~To survive, you must be strong.~
That sentence kept circling in my head since morning. Not like advice—more like an echo with no clear origin.
I arrived at school later than usual. My body felt as if I had just finished a long journey, even though all I did yesterday was walk around Shibuya with Misaki. The exhaustion didn't feel proportional. Too deep. Too heavy.
The school corridor looked… strange.
Not reshaped. Not misplaced.
Just unreal.
My footsteps sounded too loud, as if they were striking directly inside my skull. The distant laughter of students clashed like thin pieces of metal scraping together. Too sharp. Too close—despite being dozens of meters away.
I covered my ears for a moment.
Nothing changed.
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1. Colors That Fade
Inside the classroom, sunlight streamed through the windows—but it wasn't warm. It looked washed out, as if it had been rinsed too many times, leaving only a pale yellow residue.
I saw Misaki cleaning her desk with Machiba.
I knew they were laughing.
I knew they were joking.
But it all looked like a film scene playing out of sync.
Their lips moved.
Expressions formed.
Yet the world felt like it was behind thick glass.
I blinked.
Once.
Twice.
The colors stayed faded.
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2. Suri's Desk and the Overly Large Empty Space
I glanced at Suri's desk.
Her chair was still flipped upside down on top of it.
Empty.
The emptiness felt… noisy.
Like a small black hole inside the classroom, slowly pulling attention and air toward it.
I noticed something unsettling:
I knew the seat was empty.
I knew the general reason.
But my emotional response to it felt… distant.
Not dead.
Not gone.
More like viewing it from an unreasonable distance.
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3. Accusations from a World That Doesn't Feel Like Mine
Whispers began to surface.
Broken phrases.
Suri's name.
My name.
Revenge.
The words floated like thin smoke. I could hear them—but I wasn't fully inside them.
Then I realized too late—I wasn't just thinking about Suri. There were other shadows listening behind her name. And in that moment I understood: Suri was never alone.
My awareness snapped sharp when I saw Tomo and his friends moving toward my desk—their steps slow and certain, like an approaching threat I couldn't avoid.
Their steps were heavy.
Their faces too clear.
The world around me slowed down—except for them.
Tomo stopped right in front of me.
His shadow fell across my desk like a dark stain.
What burned in my ears that morning wasn't mere gossip—but accusation. Suri's friends claimed I was the cause of everything, the reason she no longer set foot in school.
"Satoshi."
He said my name quietly—yet it made the surrounding world feel distant, as if only that sound remained.
Then, without raising his voice, without visible emotion, he continued:
"Admit it… what you did to Suri."
Not loud.
Not explosive.
But his voice felt sharper than it should—like a thin blade dragged inside my ear.
I answered him.
I know I did.
I know the words left my mouth loudly.
But it felt like I was watching myself from the corner of the room.
I saw my lips move.
I heard my voice.
But I didn't truly feel like I was the one speaking.
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4. Borrowed Emotion
I denied it.
I explained.
He rejected it.
I raised my voice.
We clashed.
Words about alibis.
About being at home.
About the lack of evidence.
They came out in sequence—logical, structured.
Yet strangely…
the emotions felt borrowed.
The anger wasn't entirely mine.
The courage felt like it belonged to someone else who happened to be using my body.
When Tomo pressed harder, I pushed back even harder.
And in the middle of my shouting, another voice slipped in.
Very soft.
Very calm.
"You're doing well."
I froze for a fraction of a second.
No one had opened their mouth.
But the voice was clear inside my head.
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5. Faces That Look Too Flat
I studied the faces around me.
Eyes open.
Brows moving.
Mouths reacting.
Yet everything felt flat—like masks placed on living mannequins.
Even Tomo's anger…
looked like a printed image pasted onto reality.
I wondered:
Had they become unreal?
Or was I the one drifting away from reality?
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6. Harsh Words That Don't Feel Like Mine
"What proof do you have?"
"Any witnesses?"
"If there's no proof, stop making accusations."
My voice trembled but stayed firm. They could accuse me, whisper behind my back, stare as if I were already guilty—but they had no proof. Only wild intuition and suspicion born from coincidence—that I was the last victim, that I was the most likely to hold a grudge.
As if buried anger automatically made me the culprit.
As if being hurt granted permission to destroy everything in return.
They forgot something simple—suspecting is not proving. Deduction is not built from fragments of coincidence. Just because I was the last to clash with Suri didn't make me the defendant of their story.
They spoke as if, if Suri truly vanished tomorrow, all my suffering would vanish too—finished, resolved—as if I would smile over the ruins.
How easily they built logic on suspicion.
How lightly they placed guilt on my shoulders.
Then the sentence came out:
"If you don't have proof, shut up, trash."
Exactly like Misaki.
I know I said it.
I felt the vibration in my throat.
But when the words left me…
what I felt wasn't just satisfaction.
It was unfamiliar.
Like someone else had used my voice.
Strangely… it felt good.
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7. The Silence After the Clash
Tomo stepped back.
His expression changed—not because of my words, but because of something in me I didn't understand.
The crowd dispersed.
Sounds returned to normal.
But the world…
Did not return with them.
Desks.
Walls.
Light.
Everything felt like a replica of the real world.
A slightly flawed copy.
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8. A Thin Crack in My Mind
I sat down again.
My hands trembled.
My breathing didn't feel like it reached my lungs.
And through it all, one question hovered like fog:
Did that courage come from me?
Or from something that had been walking inside my head for a long time—
waiting for the right moment to speak through my body?
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9. Closing — A Slightly Fake World
The bell rang.
The class grew loud again.
But to me, it sounded like an old recording played from far away.
I looked at my desk.
At my hands.
And for one terrifying moment…
I wasn't completely sure any of this was truly real.
All I know is this:
I've begun living in a world that feels like a copy of reality.
And I'm not sure whether I want to return—
or sink deeper into it.