The Clock That Mocked Me (And A “Romantic” Rooftop Scene)

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Three days had passed since the girl-outside-my-window incident, and I did what any rational person would do... pretend it never happened. After all, it never did happen again.

“Someone’s got a psycho stalker!” Yashiro teased in a mocking voice. “Congrats, man. You’re only two episodes away from getting stabbed… or married!”

I really started to wish I didn't tell him these things.

The idea of a stalker did creep me out, especially since I had no idea who it could have been. I wondered if it was a girl who attended our school. Sitting in this very class, even. The thought sent a shiver down my spine.

I rested my head on my desk and closed my eyes. The workload had been ramping up fast, and so had the sleepless nights.

Today I felt especially exhausted. Maybe it was the weight of everything piling up, or maybe the fact that I hadn’t gotten more than three hours of sleep the night before. Either way, I felt like a zombie walking through a dream—except it wasn’t one of those weird, fun dreams. More like the kind where you’re stuck in a never-ending loop, and everything is a little too bright, a little too lou—

SLAM.

The door flew open, making me jump what seemed like two stories. Every sleep-deprived student in the room seemed to do the same. Sakamoto stormed into the room with a dusty box under one arm and some unrecognizable trinkets in the other.

“Good morning, sleepwalkers!”

He must have been in a good mood today.

He dropped the box onto his desk, revealing its content. Circuit boards, coils, a Polaroid camera duct taped to what might have been a blender.

“Today, we will observe the interference of parallel signals across shared temporal frequencies.”

A few of the students exchanged looks. Some were still half-asleep. This was going to be a long class. I could already feel it.

Minutes dragged. Sakamoto’s lecture went on and on. Yashiro had quietly dozed off in a sitting position at his desk… something he had mastered over the years. My attention turned to a clock on the classroom wall.

I blinked. Was it just me, or was time crawling today? I rubbed my eyes.

10:15 AM.

I tried to focus on the lesson, hoping it would pass the time more quickly. Sakamoto’s voice faded in and out like a radio station with poor reception.

“…when external frequencies overlap, there’s an interference... a distortion...”

Tick. Tick. Tick.

My gaze drifted back to the clock.

The second hand had barely moved. My mind was too tired to make sense of it. I rubbed my eyes again. Sakamoto's voice continued to sound like background noise.

“…signals... distort... our perception of them... It’s like when two waves crash into each other, creating ripples…”

Tick. Tick. Tick.

I looked up at the clock again.

10:15 AM.

How was that possible?!

I glanced at the rest of the class, but everyone seemed to either be jotting down notes or dozing off like Yashiro. I picked up my pen and decided to scribble to pass the time.

A swirl turned into a crooked star, then a cat with sunglasses, then a vending machine with legs.

...and then, without any particular reason, I sketched a girl standing in front of a window. My window.

Then I scribbled over that too.

“...the waves of reality crashing into each other. We experience it as distortion, but is it the reality that’s bending, or our perception?”

Tick. Tick. Tick.

“…observe the signals... see how they react... when multiple frequencies... intersect...”

Tick. Tick. Tick.

I checked the clock again.

9:15 AM.

“Huh...?”

I rubbed my eyes.

10:15 AM.

The clock was mocking me.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

“...we're trying to understand the interference... can we predict when the signals will overlap again...?”

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Was this what it felt like to be stuck in time? Forever stuck listening to Sakamoto's lecture, every second stretching longer and longer, becoming more and more unbearab—

DING-DING-DING.

The shrill sound of the bell cut through the room like a knife.

Huh. I guess that clock was broken.

*

As students shuffled out of the classroom, I lingered behind to gather my things.

Apparently, there was some fundraiser being held at the cafeteria today that happened to have a "maid café" theme. Yashiro was ready to bolt the moment the bell rang.

“They’re serving omurice… and they’ve got maid girls serving it! You comin’, or what?”

I, on the other hand, preferred not to eat lunch with elbows in my ribs.

“I’ll pass.”

“Alrighty then, your loss.”

And just like that, he was off, sprinting to the cafeteria.

I leaned down to stuff my textbook into my bag, but as I did, my foot brushed something on the floor next to Yashiro’s desk. I bent down and picked it up.

It was a small purple notebook. No name. Probably Yashiro’s. He must’ve dropped it in his rush to get to the maid girls first. I figured I’d just return it to him later.

I shoved it into my bag and left.

Hoping to escape the chaos in the cafeteria, I decided to head up to the roof to enjoy my meal.

Normally, it was mostly the female students who chose to eat up on the roof, but no way was I sticking around to watch a bunch of desperate high school boys drool over poor, overworked waitresses in Victorian maid costumes.

I made my way up to the roof and looked around.

Maybe because of the fundraiser today, it was completely vacant. The blue skies and cool late-summer breeze were refreshing. I began to wonder why I hadn’t come up here more often.

I stretched for a moment, then picked a random spot and sat down, taking out the homemade sandwich I’d brought for lunch.

As I enjoyed my leftover soba and rice ball, I remembered the notebook I’d picked up earlier, wondering if Yashiro had scribbled down some homework in there I could borrow.

Curiosity began to get the better of me. I took out the purple notebook from my bag and opened it up to a random page.

The first page I landed on was composed of what seemed like a diary entry, with a heading written in sparkly pink pen and neat handwriting:

"HOW TO TELL IF YOUR TEACHER IS POSSESSED BY A DEMON" 
• Hates garlic.
• Never blinks during lectures.
• Appears in your dreams holding a cursed ruler.
• Makes you forget the homework on purpose using dark magic.

The hell was this?

I flipped the page.

This one had crude little doodles of UFOs and aliens in the margins.

“I tried summoning aliens today. If you leave three empty cans on the roof at midnight and chant ‘Zorath’ three times, you can make contact. I didn’t see anything… but maybe I just didn’t do it right. Maybe aliens are just too busy to visit right now. I’ll try again tomorrow.”

I turned another page. Something about burying a dog tooth under a cherry tree during a full moon to summon a werewolf guardian spirit.

I quickly flipped through the pages and found that it was entirely entries like this. It had the energy of a middle schooler who read far too much fanfiction for their own good.

There was no way this was Yashiro’s. Even he wasn’t this far gone. This had to belong to some weirdo girl from the occult club. The kind who thought ghosts could be exorcised with melon soda and a CD of Gregorian chants.

Honestly? It was kind of cute, in a ridiculous, insane conspiracy-theorist kind of way.

Just then, a sound made me jerk to my feet, instinctively clutching the book like it was contraband behind my back.

BAM!

The rooftop door exploded open like it had been kicked off its hinges.

From the shadow of the doorway, a figure stepped out.

A girl in a dark hoodie over her school uniform. Wind caught the hem of her skirt, and sunlight hit just enough to catch the glint of her sharp, violet eyes.

Minase.

Minase?!

She moved toward me—not walked, moved—with a steady, unblinking pace. My body went rigid. My brain, too.

I knew her. Everyone did. One of the most put-together girls in school. Elegant, clever, always poised like she’d stepped out of a shoujo manga. So what the hell was she doing dressed like that? And walking towards me?!

Finally, I spoke up.

“...h-heyy... Minase-san, right?”

She didn’t respond.

Just kept coming, locked on me like a cat that’s already decided you're prey. Her eyes, usually calm and composed, now flickered with something unidentifiable.

Then she stopped, about five feet from where I stood, and inhaled as if trying to regain her composure.

"You were the last one who left the classroom. Where is it?"

Had she been following me?

“Where is what?”

“Don’t play dumb with me. I dropped… something in class and I know you have it!”

“Oh. You mean this?”

Before I could fully pull the notebook from behind my back, she snatched it from my hands.

“Sorry, I thought it was a friend’s—”

“It's mine.”

Minase’s voice cracked at the edges, and her usually graceful composure started to fray. Her eyes narrowed.

“How much did you read?!”

“I—I didn't read anything,” I lied.

I must have not been too convincing because the next second, she lunged.

Minase grabbed me by my collar with a strength I never could have expected. Her grip was like iron. She pulled me until her face was mere inches from mine. Her eyes looked feral now.

Should I be scared, or aroused?

“Do you think this is some joke? That you can just snoop through someone's private stuff and laugh about it later?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but she cut me off.

“You will forget everything you read.”

She looked as if she were about to throw me off the roof.

“If you even so much as tell a single soul... whoever you are, I will personally make sure the rest of your high school life is spent buried in a disciplinary record so long it’ll need its own filing cabinet. Got it?”

All I could do was vigorously nod.

She released my collar with a small scoff and, without another word, turned and left.

And there I stood. Alone on the rooftop again. Wondering what the actual hell had just happened.

*

“Y’know, it could’ve been worse,” Yashiro said, glancing over at me. “Wait, no, it couldn’t have. She didn’t even know your name, too. Yeowch!”

Shut up.

“She was two inches away from your face. That’s probably the closest you’ll ever get to a kiss from Minase!”

Shut up.

Yashiro laughed.

“Hey, I’m headed to the library to study. Care to join me again?”

A second day, a second shock. He was studying again. Well, not really. But it was a step up for him.

“Uh, sure. Let me just grab my stuff.”

We slid into our usual spot, tucked away between the two towering bookshelves where no one could disturb us.

The library, as always, was a quiet sanctuary of musty books and last-minute cramming.

I pulled out my textbook and stared at the page, pencil hovering over the math problems. My mind was someplace else. Formulas and numbers were quickly overtaken by everything else spiraling in my life. Deadlines, exams, college, futures that felt more like traps than paths.

What am I even doing?

I could feel that his eyes were on me now.

“Hey, I think your homework is giving you a migraine.”

“I’m fine. Just trying to concentrate.”

Yashiro, the world’s favorite weirdo, had this strange way of sensing when things weren’t quite right without saying anything. Maybe it was just all the years of knowing each other.

“You know, most people just pretend they’ve got a map. Doesn’t mean they know where they’re going. They just walk like they do and hope no one calls them out on it. You’re overthinking it.”

...Or maybe he was psychic.

I looked up to see him tilting dangerously in his chair, staring at the ceiling again. And what was with his obsession with maps lately?

“You’re saying no one has a plan?”

He shrugged.

“Everyone draws one. Crayons, pencil, doesn’t matter. But life has a habit of redrawing the lines when you’re not looking...”

“...I mean, sure, but most people seem like they have it together. They have goals. Milestones. I don’t even know what to eat half the time, let alone what I wanna do tomorrow. Plans are just guesses with better PR. People cling to them because they’re afraid of not knowing. Afraid of realizing that they’re lost just like the rest of us.”

I was still kind of in shock. Yashiro never spoke like this before, and now suddenly he’s doing it daily.

“You sound like a fortune cookie,” I muttered.

He finally cracked a small grin.

“I’ve been told worse.”

“You’re just the guy who shows up here and does nothing for three hours. How would you know?”

“Because I’ve walked a few wrong roads. Took notes. Drew new maps. Maybe I got tired of pretending I had it figured out.”

“SHHH,” someone hissed from the other side of the shelf.

Yashiro gave a mock salute to no one, then leaned in a little closer.

“Point is, doesn’t matter how well you draw the map. The world doesn’t care.”

I was taken aback. It wasn’t some life-altering speech, but it pierced deeper than I expected. I almost wanted to admit that Yashiro was right. Maybe there was more to him beneath the stupidity. Maybe there always was. Maybe I just never noticed.

Then of course, he ruined it.

“Though if your future gets rewritten by, say, cosmic interference or multiversal anomalies, I reserve the right to say ‘I told you so.’”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just saying.”

He returned to flipping through some crumpled pamphlet he'd found on the floor.

And I went back to my math. Sort of. The numbers still didn’t make any more sense than they did five minutes ago.

Though deep down, I felt the stress lift. Just a bit.