It always started with a sound.
Not loud or jarring—just the ticking of the classroom clock. A tiny, persistent click as the second hand dragged itself around in a circle, like it had nowhere better to be.
He stared at it.
Tick.
He didn't blink.
Tick.
He didn't breathe.
Tick.
Then—snap.
The pencil split in his grip, clean and silent. White-knuckled fingers trembled slightly as the broken halves dropped into the trash. He didn't flinch. Just exhaled and returned to stillness, eyes blank as murmurs filled the classroom around him—talk of clubs, crushes, tests, weekend plans.
None of it touched him. It never did.
"Kamazaki-kun," said Mr. Tanabe from the front, arms folded, his tone half stern, half weary. "Try not to pulverize school property, yeah? We're not made of money."
Laughter rose—light, polite, distant. He returned a small smile. Hollow. Practiced.
And just like that, the room moved on.
So did he.
Lunch break brought a cold wind. He didn't head for the cafeteria—never did. Instead, he drifted behind the gym, where rusting fences rattled and the trash bins lined the concrete like forgotten ghosts. The sky was the color of ash—dull, lifeless, like someone had drained the world and left it running on memory.
He sat on the steps, sandwich in hand, chewing without tasting. The bread was dry. The filling, forgettable. His mind was elsewhere.
"You know, if you keep sitting out here like this, people'll start calling you the haunted kid."
A voice cut through the haze.
He glanced up.
A girl stood a few feet away, arms crossed, short brown hair tousled by the wind. Asuka. From Class 2-B. Loose tie, casual defiance. The kind of person who spoke to everyone without really belonging anywhere.
He blinked. "Then they wouldn't be wrong."
She raised an eyebrow. "That was darker than I expected."
"You asked."
"No, I teased." She stepped closer, sat beside him. "You're supposed to banter, not monologue like some tragic poet."
He didn't answer. Words were never his strength. But she didn't leave.
After a pause, she leaned back against the wall, watching the sky with a distant gaze.
"This weather reminds me of my brother's funeral."
The words dropped like stones in a quiet pond.
He blinked. That wasn't what he expected.
She noticed. Smirked faintly. "Relax. Not trauma-dumping. Just saying—grey skies remember things."
He looked up at the clouds. Wondered if they remembered him.
"I don't mind the weather."
"Figures."
Silence again. Not awkward. Just… full.
Then, softer, she asked, "Are you okay?"
It was such a simple question.
Too sharp.
Too real.
His lips parted. Then closed.
She didn't push.
The walk home stretched longer than usual. Streets still glistened from earlier rain, puddles catching flickers of neon as the city slowly lit itself up.
He drifted, legs on autopilot, until he found himself two blocks off-course—standing in an alleyway shrouded in half-shadow, where light didn't quite reach.
There, slumped against broken crates, was an old man.
Grimy. Hollow-eyed.
He didn't mean to stop. But he did.
The man stirred. Eyes met his—bloodshot, glassy.
"You…" the man rasped. "You've got something in you…"
No reaction.
"Something old… hungry…"
A chill crawled down his spine.
The man's gaze sharpened. "You smile like it's not there. But it is."
He walked away.
Quickly. Uneven steps echoing on cracked pavement.
Home was quieter than usual.
His mother noticed his shaking hands as he slipped off his shoes. "You okay?"
"Yeah."
"Kamazaki…"
"I said I'm fine."
She didn't argue. Just nodded—tired, worn-down.
Dinner was a muted ritual. His father barely spoke. Miri tried to talk about her school project, but her voice dwindled when no one answered. He wanted to speak. But the words dissolved in his throat, drowned by guilt and something else he couldn't name.
After dinner, he stood in the hallway, staring at a photo from four years ago.
Smiling faces. A frozen moment from a time before everything cracked.
He barely recognized the boy in it.
The dream came again.
White room. Infinite. Silent.
At the center—a mirror.
He walked toward it, feet bare against the nothing.
His reflection smiled.
Wide. Wrong.
Not him.
And yet… he smiled back.
The next morning was cold.
His mother had already set the table. Miri hummed a silly song, spoon tapping rhythmically against her bowl.
He sat, untouched food in front of him.
"You look pale," his mother said, offering tea.
"I'm fine."
"You sure?"
He nodded. She didn't believe him. But she didn't press either.
"Hey," Miri piped up, "you were talking in your sleep again."
He froze. "What did I say?"
"Dunno. Creepy stuff. Whispering weird things."
He glanced at his mother. Her eyes were on the sink.
"I'll be back late," he muttered, standing.
"School ends at four," she said quietly. "Don't disappear again."
He didn't respond.
School felt… too bright.
Too loud.
Every laugh, every shout, every scrape of desks against linoleum grated on him.
He moved through it all like a ghost.
Didn't speak. Didn't smile. Didn't feel.
First period passed in a blur. The teacher's voice was white noise.
"Kamazaki?"
He blinked up. The class was staring.
"…Sorry."
Mr. Tanabe frowned, then moved on.
By lunch, the pressure in his skull was unbearable. A buzzing that wasn't a sound—more like a presence. A weight.
He slipped out again. Behind the gym.
The cold air helped.
"You really are making this a routine," said a voice.
He looked up. Asuka again, lunch bag in hand.
Without waiting, she sat beside him and handed over a rice ball.
"You skipped again. Don't make me force-feed you."
He took it. It was warm. That warmth did something strange to his chest.
"I've been thinking," she said. "You're not just quiet. You're carrying something."
He didn't respond.
"Grief? Guilt?"
Still silence.
"Both?"
"...I don't know."
She leaned back, eyes on the sky. "I had a brother. Quiet. Always said he was okay when he wasn't."
"What happened?"
"He didn't make it."
Silence hung heavy between them.
"I'm sorry."
"Me too."
That evening, his feet carried him back to the alley.
Unintentionally.
But he knew where he was going.
The old man was still there. Same spot. Same haunted eyes.
"You again," the man croaked.
He paused.
"There's something in you," the old man rasped. "It never sleeps."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Liar."
He turned to go.
"It's hungry."
He stopped.
"It's not your fault," the man said. "But you feed it. Over and over."
Something twisted inside his chest.
"We all learn… eventually."
The mirror was worse that night.
He stood in the bathroom, staring.
It was almost in sync. Almost.
But just wrong enough to make him question everything.
He leaned closer.
The air thickened.
Then the reflection smiled.
He hadn't.
It did.
He stumbled back. Breathing sharp. Shallow.
Pain grounded him—nails digging into palms, sweat sticking to skin.
He switched off the light and fled the room.
Sleep came in fragments.
Dreams, in pieces.
He wandered a black forest. Trees bent like broken limbs. Sky the color of blood.
The earth cracked beneath his feet.
Whispers circled him.
Feed me.
Free me.
He dropped to his knees. Clutched his ears.
"I didn't ask for this!"
But the voice only laughed. Coiled around his ribs like smoke.
You already let me in.
He woke up gasping.
3:14 AM.
Again.
His hands trembled.
Shirt soaked with sweat.
But it wasn't the dream that left him cold.
It was the awful, suffocating certainty—
That something had followed him back.