Prologue: A Bargain From Above

3 HOURS BEFORE.

Kaori didn’t say a thing.

Tick, tick, tick—she just kept tapping that pencil from the desk behind as if trying to get me to crack.

The girl sitting in the desk in front quietly rustled her notes.

“You know they’re going to read it,” Kaori said finally. “They’ll see your name. And mine.”

She had the same aggressive tone as she always did, though this time I could sense she was angrier than usual. “You didn’t even bother to change anything. Not a single answer.”

I tried to ignore her, but that only made her more agitated. “You really think this doesn’t matter?”

“Does it?” I asked.

Her fingers tightened on her pencil. “Yes,” she said, with a forceful whisper. “If we fail because of you, I’m gonna end you myself.” Kaori turned back around. “Pathetic.”

Yumiko looked up from her desk, eyes drifting to the balcony outside.

3 SECONDS.

Kaori shoved me back against the balcony railing outside classroom 2-3. Then Kaori gripped my collar. Then Kaori turned primal—

“Say it,” she hissed. “You’re useless.”

“Had you listened to the guidelines, you would’ve known better. Now you’ve failed both of us.”

Her grip tightened around my neck. “If you’d just stop daydreaming, this wouldn’t have happened. Instead, your head is always in the clouds!”

“It’s just an exam, Kaori,” I managed to sputter. “What’s your problem?”

“Please stop fighting,” a soft-spoken voice tried to intervene from behind. She was promptly ignored.

“My problem?” Kaori said, as if she were about to implode. “If you want to disappear so badly, don’t expect me to be the one left finishing your part of the group project.”

“Watch out!” cried the voice from behind, dropping her stack of schoolwork, and grabbing Kaori’s blazer by a thread.

There was no time to react. Just a quick glance exchanged between us before we realized—

SCREAAAAAK.

The rusted metal gave way. I fell, and Kaori came along with me.

3 STUDENTS.

My ribs ached.

If you were to ask right about now, I’d have no good explanation for how I ended up on the courtyard outside Sakuradai High, looking up at classroom 2-3. Yet here I found myself. On my back, sprawled across the dirty porcelain tiles, forming snow angels in the copies upon copies of overdue assignments which had accompanied us.

A meter to my left, the girl. In the same position as I, caught in between the folds of printer paper. She was out cold.

“I can show you someplace else,” a voice whispered. “Where you can lose yourself.”

Above, a glowing orb. It spoke in an almost ethereal prayer, from a mouth that didn’t exist, and a face that never formed. I wanted to believe this was all just some hallucination; that I’d suffered some terrible concussion from the fall, and I was merely imagining things. But deep down, I hoped it was true.

“What’s the price?” I asked weakly.

The voice didn’t answer in words, instead a paper fluttered across my vision. My eyes followed it, watching as it drifted across my abdomen to the girl’s beside me.

Kaori.

Strange. Down here, where the loafers and insects lived, her expression looked oddly calm. In her comatose state, she didn’t look so scary. To think this all happened over some stupid exam.

“Who really are you?” I asked.

A moment of intermission, then the wind carried a final whisper to me.

“Your bargain.”

I had no time to absorb what it had meant. At that moment, the pile of homework that surrounded us began to dance wildly in all directions. My own hitched breath was overtaken by the sound of crumpling print. I tried to raise my body, but my limbs were weak against my joints.

“Kaori…” I breathlessly attempted to get her attention. Of course, it was useless.

The ground below began to sink as the drafts of incomplete essays, calculus notes, and prep packets swallowed us whole. They tore across my vision, obstructing my view of the sky and school.

There, with my remaining uncovered eye, I saw classroom 2-3 disappear from view for the last time.

This world vanished, and a million worksheets erupted into paper birds.