My First “Date” Turned Into a Puzzle Hunt Featuring Cosmic Horror Runes

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My alarm clock wailed before the gods had turned on the sun.

My legs felt like sandbags. My brain was still stuck somewhere between taiyaki and a strange dream. The weekend was over, and I had done nothing productive. Again.

I had been meaning to study, but somehow, “just one more round” at Yashiro’s place turned into a four-hour campaign to save the pixelated world from alien invaders. So… by the time I got home, the only thing I had the mental capacity for was falling asleep with my shoes still on.

Now here I was.
Sleep-deprived, already late, and pretty sure I still stunk of grilled squid.

Tohru was camped in front of the TV, her eyes glued to a rerun of Cardcaptor Sakura.

“You look gross. Did'ya have another nightmare again?”

“Nah. Just fighting aliens all night.”

“You’re a weirdo.”

“Takes one to know one.”

I stumbled out the door, backpack half-zipped, toothpaste aftertaste still lingering in my mouth.

*

Sachiko Minase stood in front of me. Her schoolbag neatly held in both hands, hair done exceptionally, posture perfect. I couldn’t believe this was the same person from last night. 

“Heyyy, Minase-san.”

She glanced at the seat in front of me, then back down.

“Do you have time after school?”
“Time?”

She nodded.

“I wanted to talk to you. It’s about… that English assignment. The one from last week.”

There was a pause that was too long and far too awkward.

“…You said you were struggling with it, right?”

So she was serious last night.

I quickly picked up and played along with her story.

“Right, I almost forgot—”

“Library. 4 PM.”

And with that, she turned and walked back to her seat.

Yashiro watched the whole thing from the desk behind me.

“Well, well,” he whispered in my ear. “Looks like you’ve got a date.”

“It’s not a date.”

Sure, it’s not. Just the most popular girl at school inviting me to the library to talk about English homework.

“Right…”

He made an air quote gesture, then winked.

“English.”

*

I spent the whole day stressing about this so-called “English tutoring” session with Minase. The rational part of my mind told me this was an absolutely terrible idea and that I could still back out of this nonsense. The curious part had already decided, however.

At exactly 3:50 PM that afternoon, I hurried out of final period towards the ‘old wing’ building, afraid of what might happen if I were late.

There’s a certain heft to an after-school sky. The sun casts this spellbinding orange... Makes you feel like you’re walking through a dream and you forgot how to wake up. 

The library was more packed today. Perhaps the fear of midterms and failure had finally awoken the procrastinators from their slumber. 

I looked around for Minase, half hoping this was some kind of joke so I’d have an excuse to go home.

But there she was.

Leaning against a bookshelf with the purple notebook in her hand. She looked like some kind of tragic protagonist I wasn’t smart enough to follow.

“You’re late,” she said, even though I wasn’t.
“I’m exactly on time.”

She didn’t argue. Instead, she turned on her heel, weaving through the maze of shelves toward the tabled section in the back.

We settled at a long table next to a window. The window was cracked just an inch, enough for the late afternoon breeze to seep through.

She sat down gracefully, placed the notebook on the desk, and flipped it open, revealing the very same pages and pages of madness I’d seen on the rooftop the other day. No small talk. No preamble. Minase just continued to flip through.

She landed on the last page.

There they were. The same rune-like symbols she’d shown me the other night.

She turned the notebook 180 degrees so both of us could see.

And there they were. Those weird runes, same as the ones I’d seen in the alleyway.

● ↑ △ → / ○ − △ + … / ⊕ ⊖ ⊕
● ↑ △ → / ○ − △ + … / ⊕ ⊖ ⊕
● ↑ △ → / ○ − △ + … / ⊕ ⊖ ⊕

➖ ••➖ •• •••• •➖➖ •••➖➖➖ ➖➖➖ •➖➖➖ •➖➖ ••➖➖➖ ••➖➖➖ •••➖➖ ➖➖➖ ➖ ➖
• ➖ ••••➖ •➖ ➖➖➖ •••➖➖ •➖ ••••➖ •••• ••••➖➖ ɸ ••• ••• •••• •➖ ••➖➖

I stared at the pages, wondering what exactly Minase wanted from me. Was she expecting me to already have a translation ready?

“I didn’t write this,” I said automatically.

The more I repeated it, the more it felt like a lie.

“I know.”

Her voice was a whisper, though I suspect it wasn’t because we were in the library—rather she didn’t want people seeing her here with me and that notebook.

“I looked through it again. Tried holding it up to the light, checking for pressure marks. Thought maybe there was a cipher, or something hiding in the margins. It’s not normal.”

“…”

“You’re not very helpful, are you?”
“Not particularly, especially when I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Minase scoffed, swinging her hair back.

“You said you wanted answers, right?”

Except I hadn’t. If anything, it seemed more like she was the one who wanted answers.

“I don’t know…”

“Well, you’re the one who took my notebook. This has everything to do with you. Or did you think this was a social call?”

Her voice had a certain edge to it, like she was trying to make me feel guilty for questioning her.

“N—no, I just… I don’t know what’s going on. You show me a notebook with random scribbles, and now we’re supposed to ‘figure it out?’ Just tell me what you want.”

As soon as I said it, I wished I hadn’t. Minase looked like she was about to kill me again.

“Listen here, you’re the one who stole my notebook. You already involved yourself.”

“I—”

“You owe me. I can still ruin you anytime.”

She stared at me for a second, like she was deciding whether or not I was worth talking to.

Then, out of nowhere—

“I’m not crazy, by the way…”

I feared this conversation. If she wasn’t crazy, she wasn’t doing a good job convincing me. What was I supposed to say? Yeah, you ARE crazy, Sachiko Minase, and I’m kind of scared of you. Let’s just go back to not knowing each other?

I decided I shouldn’t push my luck. Minase was the president of the student council and it would be stupid to doubt she couldn’t go through with her threats.

I wasn’t particularly keen on becoming a social outcast or getting kicked out of school one semester away from graduation.

“I didn’t say you were,” I replied.

She stood up.

“Don’t touch anything. I think there’s a book here that might help.”

She then promptly left, leaving me alone at the table.

This whole situation was ridiculous. I should’ve just gone home. I had work to do and a physics test to study for, and now I was in the library helping the most unapproachable girl in school decipher her haunted dream journal.

Clearly, I wasn’t the crazy one here.

Right?

I stared out the window. The sun had dipped behind the tree line and the beams of light were a little more orange.

Then—

Thump.

Minase returned, dropping a thick hardcover book onto the table with both hands. It landed with a deep, papery groan. The cover read:

Yūgen no Monshō: Forgotten Scripts and Hidden Patterns
Volume II.

(Volume two.)

I blinked.

“So… what is it?”

She flipped it open like she already knew the page number.

“Don’t talk. Just look.”

The book was written half in classical Japanese and half in unreadable academic commentary. On the page she turned to there was a grid of odd, blocky line formations. Some of them reminded me of the ones in her notebook, but arranged in pairs, like little towers of broken matchsticks.

“What… is that?”

“The I Ching. It’s an ancient Chinese divination system, like, thousands of years old. Each hexagram is a symbol made of six lines.”

Her voice sounded different now, there wasn’t quite an edge to it. She sounded like some kid talking about their favorite TV show.

“…Broken lines represent yin, solid ones represent yang. Opposites. And together, they describe changing states of the world.”

“So, like fortune telling?”

“Idiot... It’s a lot older than horoscopes or zodiacs. They're like a metaphysical map or a philosophical system. You ask it a question and toss a coin, then it gives you a hexagram, and that tells you something about your situation. Not just what’s happening now, but how it might change in the future.”

“And you think the symbols in your notebook are… those?”

She hesitated.

“Maybe not exactly... but I do believe they’re similar.”

I looked at the hexagrams. Six-line patterns. Symmetrical, yet abstract in meaning. Each one had its own implication. Purpose.

“The ancient Chinese used I Ching to make decisions,” she went on. “Even Confucius studied it. They believed there were hidden patterns in everything, you just had to pay attention.”

She tapped one of the hexagrams with her finger.

“This one’s Fu. It means to return or to recuperate. The idea that after every extreme, the pendulum must swing back.”

I looked at the runes in the notebook again.

Visually, they didn’t look anything alike. The runes in her notebook were more sci-fi circuit-y, and less ancient philosophy. But I understood what she meant.

“Return?” I asked.

Minase nodded.

“Sometimes, when you lose yourself, or when reality bends a little too far, something calls you back. Not always gently.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that.

“You really enjoy this stuff, huh?”

“I don’t!” she snapped. “This is horrifying. Terrible! I should burn this notebook and go back to pretending I don’t know you.”

But something told me she wasn't.

“…Minase, where did you even find this book?”

“I read.”

I do too. Manga, mostly.

“Well, normally, people read stuff like Harry Potter or, I don’t know… a book that isn’t covered in a thousand years’ worth of dust.”

She huffed.

“It’s normal. Some of us have interests beyond just cheerleading and speeches.”

I started to get the feeling she was talking about herself now.

I leaned back again, watching her.

The student council president. Smart, elegant, popular. Currently hunched over a book about obscure divination systems from ancient dynasties, obsessing over a dream journal no one else had ever seen.

Except… that somehow made it feel a little less insane.

I mean, if she could fall down the rabbit hole—

Then maybe I wasn’t too crazy either.

Maybe next time I'll write my English assignment on I Ching.