The daily life of Suguru Tenshi unfolded no differently from anyone else's.
The same streets.
The same sky.
The same faces drifting past him, never truly seen and never truly remembered.
Each morning bled into the next, separated only by details too small to matter. A different cloud. A colder breeze. A new crack in the sidewalk. Changes so faint they barely deserved to be called changes at all.
To Suguru, the days did not move forward.
They looped.
Moments stacked on top of one another like frozen frames, identical from a distance, only different if someone cared enough to look closely.
And Suguru no longer did.
Life continued around him, always moving, always making noise, while he followed his routine without thought. His walk to school passed in broken fragments: footsteps tapping against familiar pavement, the low hum of traffic, the distant chatter of students, the weight of his bag pulling against one shoulder.
The school gates waited for him like they always did.
Their paint was chipped in the same places. Their metal bars cast the same shadows. Suguru was sure he could have walked through them with his eyes closed.
The classroom was unchanged.
Rows of desks.
Faded posters.
The lingering scent of chalk dust and disinfectant.
Suguru slid into his seat and rested his arms on the desk. The surface was cold. It was always cold. The chill seeped through his sleeves and into his skin, grounding him in a place that felt less like a beginning and more like a sentence he had already read too many times.
Around him, voices droned on.
Pages turned.
Chairs scraped against the floor.
A teacher spoke at the front of the room, but the words blurred together until they became nothing more than background noise.
Suguru stared down at his desk.
Then, without even realizing it, his eyes slowly closed.
Sleep came easily.
It always did.
When he opened them again, the cold was gone.
The desk beneath his arms no longer existed.
The walls of the classroom had vanished.
Suguru blinked, his breath catching in his throat as unfamiliar air brushed against his skin. It felt wrong—too open, too vast, too real. The sterile scent of chalk and disinfectant had been replaced by something ancient and heavy, like damp earth, moss, and distant rain.
He slowly pushed himself up.
Around him stretched a place he did not know.
No desks.
No students.
No teacher.
No school.
Only silence.
Suguru turned in place, searching for someone—anyone—but there was no one to be seen.
Not a single person.
Just him.
Alone in a world that was not his own.
To be continued…