation."
"Oh," Hariko's smile never wavered, "I heard it was unique. I wanted—I wanted unique. Wanted different. Wanted—wanted to meet some interesting people."
His eyes locked on Miyaka and Subarashī again. "And I think I found exactly what I was looking for." The way he said it made Riyura's skin crawl.
PART THREE: THE AFTERNOON WHERE SMALL THINGS WENT WRONG
After lunch. Miyaka discovered her favorite pencil case was missing from her locker. The one with all her vintage pencils. The one she'd been collecting for two years.
"IT'S GONE!" Miyaka declared, her usual chaotic energy replaced with genuine distress. "MY PENCILS! MY COLLECTION! SEVENTEEN PENCILS INCLUDING THE ONE FROM 1987 WITH THE PERFECT WORN ERASER! GONE!"
"Maybe you misplaced it?" Riyura suggested. "I DON'T MISPLACE PENCILS!" Miyaka insisted. "I KNOW WHERE EVERY SINGLE ONE IS AT ALL TIMES! THEY'RE MY PRECIOUS!"
"That's concerning," Yakamira observed. With genuine disturbance in his expression. "YOU'RE CONCERNING!" Miyaka shot back, then immediately started searching frantically. "MY PRECIOUS! SOMEONE STOLE MY PRECIOUS!"
Later, during a hero club meeting, Subarashī discovered all their materials had been vandalized. Posters torn. Flyers shredded. The carefully drawn comic they'd been working on—the terrible, beautiful comic about Captain Annoying—was covered in red ink, words "THIS IS GARBAGE" written across every page.
"WHO—" Subarashī's usual explosive energy dimmed slightly. "Who would do this? We—we worked really hard on this. Yeah, it's terrible, but it's OUR terrible! It's—"
He sat down heavily. For first time since Riyura had known him, Subarashī looked genuinely hurt instead of just performatively dramatic. "We'll find out who did it," Riyura promised. "We'll—"
"Maybe they're right," Subarashī said quietly. "Maybe it is garbage. Maybe the hero club is stupid. Maybe—maybe I'm stupid for thinking aggressive positivity and terrible comics could matter to anyone."
"HEY!" Miyaka appeared, her pencil crisis temporarily forgotten. "DON'T YOU DARE! OUR COMICS ARE TERRIBLE BUT THEY'RE BEAUTIFUL! THEY'RE ART! THEY'RE—THEY'RE US! AND IF SOMEONE CAN'T APPRECIATE THAT THEN THEY'RE THE ONES WITH PROBLEMS!"
Subarashī looked up at her. "You think so?"
"I KNOW SO!" Miyaka declared. "WE'RE GOING TO FIND WHO DID THIS AND WE'RE GOING TO—WE'RE GOING TO DRAW EVEN WORSE COMICS OUT OF SPITE! WE'RE GOING TO BE SO AGGRESSIVELY TERRIBLE THAT IT BECOMES ART!"
"YEAH!" Subarashī's energy returned slightly. "SPITE COMICS! THE MOST POWERFUL FORM OF ART!" But the hurt lingered in his eyes. And Riyura noticed.
That evening, Riyura waited after school. Watched. Saw Korosu Hariko leaving through a side exit. Saw him carrying a bag that looked suspiciously like Miyaka's pencil case. Saw him smile that perfect empty smile while dropping it in the trash bin outside the school.
Riyura retrieved the pencil case. Found all seventeen pencils inside. Snapped in half. Deliberately. Methodically. Destroyed.
[RIYURA'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: It was him. The transfer student. He stole Miyaka's pencils and destroyed them. He vandalized the hero club's materials. He—he's targeting them. Specifically targeting Miyaka and Subarashī. For what? Why? He just met them today. Why would he—why would he immediately start destroying their things? What kind of person does that? I need to—I need to tell them. Need to warn them. Need to—]
But he had no proof beyond seeing Hariko throw away the pencil case. No proof he'd been the one to steal it. No proof he'd vandalized the hero club. Just broken pencils and a bad feeling.
EPILOGUE: THE EVENING WHERE PLANS WERE MADE
That night, Riyura lay in bed staring at the ceiling, processing the day.
New transfer student arrives. Immediately targets Miyaka and Subarashī. Destroys their things. Does it all with a perfect smile that never reaches his eyes.
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
His phone buzzed. Group chat with Miyaka and Subarashī:
Miyaka: "Found my pencil case in the trash. All my pencils broken. WHO DOES THAT? WHO BREAKS PENCILS?"
Subarashī: "I'm sorry about your pencils. We'll help you rebuild your collection."
Miyaka: "It's not the same. Those pencils had HISTORY. Had STORIES. Someone MURDERED them."
Subarashī: "We'll find out who did it. We'll make them answer for their crimes against pencils."
Riyura: "I think it was Hariko."
Miyaka: "The new transfer student? Why would he do that?"
Riyura: "I don't know. But I saw him throw away your pencil case. And the hero club vandalism happened right after he joined us for lunch."
Subarashī: "But he seemed so friendly..."
Riyura: "His smile doesn't reach his eyes. Trust me. Something's wrong with him."
Miyaka: "We should confront him."
Riyura: "Not yet. We need to watch him first. Figure out what he's doing. Why he's targeting you two specifically."
Subarashī: "This feels like a villain origin story. Are we in a villain origin story?"
Riyura: "I think we might be in a tragedy."
Miyaka: "Great. My favorite genre. Can't wait to suffer."
Riyura set down his phone. Stared at the ceiling. Thought about the transfer student with a perfect smile and those wrong eyes of his. About the broken pencils and the vandalized comics. About Miyaka and Subarashī who were being targeted for reasons nobody understood.
Tomorrow he'd watch Hariko. Watch and wait. Figure out what this transfer student wanted. Why he'd chosen Miyaka and Subarashī as targets. Tomorrow the tragedy would continue.
And nobody—not even Riyura with all his instincts—was ready for how bad it would get.
EXTRA MOMENT: HARM AND DAMAGE TO A FRIEND
The evening settled over the neighborhood quietly.
Miyaka sat alone on a bench at the park two blocks from home, knees pulled to herself, eyes red. She hadn't cried loudly. She never did. Just that slow, quiet kind — the type that comes when you don't want to make a sound because making a sound means admitting it's real.
Hariko's smile kept replaying in her head. That perfect, practiced thing. She didn't know why it bothered her so much. She couldn't explain it to anyone. She just knew something was wrong, and she hated that she couldn't name it, hated that she sounded paranoid whenever she tried.
She stayed at the park a little longer. Subarashī was home alone.
His parents were both still at work. His sister had texted — "Running late, back by nine. See you soon dear brother." — Miyaka was at the park, which he knew, and he left her to it. He'd learned that about her a long time ago: sometimes she needed to sit with things before she could talk about them, and letting her do that was more important than rushing in.
He cooked instead. Bacon and rice, simple enough, the kind of dinner that filled a kitchen with warmth. He had his earphones in, music playing, pan sizzling. The window above the sink was fogged slightly from the heat. He was in his element — loud, physical, at home in his own element, singing quietly to himself even though he was completely off-key. Listening to his DBZ soundtracks and all that.
He didn't hear the front door. He didn't hear the lock pick working. Didn't hear the chain snap — that dry, sharp crack that in any other moment would've stopped him cold.
The bacon was loud. The music was louder. Footsteps came down the hallway, and when he heard them, Subarashī turned his head slightly toward the sound and called out without looking:
"You're earlier than I thought — sit down, it's almost—" The hand came from behind and shoved his face into the pan.
The scream that tore out of him wasn't something he chose. It came before thought. Before understanding. Pure, gruesome, involuntary — the sound a person makes when their body registers something so far beyond pain that the brain hasn't caught up yet.
The heat was immediate. Total. His cheek, his jaw, the side of his nose, pressed directly into the iron surface. Skin blistering in seconds, the smell something he would never be able to name afterward without his hands starting to shake.
He was yanked back up. He barely had time to register the ceiling before the first blow hit him across the face from the right side, throwing him sideways. The second came from above — something imediate, he couldn't see what — htting against his shoulder and driving him into the counter.
He hit the kitchen floor. The figure stood in the hallway shadows, face still swallowed by the dark, expression unreadable except for the mouth — calm, slow, almost satisfied.
Subarashī tried to push himself up and the kick came before he finished the thought. Ribs. Then jaw. Then the same ribs again, methodical, like checking off a list, like there was no rush at all. He curled instinctively and the boot found the back of his knee, forcing his leg out, leaving him to fall badly.
He was bleeding from somewhere near his eye. He could feel it moving down his temple, warm and slow, before the swelling started pulling the skin tight. His lip had split somewhere in the second or third hit. His cheek — the burned side — had started to throb in a way that went beyond pain into something else entirely, something his nervous system didn't have proper language for.
He tried to speak. What came out wasn't a word. The beating continued.
Not frantic. Not emotional. Methodical, considered, pausing occasionally like whoever was delivering it was assessing the results. A sneaker pressed briefly into Subarashī's wrist, grinding down until he made a sound, then lifted. A fist found the side of his head just above the ear.
He stopped trying to get up.
He wasn't unconscious. That almost would have been better. He was awake for all of it, aware of the floor under his face, aware of the blood pooling beneath his cheek, aware that the bacon had stopped sizzling at some point and now there was just smoke and the smoke alarm going off somewhere distantly and the sound of his own breathing, wet and ragged, punctuated by sounds he couldn't suppress no matter how hard he tried.
The figure crouched near him at one point. Subarashī couldn't see his face — just that composure, that stillness, that absolute absence of urgency. Then footsteps again. Moving away. Down the hallway.
Subarashī lay on his kitchen floor and didn't move. Couldn't be sure, for a moment, that moving was something his body still knew how to do. The smoke alarm screamed. His eye was already swollen.
He stayed there. Time passed. He didn't know how much.
Consciousness dipped in and out — not full darkness, just that grey peripheral drift where thought became difficult and staying present required effort he wasn't sure he had. The kitchen floor was cold. He registered that distantly.
Then the kick to the chin.
His jaw snapped shut and his head threw itself back against the floor, and then there was only white — real white this time, not grey, total and absolute — and Subarashī's body went still.
When he came back, he was alone. He knew before he opened his eyes. The quality of the quiet was different. The presence was gone.
He lay on the kitchen floor for a long time before he tried to move. One hand, then the other. Then slowly, badly, his elbows. The world tilted when he got his head up. He stayed there on his hands and knees for a while, just breathing.
His reflection caught in the glass of the oven door across from him. He looked at it for a long moment. Then he looked away. Miyaka came home in the early morning, earlier than he'd expected.
She pushed open the front door and said his name once, casually, the way you do when you're announcing yourself — and then stopped. The smoke alarm had gone silent at some point. The kitchen light was still on.
She didn't say anything for a moment. Neither did he. Miyaka's expression did something she couldn't control. And she screamed, and everything went white. And the last noice he heard was the sound of an ambulance.
Outside, the sky was beginning to lighten at the edges. The neighborhood was still.
[NARRATOR: And so it begins. The transfer student with a perfect smile. Broken pencils and vandalized dreams. Miyaka and Subarashī targeted by someone who just met them. Riyura watching, waiting, knowing something's wrong but unable to prove it yet. Next episode: The destruction escalates. The smile never wavers. And slowly, piece by piece, Hariko begins dismantling everything Miyaka and Subarashī have built. The tragedy accelerates. Stay with us.]
TO BE CONTINUED...