( A;N: Hey đź‘‹ Happy new year y'all hope you enjoy the work give your honest opinions on this )
It had been a few hours since Akhu had left their small group with that one strange sentence:
"I'm not Japanese."
The words kept looping in Akira's head like a broken record.
How could that be?
He spoke Japanese as fluently as any of them standing around her. His accent was natural, his intonation smooth. He might not have looked like the traditional idea of a Japanese man, but he did not look that different either. He had sharp features, a defined jawline, narrow eyes, and pale skin. If anything, he looked better than average for a normal Japanese guy. She wouldn't lie about that.
He had that rugged, bad-boy, handsome face—the kind of look those popular villain-campus guys in the comics she used to read always had. The nauseating rich second-generation kid look. The kind of person who always strutted into the scene with a smirk and a secret, making people both wary and oddly drawn in.
But still… if he wasn't Japanese, then what was he?
And even if he wasn't of the same ethnicity, he spoke their language so well. Wouldn't he be able to blend in just fine with them anyway?
"I don't get it…" Akira murmured under her breath, more to herself than anyone else, fingers tightening around the edge of her sleeve.
She was already distraught over this entire situation—being ripped away from a New Year's party with her friends alongside Kaede. It was supposed to be the start of a fresh year and a new term in their university lives, their third year as students, on the verge of graduation. After this year, it would have been her turn to step into the corporate world and go job hunting. She had been looking forward to seeing her crush again—a tall, gracefully warm-looking classmate who majored with her in business economics.
She could still picture him clearly: the way he always held the classroom door open, the way he listened when others spoke, the easy smile that made her chest feel light. She had planned a simple greeting for when classes resumed. Just "Happy New Year, did you have fun?" Something normal. Something utterly mundane.
Instead…
One moment she had been counting down to the new year with her friends, lights flashing, music blaring, the voices blending into a messy, happy chorus.
"Three!"
"Two!"
"One!"
Her eyes had closed for just a second when the confetti popped—
And when she opened them again… she was here.
No transition. No dizziness. No gradual sense of falling.
Just a clean cut.
The rooftop bar, her friends, the warmth of the crowd, the winter air biting her cheeks—gone. Replaced in an instant by a vast, unfamiliar landscape. Sky. Sea. Trees. Strange structures in the distance.
Reality hadn't faded; it had snapped.
She had become an adult just last October. She'd drunk her first legal beer with her father that night, both of them laughing too loudly at nothing in particular. She had promised her parents she would be responsible, that she would take care of herself, that she would do her best.
And now… now she was pulled into this cruel "game" alongside her best friend for no reason she could understand. She didn't know why she had been chosen. She didn't know the rules. She didn't even know if she would see the next day.
All she knew was that being around familiar people—at least people who spoke her language—gave her a vague, fragile sense of comfort. Like thin glass between her and panic.
She lifted her head and turned her gaze toward the sky. Hovering above them, a massive blue holographic screen flickered like something out of a sci-fi movie. On it, thick white letters pulsed with a steady, ominous glow:
"Rendezvous location. Everyone must gather within 20 minutes."
Except now, the numbers had already ticked down. Not 20.
Only 7 minutes left.
The giant screen popping into existence out of nowhere had not helped with anyone's already frayed nerves. It only riled them up further, pulling muffled curses and sharp breaths from every direction.
"What the hell is that…?"
"Is this some kind of joke?"
"It's the aliens… it has to be them."
As Akira's gaze drifted away from the screen, it settled on the largest cluster of people near the center of the open area. A mixed bunch—foreigners, Westerners, and a scattering of others. The division among everyone here was already obvious. People grouped themselves by language, by appearance, by whatever tiny piece of familiarity they could cling to. The invisible lines between those groups had already become a quiet chasm.
The countdown continued its merciless descent.
People started doing headcounts in anxious clusters.
"Do we have everyone?"
"Wasn't there another guy with us?"
"Where's that tall foreigner?"
Some whispered, some spoke too loudly just to drown out their own fear. Most seemed shaken, trying to mentally prepare themselves for whatever would happen when the timer reached zero.
"Is this the 'game' that alien talked about?" someone muttered near Akira.
She remembered the alien's voice—cold, detached, the words reaching them inside their heads rather than through their ears.
It said the game would start at dawn.
Yet when she lifted her hand to shade her eyes and glanced toward the horizon, the sun was still high but beginning its descent over an endless ocean. It looked more like early afternoon than evening.
"What time is it even supposed to be…" she whispered.
Beside her, Kaede huddled closer, their shoulders almost pressed together. Kaede's breath trembled faintly, visible in the cool air.
"Akira," Kaede asked in a low voice, "have you seen Akhu-san?"
Akira blinked, pulled from her thoughts.
"No… not since he said that weird thing. About not being Japanese."
Her mouth tugged down slightly. "Do you think… something happened to him?"
Kaede bit her lower lip, eyes scanning the edge of the forest that bordered the clearing. "Should we go look for him? He left alone, right? What if he got lost or…"
Akira hesitated. As brief as their encounter with him had been, neither of them had gotten a bad impression. If anything, he seemed… strangely calm. Detached, but not unkind. The first person here who didn't immediately look like he was going to break.
"He helped us at the start," Akira murmured. "It feels wrong to just leave him if he's nearby and in trouble."
Just as they started to move, one of the guys from their group, Yamato another leader acknowledged by their group, raised his voice.
"Oi, you two! Don't wander off now." He jerked his chin toward the sky. "There's only a few minutes left on that thing."
Another girl, Saki, crossed her arms tightly. "Yeah, that screen… there's no way anyone can miss it, right? Even if he went somewhere, he'll see it and come back here. We should stick together."
"He'll come," someone else added, almost like they were reassuring themselves as well. "Unless he's really far away. But if he is… what can we do?"
Kaede frowned. "But—"
"Kaede-san, Akira-San," Takeshi cut in, a bit more gently this time, "it's dangerous to split up now. We don't even know what happens at zero. Just stay here for now. If he's nearby, he'll see this huge blue sign in the sky, right?"
They weren't wrong. It was almost impossible to miss the hologram unless someone was miles away or unconscious. The logic of it settled heavily in Akira's chest.
She exchanged a glance with Kaede. In that brief look, they both understood the same thing.
"Five minutes," Akira whispered. "If he's not here by five minutes before it ends… we go look for him. Just a little. At least try."
Kaede nodded firmly. "Right. Five minutes. It wouldn't be fair to just forget about him. He was the first one to talk to us like normal people here."
They both turned back toward the group and stayed, shifting their weight anxiously from foot to foot, eyes flicking from the numbers in the sky to the tree line.
Akira felt her heartbeat in her throat as the timer ticked down.
Every second felt like it stretched and warped.
6:59… 6:58…
The minutes seemed to last forever.
Fear coiled inside her like a snake, but another feeling rose with it—homesickness. Her thoughts drifted unwillingly toward home, toward the ordinary life that seemed so painfully distant now.
Her mother, frail but headstrong, always nagging her to help around the house, nagging her about her studies and her friends and the late nights.
Her father, the "head of the house," stern in front of others but secretly soft, who slid her an extra piece of grilled fish at dinner when he thought no one was looking.
Her bratty little brother, always loud, always stealing her snacks and shrieking when she chased him down the hallway.
What were they doing right now?
Were they worried?
Did they even know she was gone, or had time itself twisted between here and there?
"I'm sorry…" The words never left her lips, but she whispered them in her mind over and over. "I'm sorry, Mom. Dad. I'll come back. I'll make it back somehow… so please…"
She swallowed hard, forcing down the burning in her throat. Tears threated to rise, but she blinked them away. Crying here wouldn't help anyone. If she broke down, Kaede would too.
"Akira," Kaede said softly, noticing the slight tremor in her shoulders. "You okay?"
Akira forced a small, brittle smile. "Yeah. I'm fine. Just… thinking."
"Don't think too much," Kaede replied, her own smile wobbly. "We'll just end up scaring ourselves more."
As the countdown continued—6:03 minutes left—the two girls kept stealing quick glances around them. They tried to join in the short, nervous conversations happening nearby. It worked as a thin distraction, a temporary patch over the rising tide of fear.
"Where do you think we are?"
"Some kind of island, maybe?"
"Why us? What makes us so special?"
"Special? Feels more like we're just… unlucky."
The light seemed to change as the minutes passed, the sun sliding just a fraction lower. Shadows lengthened across the dirt and grass. The air felt heavier, like it knew something was coming.
The timer in the sky slid closer to 5:00.
5:07… 5:06…
Akira's fingers curled into fists. "If he's not here at five," she muttered under her breath, "we go. No matter what they say."
Kaede nodded, already shifting her weight forward, ready to spring into motion. "Right. We'll just check the tree line. It won't take long, and we'll stay close."
Just as the timer hovered about to touch 5:00, Akira's eyes caught movement at the edge of the shadowed forest.
"Kaede—look."
From the dark hollows between the trees, a figure emerged. The same silhouette. The same green jacket. The same steady, unhurried stride.
Akhu.
His expression looked as calm as ever, his gaze steady even though he walked alone. No panic, no frantic hurry like the rest of them. He didn't seem to be rushed by the countdown or the tension simmering in the air.
People noticed him, heads turning in his direction, but their attention did not linger for long. Most were too consumed by the glowing numbers above, too busy wrestling with their own fear to care about one quiet figure stepping out from the trees.
"He came back…" Kaede exhaled, relief softening her shoulders.
"Akhu-san!" Akira called out without thinking.
She and Kaede broke away from their group and sprinted toward him. Akira's footsteps pounded against the ground, her breath coming out in sharp bursts, not only from the run but from the pressure she hadn't realized was crushing her chest.
"Mou.. Where were you!" Kaede's voice came out half-scolding, half-shaky. "We were about to go look for you! Do you know how worried we were, even if we don't know each other that well we did group up first !"
Akhu stopped and watched them approach, his gaze briefly flicking up toward the timer before returning to their faces. For a heartbeat, something unreadable flashed in his eyes.
Then he smiled, just a faint tug at the corner of his mouth, almost apologetic.
"Sorry," he said. His tone was calm, the kind that smoothed over rough edges. "I didn't mean to make you worry."
Akira bent forward slightly, hands on her knees as she caught her breath. "We thought… something happened to you," she muttered. "You just disappeared after saying weird things and then—"
Kaede puffed out her cheeks. "Yeah! Please At least tell us if you're going somewhere. What if the game started and you weren't here?"
Their group called to them from behind.
"Akira-San! Kaede-San!"
"Get back here!"
"It's almost over !"
"We should go," Kaede said hastily. Without another word, she grabbed Akhu's wrist and hooked her other arm through Akira's, tugging both of them back toward the main group with long, hurried strides.
As they walked, Akira's nose twitched. There was a strange scent in the air—a sharp, metallic tang that sliced faintly through the damp, earthy smell of the trees and sea breeze.
Iron…
Or something like it.
She sniffed again, more subtly this time. The smell seemed stronger the closer she was to Akhu, but with the breeze shifting and so many people around, it was hard to be sure.
Kaede wrinkled her nose and tugged on Akhu's sleeve lightly. "Hey, your sleeve… It's a bit wet. Did you fall into a stream or something?"
Akira glanced down, following Kaede's gaze. In the faint light, the fabric of his sleeve did look darker in one patch, clinging slightly to his arm.
Akhu's expression shifted just a fraction. It was tiny—a pause, a brief tightening at the edges of his eyes, the almost-imperceptible strain around his mouth. Then it was gone.
"Ah," he exhaled, letting out a small, almost exasperated chuckle. "I just washed up a bit. Don't worry about it."
His voice was easy, his smile soft, but now that she was this close, Akira could feel it: the smallest crack in that calm exterior. Like a hairline fracture in glass.
It lasted only a heartbeat before he smoothed it over again.
Akira frowned slightly, looking at him a second longer. Something about the way he answered tugged at her instincts.
"Washed up…?" she repeated. "Where?"
"There's some a stream further in," he replied without missing a beat, eyes forward. "It's nothing."
She stared at him, then forced herself to look away. In this strange place, with an alien's words echoing in her skull and a countdown threatening to erase them all, she didn't know what to question and what to accept.
"You're overthinking," she told herself firmly. "He came back. That's what matters."
The three of them drew closer to Takeshi and the others. Voices swelled around them again, questions overlapping, fear pressing in from all sides.
Yet the metallic smell still lingered in the air, faint but stubborn, refusing to be brushed aside.
Akira inhaled quietly, that strange scent lodging itself in her memory even as she tried to ignore it. In the end she brushed it off as something not worth noting.