Fire Ring

The night air was cool against Haruki’s skin as he wandered the academy grounds, letting his feet carry him wherever they pleased. The bustle of the dining hall had faded into memory, replaced by the soft hush of crickets and the distant hum of lanterns fading out one by one.

Before long, without quite realizing how, he found himself climbing narrow stairs spiraling up the side of a tower.

And then he was there – seated high above the courtyard, the roof sloping gently beneath him, the world stretched wide on every side. The stars here seemed brighter, clearer, as though the heavens had been scrubbed clean. Three moons hung overhead, one pale and small, another vast and golden, and the third tinged faintly blue. Their light mingled, casting strange layered shadows across the stonework.

He sat for a long time, gazing upward. The silence came eventually, not heavy but vast, the kind that made a man feel both impossibly small and oddly safe. His hands fidgeted, restless. He reached into his pocket – and something slipped out.

A soft thud against the tiles.

It was his wallet.

Haruki blinked. He hadn’t even realized it had come with him into this world. He did indeed leave behind the office clothes he came here with back near the beginning of his journey. He thought he left behind the wallet as well. A lot of things seemed to slip his mind – almost as if he didn’t care.

But perhaps – there was not really any ‘almost as if' about it.

He crouched then picked it up. When he opened it, a folded slip of paper slipped free. But no – it wasn’t paper, but a photograph.

He instantly knew what this was.

It was a picture of her. His old high school crush.

Sayaka.

From all those years ago.

Cute, pretty, with long blue hair that fell like silk over her shoulders. She wore her school uniform with such style in this photo, standing next to the classroom window with the wind blowing. It was so cliché.

Haruki remembered that this was when she asked him to take her picture for some kind of competition or portfolio or something like that. His memory was a bit blurry of the specifics, most likely was because he tried to forget how embarrassed he was that it took him several attempts to get an acceptable shot. This one, the one he kept, was one of the ones she said had the wrong lighting or something of the kind.

He stared for a long time, other memories now trickled back in fragments: conversations between classes, shared jokes he thought meant something, moments that in truth had probably meant nothing at all to her. For the longest time, he had told himself he had nothing left back home, nothing to miss. And yet here she was, still lingering in the folds of his memory, refusing to be erased.

She was never his. He never worked up the courage to make it so. But her presence in that photo reminded him that once, there had been something that mattered enough to hold on to.

Even if it was only to himself.

“Haruki?”

He started, looking up. Kiera stood at the edge of the roof, her silver hair catching the moonlight like a spill of water. She tilted her head, curious, then stepped closer. Her gaze drifted down, catching the photo in his hand.

“Oh, hey. Who is that there?”

Haruki hesitated, thumb brushing the edge of the picture. He almost lied, almost tucked it away. Instead, he exhaled and said:

“Just… a friend. Or maybe not even that. Maybe she just tolerated me, I don’t really know. But we talked. And those little moments…” He paused, his eyes distant. “Those are my fondest memories.”

Kiera’s voice was gentler than usual when she asked:

“What’s her name?”

Haruki responded simply:

“Sayaka…”

He had not said this name out loud for years now.

Kiera’s eyes lingered on him, her expression soft but troubled. The way he said it – his fondest memories – she could tell from the tone. So she asked him:

“Are those your only memories?”

Haruki let out a small, awkward chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I suppose so, yeah. I don’t have… much.”

Kiera frowned, the moonlight catching on the curve of her lips.

“That’s… a sad thing to say, don’t you think?”

He shrugged, as though the thought barely touched him, though his eyes stayed fixed on the photo. He wasn’t sure if he was defending himself or confessing something deeper.

For a while she stood in silence, gazing at him with a kind of distant sympathy. Then she sighed, her shoulders dropping, and her face briefly clouded with that same melancholy he carried. But in the next breath she forced brightness back into her tone, lifting a hand and giving him a hearty slap on the back.

“You think to yourself too much,” she said with a crooked smile. “You’ve got to speak up.”

Before he could protest, she raised her other hand. A shimmer of heat coiled in her palm, and then a spark. Flame curled upward like a ribbon, tightening, reshaping, until a small ring of fire floated above her palm. The blaze condensed, cooling into a faintly glowing gem set upon a simple band. It was warm to the touch, pulsing softly as if alive.

“Here,” she said, holding it out. “Put it on your finger.”

Haruki blinked, startled, hesitating.

“What? Why?”

“Just do it.” She gave him a mock stern look, though her smile never quite faded. “Don’t worry, it won’t burn you. My Echo lets me make a few objects like this, permanent ones. Only a handful, though, so don’t lose it.”

Carefully, Haruki slid it onto his index finger. The metal felt warm, almost comfortingly so, like holding a cup of tea in winter. The glow brightened for a moment, then steadied, faint but steady.

Kiera crossed her arms, satisfied.

“So now, whenever you need to find me, just point your finger in my direction. The ring will glow bright, so just follow it.”

He raised an eyebrow, still confused.

“I still don’t understand what’s the point of all this is.”

Her gaze softened, her voice gentler than before.

“So that you now have another thing to remember. Something else in your life. Not just the past.”

Haruki’s throat tightened, but he didn’t argue. He looked down at the faintly glowing band, its warmth seeping into his skin. He wondered immediately – why did she feel the need to do this? She obviously knew he currently had a thing for her. And she had never seemed particularly pleased any time she caught him staring at her with hearts in his eyeballs. So clearly, this could not be any kind of love. So what was this supposed to be?

He thought for a moment longer, before looking back up at Kiera, then back down to the ring again. And finally…

He simply stopped thinking, and appreciated the moment.

Surely – this was simply a friend. And that was enough.