The next morning at Sakura High was oddly quiet.
Hayato walked into class, his eyes darting around as if something had shifted overnight. Maybe it was the silence. Maybe it was Ren's words echoing in his head from yesterday:
> “Don’t trust anyone after 3:17 p.m.”
He had brushed it off then. But now, even Hina’s cheerful “Good morning!” felt slightly… off. Her smile was the same, but her eyes? Tired. Or hiding something.
Yuri, always the first to notice tension, nudged Sanemi.
“Did something happen between them?” she whispered.
Sanemi, who had slept through most of the previous day’s drama, blinked lazily.
“Maybe Hayato finally found out Hina eats snacks during math.”
Yuri rolled her eyes. “This feels bigger than snacks, dummy.”
At lunch, the group sat together like always — same bench, same order. But Ren didn’t show up.
“Maybe he’s sick,” Hina said, poking at her rice box without eating it.
“No,” Hayato muttered. “He was fine yesterday… until he warned me.”
Sanemi leaned forward. “Wait. What warning?”
Hayato glanced at the school clock. 2:58 p.m.
> “Don’t trust anyone after 3:17…”
“Nothing. Just… forget it.”
Later, during cleaning duty, Yuri found a small folded note tucked under the chalkboard:
> “It's happening again. We’re repeating it.
If you're reading this, remember: the window in 3-C is where it started.
— R”
She looked around. No one else saw her take it. No one noticed how her hands trembled.
Meanwhile, in classroom 3-C, the glass window cracked on its own.
Not shattered — just a faint, hairline crack. The kind that wasn’t there yesterday.
Hina, on her way to grab her forgotten notebook, stopped cold.
A cold wind brushed past her, though the window was closed.
She stepped back.
A faint reflection shimmered across the glass —
Four students standing together… but one of them wasn’t real.
Back with the group, the school bell rang for dismissal.
3:17 p.m.
Sanemi yawned. “Wanna go for takoyaki?”
But Hayato, Hina, and Yuri were already staring at their phones.
All three of them had just received the same message.
> From: Unknown
“You shouldn’t be together after this bell. One of you knows the truth. One of you will vanish tonight.”
To be continued...:)
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