Day 98.
The school bell rang.But I didn't hear it.Not really.
I sat alone by the classroom window, watching petals fall from a cherry tree outside.It wasn't even sakura season yet.But the wind carried fragments of something…memories maybe.
I flipped open my notebook and wrote:
"Today, I saw his eyes again.There's something behind them.A storm he never speaks of."
My hands trembled slightly.It was getting worse.
This morning I had forgotten where I put my shoes.Yesterday, I walked past my own house.I laughed it off.But I could feel the cracks forming—like my mind was an old film reel burning in slow motion.
During lunch, I wandered around the school.Past the gym.Past the back garden no one visited anymore.
And then I saw it.
The old music room.Locked. Dusty. Abandoned since the fire two years ago.
The fire.
Suddenly, pain stabbed the back of my head.
A flash.
A door slammed shut.A scream.A boy's voice yelling my name—"Aoi!"
I staggered back, gripping the wall. My notebook fell to the ground.
What was that?
The memory was too fast. Too blurred. Like a half-dream.But it was real.
After school, I approached him again.
Ren was alone behind the gym, smoking a cigarette.He didn't seem surprised to see me.Maybe he expected I'd come back.
"Do you smoke?" he asked, offering me one.
I shook my head.He didn't insist.
There was a long silence.Then I said, "Do you remember the music room?"
His hand froze mid-air.
"…No," he said.
But he was lying.I could see it in the way his jaw tightened, the way his eyes suddenly wouldn't meet mine.
I wanted to press him.To say, "Don't lie to me."But I didn't.
Because I remembered what fear looked like.And Ren…Ren was afraid.
That night, I dreamed of water.Cold.Dark.Filling my lungs.
And someone pulling me out.Warm hands.A voice whispering, "Don't close your eyes…"
When I woke up, I was crying.
I wrote in my notebook:
"Day 98.The memories are coming back, piece by piece.But they don't feel like mine.They feel like someone else's nightmares."
And beneath that, in smaller handwriting:
"Ren is hiding something.And whatever it is…I think it broke both of us."