Chapter 12:
died living.
The next morning — if it was morning — he stood in front of the school gate.
He didn’t remember walking there.
He didn’t remember putting on his uniform.
But there he was. Somehow.
The building looked unfamiliar. Like someone had reconstructed it from a blurry photograph. The walls were the right shape, but the wrong color. The gate had rust where he remembered none.
He walked in.
No one noticed him.
He walked past students laughing, whispering, opening shoe lockers — and no one looked his way.
He passed Class 2-B.
His old classroom.
Or so he thought.
There was someone sitting at his desk.
He stood at the doorway.
Watching.
The boy at his seat was talking. Smiling. Laughing.
Someone called him “_”.
The same name.
His name.
The MC took a step back.
Then another.
His head spun.
He walked through the halls like a ghost.
Stopped a teacher — one he knew. Had spoken to a hundred times.
“…Sensei,” he said. His voice cracked, dry.
The teacher turned.
Looked at him.
Eyes blank.
“…Are you lost?”
“I… I’m _.”
The teacher frowned.
“I’m sorry. Which school are you from?”
The MC blinked. “What? I’m your student—”
But the words died.
The teacher was already walking away.
Gone.
Just like that.
He ran.
Down the stairs. Past the lockers. Out the door.
The sun was too bright now.
It hurt to breathe.
He ran until his legs gave out.
Collapsed by the riverbed.
The same one where he once sat with Aki.
Her voice echoed somewhere deep in memory.
But even the echo felt thin.
Fading.
He grabbed his phone.
Opened the front camera.
Stared at his reflection.
And for a moment — it glitched.
His face flickered.
Melted.
Blurred.
Then reformed.
But not the same.
The eyes were wrong.
Not empty — just unfamiliar.
He stared.
Waiting for the image to stabilize.
It didn’t.
His name.
He mouthed it.
But it felt foreign.
Like trying to pronounce a word in a language he never learned.
He opened his student ID.
It was blank.
His name — gone.
Just a white space where letters used to be.
The photo? Not him.
Someone else.
Not even close.
His hands trembled.
He stood, shakily, and walked.
Down the street.
Past the café where Aki once spilled her drink and laughed.
Now it was boarded up.
He passed the bookstore where he’d bought her a pen.
Now a closed-down rental shop.
He kept walking.
Desperate.
Faster.
Until he found a girl passing by — someone he vaguely recognized. They’d talked once. Maybe.
He grabbed her sleeve. “Please… just tell me my name.”
She looked terrified.
“I— I’m sorry— do I know you?”
He let go.
She ran.
Gone.
Again.
He stood in the middle of the street.
Breathing heavy.
“I’m still here,” he whispered.
“I’m still—”
But the words sounded fake.
Even to himself.
He looked at his hands.
Still shaking.
Still warm.
But even that was starting to feel like a dream.
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