Ayumi stepped away from the classroom door first, walking faster now. "Let's keep moving. I don't trust anything in this wing."
Yui nodded quickly, staying close. Her bracelet was still glowing faintly—like a heartbeat. She covered it with her sleeve.
The hallway stretched longer than it should have. Windows they passed showed no outside world, just shifting static — like someone dragging a wet paintbrush across glass.
Then Ayumi stopped so suddenly that Yui bumped into her.
"What is it—?"
Ayumi raised her arm, pointing.
There, at the end of the corridor… was a display case.
One of those old wooden ones like in their real school, used for sports trophies or student of the month photos.
Except this one was different.
The glass was fogged up from the inside, coated in a thin layer of frost. There was only one item inside, placed carefully on a velvet pedestal.
Yui stepped closer, peering in.
It was her old 4th grade notebook.
The purple one. Spiral-bound, with her name written in big block letters and uneven glitter stickers. She hadn't seen it in years. It had been missing. She thought she lost it during their apartment move.
She felt like she couldn't breathe.
Ayumi leaned in too — her expression twisting as she spotted something new.
Her first friendship bracelet.
The one she'd made for Yui in 5th grade.
They both stared.
Then, without warning, the fog on the glass began to melt away, revealing more objects behind them — dozens of them — all belonging to Yui and Ayumi.
A cracked bento box from Ayumi's first day at middle school.
A ticket stub from the movie they'd ditched class to see.
A broken pen Yui had used to scribble spells in her old sketchbook.
Tiny pieces of their lives, displayed like artifacts in a museum curated by something that had been watching them for years.
Yui whispered, "How did these get here…?"
Ayumi reached forward.
The glass didn't stop her.
Her hand phased right through, like it wasn't real.
"…It's not a case," Ayumi said slowly. "It's a—"
A door appeared in front of them.
The entire wall behind the glass shimmered faintly. As if it weren't really a display at all, but a thin veil. A window into something hidden deeper.
Suddenly, a voice echoed faintly from behind it. Not a spirit's voice — a child's.
"Is the watermelon seed going to grow inside my stomach?" Yui froze.
"I… I said that. A long time ago. When we were 9, I accidentally swallowed a watermelon seed.."
Ayumi looked at her.
"I remember," she said. "You started crying afterwards."
Yui's heart thudded in her chest. She felt pulled toward the glass, toward the voice, toward whatever memory was being projected behind that veil.
Ayumi grabbed her arm quickly. "Yui. Don't."
Yui turned, startled.
"This place is digging through us," Ayumi said, quieter now. "It's not trying to kill us… yet. It's trying to weaken us. Confuse us. So when it finally attacks… we won't even know what's real anymore."
Yui stared back at the case… the notebook, the bracelet… her voice from years ago.
A part of her still wanted to go through.
But she nodded.
"You're right."
The bracelet on her ankle gave one last pulse, then dimmed.They turned and kept walking — faster now — away from the memories. But the voice followed them anyway.
Soft and from far behind.
"You're my best friend.."