Chapter 47: Back to the Desk

Light didn't fill the earth.

It exhaled.

The Archive, which had been a broken infinity of bells and ringing timelines, went still in a moment—so still it almost forgot how to beat.

That's

A flicker.

A breath.

And Haruto opened his eyes.

Not to glass ceilings or golden roots, not to spiraling paths of memory or glittering constructs of consciousness—but to a ceiling fan whirring softly above.

The hum of the fluorescents.

The faint scratching of chalk.

A classroom.

His classroom.

Wood desks. A half-closed window. A worn scuff mark on the wall where somebody fell during lunch once. A dusty globe in the corner. A lost umbrella leaning against the chalkboard.

It was. real. Or wanted to be.

Haruto slowly opened his eyes. His chest rose with effort, as though his lungs had forgotten the rhythm of the usual breaths. Everything was uneven around the edges, like dirt from memory still clung to his pores.

No countdown.

No glitching.

No bells.

Just.

Normal.

He was working from his desk. The same desk as always, next to the back window. Dust particles danced lazily in shafts of afternoon sun.

He stroked the desk's surface, half-hoping it would ripple beneath his fingers. It didn't. The wood was warm. Solid. Faintly nicked from years of scoured initials and missing pens.

But the wood had an odd smoothness in his palm, as though somebody had passed their hand over it a hundred times, trying to find something lost.

He lectured on at the front of the classroom but was unable to read the words. His classmates shuffled papers and chatted softly. A girl snickered. A chair creaked.

Everything was familiar.

All was wrong.

Since he couldn't recall people's names.

Not entirely.

Faces just went out of focus. Emotions arose without frame of reference. He looked over at a boy near the window and saw a momentary glimmer of warmth—then blankness. Another individual growled a joke, and there was laughter—yet Haruto lost the thread.

He gazed downward.

No notebook. No pencil.

No watch.

Just a faint ring of pale skin around his wrist, as though something had been there for a very long time.

He reached out to scratch it — then stopped.

Because for a moment, he was convinced someone was clutching his hand.

When class ended, Haruto didn’t stand up immediately.

The others gathered their things and wandered out. Some were laughing. Some were stretching. One of the boys inquired about homework. One of the girls waved goodbye to someone out the door. The door closed softly behind them.

Haruto kept quiet.

Since there was an empty desk beside him.

Not unusual.

Plenty of kids skipped class.

This one, though, appeared to have been designated to remain empty.

Just as if the surrounding air were recalling something it could not.

He extended a hand and grazed the edge of the desk. A gentle tremble resonated through his fingers—no shock, no malfunction. Something more mild.

A resonance.

He frowned, then closed his eyes.

And there—quiet as breath—was a presence.

A warmth in his chest.

A background hum to accompany thought.

Not a voice. Not a memory.

Just…. someone.

He inhaled.

And the scent of laundry soap and rain-damp sidewalks filled his lungs. A flicker of blue ribbon. A laugh muffled by wind. The feeling of someone’s shoulder brushing his as they walked in step.

His hand rose automatically, fingers fluttering — like attempting to grab someone's scarf to pull them back.

But there was no one.

Only the hum remained.

He opened his eyes.

Looked around.

Next glanced back down at the desk.

And there it was.

A small object.

A pin.

A bird-shaped clip, silver, scratched at the edges. Tiny. Unremarkable.

Except he knew, with impossible certainty, it didn’t belong to anyone else in this classroom.

He picked it up.

And the world went blurry for half a second.

She was laughing.

She was scolding him.

She was grasping his wrist and yelling that he couldn't go alone.

"Even

The name shattered like glass on tile.

Gone.

Haruto took a deep breath. His eyes burned.

He placed a hand over his chest.

Not because it hurt.

Since it was full.

"Thank you," he whispered.

No one heard.

Yet the warmth stayed.

In the great outdoors, the campus shone with amber lights.

Haruto walked slowly through the hallway. His knees were shaking, as if what they were stepping on had not been solidified. A janitor walked with a mop on his shoulder. A phone rang somewhere. A crow cawed somewhere far away.

He turned toward the staircase.

Hes.

Then descended.

It was half full. Some students were hanging out around the vending machines. A pair argued softly in front of the bike parking area.

A vending machine read 12:00 in red.

Check.

Haruto's head jerked up.

Tick.

He looked at his wrist.

Bare still.

He heard it, however.

A clock's hand.

Next step.

Verify.

Three seconds.

No countdown. Time—only going.

Then a gust of wind swept across the yard. Soft. Almost musical.

It had the smell of sakura.

Even though it wasn’t spring.

He turned toward the breeze—

And froze.

A shadow loomed near the gate.

A figure.

Girl. Uniform. Shoulder-length hair.

Backlit with the sun.

Not quite standing.

Not actually walking.

Like a freeze-frame that has never completed.

And when she smiled—

The world… twitched.

One of the background loops continued playing.

A bird in mid-flight changed direction and flew back.

A student across the yard repeated the same stretch twice, unaware.

Ayaka

The name was unfamiliar.

But it hurt.

She waved with her hand.

The motion was slow.

Too slow.

Her smile was just too perfect. As if it had been perfected over a thousand years and never changed.

Haruto stepped back.

His breath hitched.

And in that moment—somewhere, inside the soft hum in his chest—something recoiled.

Not fear.

Recognition.

A bell sounded somewhere in the distance.

No one else reacted.

He looked upward with eyes towards the sky.

Still blue.

Still warm.

Watching still.

And the wind whispered like a bell:

"This time," it stated,

"He decided to recall."

And something had chosen to follow.

That's

The sun flickered.

Twice.

The wind stilled in mid-gesture, as if breath held too long.

Haruto experienced a pressure behind his eyes—gentle, then piercing. The world outside him didn't ripple or rip. It just stopped.

A single frame, too clean.

The girl standing beside the gate stiffened.

Her hand still up in salutation. Her smile frozen in time.

A gentle hum arose around him. Not the Archive. Not memory. Something leaner. Hungrier.

Then—

SNAP.

A jolt. Not through his body, but his presence.

As if a thread had been yanked.

As if someone behind the curtain had pulled him out of the scene.

The courtyard disappeared.

No fade. No swirl.

Just absence.

And in its place—

Light.

Haruto blinked.

The smell of chalk. The whir of a ceiling fan. His classroom. Repeatedly.