The rain fell softly that morning—neither heavy enough to soak her uniform, nor light enough to ignore. Rin Sakura sat alone on the edge of the courtyard bench near the school gate, a black umbrella folded beside her. She preferred to let the drizzle cling to her sleeves, to let the cold settle into her bones. At least then, she could feel something.

Students bustled past in groups, shoes splashing against shallow puddles, umbrellas colliding playfully. Laughter floated in the air, unbothered by the grey sky above. But Rin didn’t move. Her gaze was fixed on the cracks in the pavement. Her long black hair, wet and plastered against her face, hung like a curtain shielding her from the world.

It’s strange how a crowded place can feel more empty than silence, she thought.

A bell rang faintly in the distance. Another Monday. Another performance.

She stood up, brushed the dampness from her skirt, and walked toward the entrance. No one noticed her. No one ever did.

Inside the classroom, the usual chaos reigned. Desks scraped. Paper planes flew. Someone was arm-wrestling at the back. But the noise dropped a notch when the door creaked open. A tall boy stepped in—soaked to the bone, uniform wrinkled, shoes squelching with every step.

His presence was like a cut through cloth. Sudden. Sharp. Unwelcome.

The teacher cleared her throat.

“We have a new student today,” she announced with false cheer. “Please welcome Akira Kurosawa.”

Akira stood silently. He didn’t smile. Didn’t bow. His black hair clung to his forehead. His eyes—strangely light, like wet ash—scanned the room without emotion.

“…Hi,” he muttered.

No one clapped.

Someone whispered near the back, “Isn’t that the guy expelled from Kurozaki High?”

Another voice followed, hushed and excited. “He doesn’t blink…”

Rin blinked.

She hadn’t realized she was staring. He was… off. There was something haunted in the way he moved, something weighty in the silence that followed him. She looked away just as the teacher gestured to the only vacant desk—beside her.

He walked slowly across the room. As he passed the windows, the light dimmed briefly. He sat down without a word, placed his dripping bag under the desk, and then turned his head—deliberately—to look at her.

His eyes didn’t just look at her.

They searched.

And they didn’t move away.

Rin tried to ignore it. She shifted in her seat, eyes on the blackboard, but his stare burned at the edge of her vision.

She whispered without turning her head, “…What?”

“You’re different from this world,” he said quietly.

She froze.

“…What?”

“You don’t belong here either.”

Her breath caught. A chill snaked down her spine that had nothing to do with the rain.

Later, after the final bell rang, she rushed out of the classroom, wanting to escape that stare, those words. Her footsteps echoed in the empty hallway. But after just a few steps, she sensed it again—that presence.

He was beside her.

Walking in perfect rhythm.

She stopped and turned sharply.

“Are you… following me?” she asked.

“I only follow things I remember,” he replied.

She blinked.

“What does that even mean?”

He looked at her, his gaze not quite in the present.

“We’ve never met before,” she said.

“Not in this life.”

She felt her chest tighten. Her legs moved on instinct, quickening pace. But his words followed her like shadows.

“I don’t have time for crazy,” she muttered, refusing to look back.

“You died in my arms once,” he said flatly.

She stopped.

She turned.

He didn’t look amused. Or sarcastic. Or even emotional. Just matter-of-fact.

“…You’re insane.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But so were you. Back then.”

Her heart was racing now. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t fear. Or was it?

She didn’t see him again until lunch.

The rain hadn’t stopped.

She stood on the school rooftop under the metal awning, her fingers curled around the chain-link fence. Water trickled from the edges. The clouds above were a moving sea of grey. She liked watching the rain fall from above—it made her feel less like she was drowning.

Akira appeared without a sound, standing a few feet away, leaning against the concrete wall.

Rin turned, half-annoyed.

“Why are you always near me?”

“I go where the curse leads me,” he replied.

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re creepy, you know that?”

He gave her a sideways glance.

“You’ll hate me soon.”

She huffed. “Already kind of do.”

“Good,” he said. “That means I might not kill you this time.”

The words slipped out so smoothly, so casually, that for a moment she thought she misheard.

“…What?”

He looked away. “Nothing.”

A sudden gust of wind swept across the rooftop, scattering dead leaves. The silence between them stretched like a taut string.

Later that night, Rin sat at her desk, staring at the rain streaking down her bedroom window. Her room was dim, lit only by the blue glow of her desk lamp. Her schoolbooks lay untouched. Her phone buzzed once, twice, with messages she didn’t read.

She pulled back the sleeve of her shirt, just for a second.

A faded scar stared back at her.

She quickly covered it.

“That boy…” she whispered.

“…he said I died in his arms.”

She closed her eyes.

Why did it feel like I’ve heard that before…?

Rin couldn’t sleep.

She stared at the ceiling, the rain’s soft tapping like a lullaby sung by ghosts. Her room was dark, except for the cold blue hue from the streetlight outside. Her phone lay face-down on the floor. Her textbooks remained closed. Her mind, however, was wide awake.

Those words—

“You died in my arms once.”

They echoed in her skull like a melody she didn’t want to hum but couldn’t forget. There was something terrifying in how he said it—not dramatic, not unhinged. Just… certain. As if it was a fact as natural as her name.

She pulled the blanket tighter around herself, though the chill came from within.

At some point in the early hours, just before the line between night and morning blurred, she dozed off.

And that’s when the dream came.

She was standing in a field. It was twilight—the air thick with gold and blood. In front of her, the world was burning. Black feathers fell like snow. She was screaming, her throat raw, her eyes wet. But no sound came out. And there was someone there—someone bleeding, crumpled at her feet. His face was shadowed, but she knew that silhouette.

Akira.

She touched her chest.

There was a hole.

And then she was falling.

When she woke, she was gasping. Her fingers gripped the bedsheet like she was trying to claw her way back from something.

School was a blur that morning. She didn’t remember walking there. Didn’t remember slipping her shoes off at the entrance or bowing to the teacher. Everything passed like it was underwater.

But she noticed him.

Akira sat beside her, exactly like yesterday. No bag. No books. Just him. Staring forward. Silent. He hadn’t even taken off his coat. Rain still clung to his sleeves.

She kept stealing glances at him.

At one point, he turned his head—slow, deliberate—and looked straight at her.

"You dreamed it too," he whispered, so softly only she could hear.

Rin flinched.

Her hand curled into a fist beneath her desk. “How do you know that?” she muttered.

“I always know when it starts again.”

She turned away, pretending to focus on the teacher’s notes on the board. But the chalk screeching against the green surface barely masked the thudding in her chest.

Again?

During break, she stood near the vending machines, sipping canned coffee she didn’t really want. She watched him from across the hall. He leaned against the window, staring out at the drizzle. People avoided him without realizing it. Like their bodies knew something they didn’t.

A group of girls walked past, giggling too loudly, throwing side glances at Akira. One whispered, “He's kind of hot in a ‘don’t-touch-me-or-I’ll-curse-you’ way.”

Another added, “I heard he put someone in the hospital last year.”

Rin hated that her stomach twisted when she heard that.

She didn’t know what was worse—the thought that it was true, or the fact that she wanted to ask him herself.

Later, after the final bell, she lingered behind. She waited for everyone else to leave the class, packing her bag slower than usual.

Akira hadn’t moved.

When she finally looked at him, he was already looking at her.

“I don’t believe you,” she said.

He tilted his head slightly, not surprised. “That’s good.”

“You say weird things, make cryptic comments, act like you know me.”

“I do.”

“You don’t. You can’t.”

He stood slowly, his chair legs scraping softly. “Your scar—it burns when you lie to yourself, doesn’t it?”

She froze.

He walked past her, brushing just close enough that she felt his coat graze her arm. His voice, barely above breath, slipped into her ear.

“You died with your eyes open. That’s why you remember the rain.”

She spun around to stop him, to demand answers.

But he was already gone.

That night, she found herself staring at her scar again.

She ran her thumb over it. It didn’t hurt. Not physically. But there was something buried beneath it, something clawing to get out the more she thought of him.

She opened the bottom drawer of her desk.

Inside was a box—dusty, taped shut, unopened for over a year.

She hesitated.

Then peeled the tape off.

Old photographs. Torn letters. A hospital ID tag. A broken pendant.

She didn’t remember keeping these.

She didn’t even remember how they got there.

But when she lifted the pendant into her palm, something hit her chest like a wave.

It was cold.

Dark.

Like falling into water with your lungs full of air.

And then—

She heard a voice.

Akira’s voice.

Inside her head.

Screaming her name.

“Rin!”

She dropped the pendant.

It clattered to the floor and shattered.

The rain outside stopped mid-pour. The wind halted. The streetlight flickered once, then died.

And somewhere in the silence that followed, she felt it:

Something had awakened.

Not just in her.

In the world.

In the curse.

She didn’t know how, or why.

But she was certain of one thing—

She wasn’t dreaming anymore.

She didn’t sleep that night.

Not because she didn’t want to, but because she couldn’t.

Every time her eyes drifted shut, the darkness behind them opened like a mouth ready to swallow her whole. There was no comfort in the quiet, no safety in her blankets. The pendant lay in pieces across the wooden floor, yet its presence hadn’t faded. If anything, it had grown heavier—like the broken fragments were breathing.

At 3:13 a.m., her phone lit up on its own.

A message.

No name.

No number.

Just three words:

“Don’t let go.”

She stared at the screen, her hands trembling. Her heart beat too loud for the silence around her. Slowly, she sat up in bed and crossed the room to the shattered pendant. One half was twisted metal. The other was the small, glassy black gem that had once glowed faintly when she was little.

She didn’t know how she remembered that.

She didn’t even remember owning this necklace.

But her fingers moved without permission, reaching for the gem.

And when she touched it—

—the room vanished.

Gone was the bed, the desk, the window. Gone was the carpet beneath her feet.

She stood barefoot on a cold stone floor, surrounded by thick mist. The world here was dead quiet, save for one thing—

A whisper.

Like wind inside her skull.

She turned.

Akira was there.

Or… something shaped like him.

His back was to her. His shoulders hunched. His head low. And black threads spiraled around him, floating unnaturally like underwater strands.

He turned slowly, painfully, as though the act hurt.

His face was pale. Hollow. His eyes… not ash anymore.

They were pitch black.

No whites. No light. Just void.

She stumbled back.

“Akira—?”

But it wasn’t him.

Not this version.

When he opened his mouth, the whisper exploded into a roar.

"You shouldn't be here yet."

The voice was layered, like a chorus of broken mirrors. Her knees gave out, hands scraping against the cold stone as she fell.

“I don’t understand—” she choked.

“You broke it too soon. You’ve opened the path.”

“What path?!”

His body twitched. His head jerked sideways at an unnatural angle. The black strands wrapped tighter around him like living wires.

“She remembers,” he hissed. “She remembers and she bleeds.”

A sharp pain exploded across her shoulder.

She looked down.

A long, thin slice had opened through her shirt—blood seeping slowly, staining the fabric.

She screamed.

And then—

Hands grabbed her.

But not his.

Warm hands. Human hands.

A voice—soft, urgent—called her name.

“Rin! Wake up!”

She gasped awake, lungs flooding with air.

She was back in her room.

On the floor.

Akira was kneeling beside her, one hand on her shoulder, the other gripping her wrist. His face was inches from hers, and for once, he looked almost… afraid.

“You touched the pendant,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

She couldn’t speak.

Tears welled in her eyes, uninvited. Her shoulder throbbed.

He reached forward and gently pulled the torn fabric aside.

The wound was real.

Clean. Deep. Thin like it was carved with a whisper instead of a blade.

“That place,” she said hoarsely. “That wasn’t a dream, was it?”

“No,” he said quietly. “It’s where the curse sleeps.”

She looked up at him, and for the first time, she didn’t see a stranger.

She saw someone drowning just like her.

“You knew this would happen,” she said.

“I hoped it wouldn’t.”

“You lied.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

He stood and turned toward the window. The rain had started again, soft and steady. He pressed a hand to the glass.

“It wasn’t supposed to start yet. You weren’t supposed to remember until the third mark appeared.”

“What mark?”

Akira didn’t turn back, but his reflection in the glass darkened—just slightly.

“Your scar was the first,” he said. “The second is the cut you just got. The third…”

He paused.

“…kills you.”

Rin stared at the pendant shards on the floor.

Her whole life had been a slow fall into this moment.

She just hadn’t noticed until she hit the ground.