BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
The alarm drills straight into my skull.
I jerk upright, heart slamming against my ribs like it's trying to break out. For one second I can't breathe. The bedroom is full of smoke. The air is thick and black. The ceiling is cracking. There's fire in the doorway..
No. There's… nothing.
Just my dim little room. Faded curtains. Posters on the wall. Morning light leaking through the window.
I'm sitting on my futon, drenched in sweat.
My hands claw at my throat on instinct. No smoke. No heat. My fingers come away clean instead of black. The only thing burning is my lungs, like I just ran as hard as I could.
My alarm keeps shrieking on the floor.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
I fumble for my phone and smack it off. The noise cuts out and leaves the room too quiet.
For a few seconds I just sit there, breathing hard, waiting for my heart to calm down.
"It was… a dream," I say out loud, just to hear my own voice.
It sounds wrong. Thin. Shaky.
The details are still there when I close my eyes.
Orange light swallowing the hallway. The stink of melted plastic. Miyu's hand reaching for me from under the broken desk. Her scream cutting off. The ceiling falling.
I can still feel the heat licking up my legs, the moment my knees hit the floor, that last stupid thought.
If there's a next time… I'll do it right.
I shiver and force my eyes open.
The red digits on my alarm clock glare back at me.
7:02 a.m.
TUE 17
Tuesday.
…Wait.
Didn't I already have a Tuesday?
My brain runs in a circle, then crashes into a wall. Of course I had a Tuesday. That's how I got to the fire. We had homeroom, math, that boring safety drill joke, lunch—
—and then 3:17 p.m., and then fire, and then—
My stomach flips.
Maybe I mixed up the days. Maybe I dreamed yesterday too. Maybe I—
"Satoru! You're going to be late again!" my mother yells from the kitchen. "Get up already!"
Her voice slams into my chest harder than the alarm.
The exact same words. The same rhythm. The same annoyed edge on "again".
I know that line. I heard it… yesterday morning. Before school. Before
"Yeah, yeah, I'm up!" I shout back automatically.
I always say it like that. Half‑joking, half‑complaint. It slides out of my mouth without thinking, and that's what scares me.
I push myself to my feet. My legs feel strange, like they remember burning and falling even though they're perfectly fine.
The mirror over my desk shows a pale, sweaty guy with bed hair and dark circles. His name is Satoru Ishikawa. Second year. Background character. Decent grades when he tries. Good at pretending not to see things.
He looks exactly like he did yesterday morning.
No scorch marks. No bandages. No hospital.
If it was real, I should be dead.
I force out a laugh that sounds way too high. "Yeah. Obviously a dream."
People don't die and then wake up back in their own beds. That's anime nonsense. Light novel trash. Stuff idiots joke about when the test scores come out.
Whatever that fire was, it was just my brain screwing with me. Stress. Too many late nights. Too much instant ramen.
I strip off my sweat‑soaked T‑shirt and toss it in the laundry basket, then pull on the same uniform as always: white shirt, dark blazer, pants that never fit quite right. The fabric is cool and clean against my skin. Not a single burn.
It shouldn't feel disappointing.
You wanted normal, right? I tell myself. You got it.
My phone buzzes as I'm buttoning up. A LINE notification pops up on the lock screen:
Yuta: Oi, you alive?
I don't open it.
For a moment I see him, too—the way he looked in the fire. Ash on his face. Hands bleeding where he tried to pry open the door. Shouting something I couldn't hear over the roar.
I swallow hard and pocket the phone.
Kitchen. Breakfast. School. Normal.
If I move, maybe the nightmare will stay where it belongs.
The smell of miso soup hits me as soon as I slide open the kitchen door. My mother stands at the stove in her apron, hair pulled back in a quick ponytail, watching the clock with that face she wears when she's already late in her head.
She turns as I come in, opening her mouth.
"I was going to throw water on you if you didn't get up in five minutes," she says.
My feet stop.
That line, too. Exactly.
"Tch. Abusing your only son. That's some child‑rearing you've got going on," I say, sitting down at the table.
The words feel old in my mouth, like I've said them a hundred times. Maybe I have. Maybe that's all this is—habit. Deja vu. I'm just noticing it because of the dream.
She snorts. "If I don't drag you out of bed, who will? Eat. You've got tests this week."
"Yeah, yeah."
Rice. Miso. Grilled fish. The same cheap brand of natto we always buy. I take a bite. It tastes normal. Good, even. My hands are still shaking a little, but Mom doesn't seem to notice. She's already checking something on her phone, frowning about bills or work or the news. The TV in the corner mutters through the morning variety show.
I look up at the screen.
A weather map. A smiling announcer. Text at the bottom: "Hoshimi City – Sunny, high of 28°C."
They play the same stupid jingle as yesterday.
Of course they do. It's the forecast. It doesn't change because I had a bad dream.
Mom sighs and sets her phone down. "And don't stay up watching those stupid videos again. I could hear you laughing at midnight."
"I wasn't—" I start, then stop.
Because I was. Yesterday. At midnight. Some compilation Yuta sent me. I remember the clip. The weird cat that jumped every time they said "yamero."
I shouldn't remember it so clearly if it all got burned away in a real fire.
"Fine. I'll sleep like a good little boy," I mutter instead.
She rolls her eyes. "That'll be the day. Don't forget your lunch. I'm on the late shift tonight, so don't wait up, okay?"
"Got it."
She moves around the tiny kitchen, grabbing her bag, her keys. Kisses the top of my head on autopilot as she passes behind me.
I flinch.
For a second, instead of the warm touch of her hand, I feel nothing. Just a blank space where something should be. Like a photo with a piece torn out.
Then it's gone, and she's at the door, calling, "Lock up when you leave!"
The door clicks shut.
Silence.
I stare at the half‑empty bowl in front of me.
That… was weird.
I remember her kissing my head like that this morning. The last "this morning." Before the fire. Every time she does it, I get annoyed and pretend I'm too old for it, but it's still… there. Warm. Embarrassing.
Except just now, for a second, my brain gave me nothing. Like the memory skipped.
I push the thought away and shovel the rest of the rice into my mouth.
Nightmare hangover. That's all.
I wash my dishes, throw my bento into my bag, and step outside.
The air in front of our crappy apartment building is already warm. Summer's trying to suffocate the city early this year. Cicadas buzz from the few trees that haven't given up on this neighborhood.
I take a deep breath.
No smoke. Just car exhaust and somebody's breakfast.
"See? Normal," I mutter.
On the way to school, I pass the same things I always do:
The vending machine on the corner with two dead buttons. The old man sweeping in front of the tobacco shop. The alley cat that likes to sprawl in the shade and pretend it's invisible.
Today, the cat darts out from under the vending machine, almost right into my leg, and slinks away with its tail puffed up.
I freeze.
Yesterday—no, in the dream—it did that too. Same place. Same annoyed flick of the tail when I startled it.
I turn and look at the vending machine. My reflection looks back, faint in the scratched plastic.
My heart starts thumping again.
"Coincidence," I tell myself. "It's a cat. It does that every day."
I keep walking.
A delivery truck rumbles past. A cyclist nearly hits me coming around a corner and yells "Watch it!" over his shoulder. A crow swoops down and steals something out of a trash bag, cawing like it scored the winning goal.
Each tiny thing sparks a match in my head, lighting up a line of memory.
I've seen this.
Heard this.
Stepped here.
By the time the school's gray bulk comes into view, my palms are damp.
The gate is crowded with uniforms and chatter. Hoshimi Municipal High looks as normal and ugly as ever. No black scorch marks. No broken windows. No smell of—
Gas.
Faint. There and gone.
My nose twitches.
It's nothing. Old pipes. A chemistry class. Somebody's cheap lighter.
"Yo, Satoru!"
Yuta's voice shoves me from the side. I flinch as he slaps an arm around my shoulders.
He grins, same as always—messy hair, blazer open, tie hanging loose. Human golden retriever. The kind of guy teachers complain about and girls giggle over.
"You look like crap," he says cheerfully. "Stayed up late reading those cursed forum threads again?"
The line hits me like ice water.
He said that. Yesterday morning. Same stupid smirk. Same hand on my shoulder.
In the—dream.
My mouth is suddenly dry.
"I… yeah. Something like that," I manage.
"Ha! Knew it. One day your eyeballs are gonna melt from staring at that screen, and I'm gonna laugh." He cackles and tightens his arm around my neck in a half‑headlock. "At least die in a cool way, man. Get hit by a truck saving a cat or something. Don't go out like 'Guy Who Laughed Himself to Death at 2 A.M.'"
I choke on a laugh that's halfway to a cough. "Thanks for the support, best friend."
He lets me go and we join the stream of students heading inside. Shoes off, indoor slippers on. The rhythm is automatic. It feels like stepping into a recorded loop.
"Saw Tanaka this morning?" Yuta asks as we climb the stairs. "Apparently those third‑years were messing with her again yesterday."
My foot slips on the step.
Miyu Tanaka. The girl under the desk. The hand reaching, the voice saying don't leave me.
"I heard," I say.
"I didn't. I was too busy being handsome," Yuta says, puffing his chest out. "But seriously, if they go too far, I'm gonna say something. The homeroom rep's useless."
You didn't say anything, I think. Not in the fire. Not when we all panicked.
Neither did I.
We reach the third floor. The hallway stretches ahead, endless beige and doors and notice boards. Sunlight spills through the windows on one side. The glass is clean. It won't be for long.
For a second I see it the way it was when I died: walls blackened, windows cracked, smoke crawling along the ceiling like a living thing.
I blink and it's gone.
"You okay?" Yuta asks. "You're zoning out hard, man."
"Just… tired." I force a smile. "I'll crash after class."
He snorts. "You'll crash during class."
We duck into Class 2‑B.
Chairs scraping, bags thumping down, chatter bouncing off the walls. Somebody complains about math homework. Someone else tries to copy it last second. The homeroom teacher, Mr. Takeda, sits at the desk with his coffee, pretending not to notice the chaos until the last possible second.
And near the back, by the window, Miyu Tanaka is quietly taking her seat.
She's alive.
Of course she is. It was a dream. A vivid, messed‑up dream.
Her hair is pinned back with the same cheap clip. Her uniform is neat. She slides her pencil case out of her bag with careful fingers. When one of the girls in the front row glances back and snickers, Miyu's shoulders tighten just a little.
I remember the way she screamed.
My throat closes.
Yuta drops into the seat in front of mine. I drop into mine by the window. From here, if I lean just a bit, I can see Miyu's profile. She doesn't look at anyone.
Mr. Takeda stands up, claps his hands. "All right, settle down. Morning homeroom."
His tone, the timing, the clap—it's all exact. My heart starts pounding again.
"Everyone's here?" He glances around, barely checking. "Good. First—"
I mouth the next words with him without meaning to.
"—we have an announcement from the student council about the hallway safety inspection."
He blinks, then continues: "There have been some complaints about students leaving things in the corridors. Make sure you're not blocking—"
His voice washes over me. I've heard this speech. Not just yesterday. I remember the exact pause he takes before he says "blocking." The way Yuta leans back in his chair to whisper a dumb comment. The exact second someone drops a book three rows over.
This is wrong.
My fingers dig into the edge of my desk.
If it was just the cat, just Yuta's joke, just my mom's lines, I could write it off. Habits. Coincidence. Deja vu from a brain that dreams too much.
But this is every breath, every sound, landing exactly where it did.
My eyes snap to the clock above the blackboard.
8:32 a.m.
In my… dream, I checked the clock at this exact moment too. Because Mr. Takeda's announcement was boring. Because Yuta was poking my back with his eraser. Because I wanted the day to hurry up so I could go home and pretend homework didn't exist.
And then, hours later, at 3:17 p.m., the building tried to kill us.
My mouth goes dry.
No way. No way no way no way.
I test it.
My gaze slides to the right, to the window.
Three… two… one…
A bird slams into the glass with a dull thud, flutters wildly for a second, then recovers and flies off, leaving a faint smudge.
The class bursts into laughter and squeals. Mr. Takeda winces.
"See? Even the birds don't want to listen to you," Yuta mutters.
I don't laugh.
Because that happened yesterday too. Same stupid pigeon, same smudge, same line from Yuta.
My skin crawls.
I stare down at my hands. They're shaking again.
Okay. Okay. Either I'm losing my mind, or—
—or I really did die, and somehow, some impossible way, I woke up back at the start.
Back at the save point.
The word drops into my head out of nowhere. Save point. Like a game. Like all those jokes online.
People say they want that. The ability to redo a bad day. Fix everything. Choose differently.
I thought that too, once.
Right now, I just feel sick.
Homeroom ends. Classes blur by—math, Japanese, English. The teachers say the same things, write the same problems. The same kid gets the same wrong answer and everyone snickers.
I stop trying to tell myself it's a dream.
It's too precise. Too sharp. Every time I think, He's about to drop his pen, someone actually does. Every time I think, She's going to ask to go to the nurse, Haruka raises her hand.
By lunchtime, my head is buzzing.
At some point, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I don't check it. I already know it's Yuta sending me a meme he found during class. I saw it yesterday. A guy with too many chins photoshopped onto a cat. It wasn't funny then either.
The smell of curry from the cafeteria seeps into the room. My stomach twists.
I force myself to stand and walk over to the window.
The courtyard below is sunny and full of life. First‑years run around. A couple shares a drink by the vending machine. Someone chases a soccer ball that almost hits a teacher.
All of it lined up on invisible tracks, rolling toward something.
"Hey, Satoru." Yuta appears at my elbow with his bento. "You okay? You're quiet. Quiet‑er. Creeping me out, man."
I look at him. There's ash on his face in my head. Blood on his hands. In reality he's just grinning, chopsticks in hand, completely unaware that, in another version of today, he died banging on a door that wouldn't open.
"I just had a weird dream," I say.
As soon as the word "dream" leaves my mouth, something cold slides up my spine.
My heart stutters. The air thins.
I swallow the rest of the sentence that wanted to come out—about all of us dying—and it sticks in my throat like a bone.
"Like, weird weird, or your usual pervert stuff?" Yuta wiggles his eyebrows.
"Shut up," I mutter, turning away.
The pressure in my chest eases. Slowly.
Whatever that … thing … is that grabbed me when I tried to speak the truth in the fire—it's still there. Waiting.
I'm not allowed to talk about it.
Great. Fantastic. Perfect.
"Man, you are off today," Yuta says, but he lets it go. "Anyway, you hear about the safety inspection? I bet they'll finally throw out that old junk in the third‑floor storage room."
Storage room.
Third floor.
My eyes drift toward the door.
There was a smell in the hallway this morning. Faint. Sharp. Under the regular school stink.
Gas.
In the… first run, I ignored it. Told myself it was nothing. Just like I ignored Miyu being cornered by those girls. Just like I ignored my mom asking if I was really okay.
By 3:17 p.m., ignoring had consequences.
I glance up at the clock.
12:41 p.m.
Hours left. And at the same time, not nearly enough.
My hand curls into a fist on the windowsill.
If this is real—if I really am repeating the day I died—then whatever happens at 3:17 isn't "fate." It's a chain of stupid decisions and broken things and people like me not doing anything.
Maybe I can change one link.
Just one.
My eyes find Miyu again. She's eating at her desk, alone, unpacking a small, neat bento. The girls who like to whisper about her are clustered near the door, glancing back, giggling quietly.
I remember her voice, raw and desperate.
Don't leave me.
My chest tightens.
I drag my gaze to the classroom door.
I don't know what caused the explosion. I don't know what's leaking or where, or if it even is a leak. I don't know why saying anything about loops makes a monster grab my heart.
But I remember the smell in the third‑floor hallway, just outside the science labs. I remember thinking, Somebody should tell a teacher.
I remember not doing it.
This time:
I push off the windowsill.
"Where you going?" Yuta asks, mouth full.
"Bathroom," I lie.
"Oh. Have fun."
Idiot.
My heart hammers as I step into the hall.
The light out here is too bright. The lockers, the posters, the scuffed floor tiles—all familiar, all wrong. I walk slowly at first, then faster, toward the bend in the corridor where the science wing starts.
Each step echoes in my ears.
If this is just a dream, I'm an idiot. If it's not…
I turn the corner.
The smell hits me like a memory.
Sharp. Chemical. Faint, but definitely there, seeping out from under the door of the unused storage room by the lab.
Yesterday—or whatever you want to call it—I wrinkled my nose, thought, Man, that's nasty, and kept walking.
This time I stop.
My hand hovers over the doorknob, sweat beading on my palm.
Somewhere far away in the building, someone laughs. A chair scrapes. A teacher raises their voice.
Here, it's quiet.
I curl my fingers around the metal, take a breath—
—and in the back of my skull, like someone whispering through a wall, I hear it:
If there's a next time… I'll do it right.
I turn the knob.
The door creaks open.
And the smell of gas rushes out to meet me.
To be continued.