Chapter 1: Mornings Are a Design Flaw

I’m convinced the universe has it out for me.

For some odd reason the universe has made it so that every forenoon, dawn and/or any synonym for the early morning is canonically my enemy.

And by "morning," I mean anything before 11 a.m. And by "speaking," I mean any inkling of normal human functionality.

I was running on four hours of sleep. I spent the greater part of last night hunched over at my PC obsessing over attack patterns and the best way to abuse cancel windows.

You get the idea. Priorities.

I sat up in bed like a real mess.

Hair: insists on defying gravity.

Brain: still attempting to calibrate after last night’s speedrun attempt.

Eyes: crusted and begging to be closed back again permanently.

School is at eight-thirty, as it is every day.

The estimated probability of anything worth getting out of bed for? I’d give it a solid 0.003%.

I padded my way down to the bathroom, agonizing over each step.

The overhead light flickered as I brushed my teeth, which wasn’t unusual.

Old wiring. But the mirror… that was unusual.

Both eyes were half-shut but something had caught them.

I breathed on the mirror’s glass.

Nothing.

No fog.

I blinked then breathed again.

A strong, minty breath.

Still nothing.

"Huh."

Isn’t that something?

Normally mirrors do that sort of thing, fog up.

That wasn’t just weird. That was... wrong.

I leaned in and tapped on the glass. Cold. But not foggy. Still clear without any marks at all.

My reflection stared right back at me: dark green eyes, jawline that isn’t as sharp as I’d like it to be plus one hell of a pitiful bedhead.

My school uniform was also thrown on in a rush. Never been ironed once.

Something flared for a fraction of a second.

A flash.

I froze.

I tapped on the glass again. I wasn’t about to let this gut feeling go so easily.

That flash definitely didn't come from me. It couldn't have.

Something in the reflection blinked before I did.

And just as I leaned in even closer—

"Keizoooooo~! Come on! We're going to be late again!"

Ow.

Mika Mugitsune didn’t so much shout as sonic-boom her way into my morning.

The girl had lungs plus no definition of ‘quiet’ or ‘morning’.

Put the two words in conjunction with one another and now you’re asking for the impossible.

I leaned out the window, toothbrush still in my mouth.

“What part of ‘I’m brushing my teeth’ does this world not understand!?”

“The slow as hell part, Keizo!”

Thanks for that.

She’s not wrong though.

I rolled my eyes, spat into the sink, and glanced up at the mirror one last time.

I’m still on that! Fogless? Gimme a break.

But Mika was waiting, and I wasn’t emotionally strong enough to endure her wrath on an empty stomach.

We trudged around the back path to school like always.

Mika hugged her bag closely as if she were stowing away contraband and/or girly trade secrets.

Knowing her, she probably was.

Did I wanna know?

I think I'd rather live without the info dump.

I adjusted my tie like it would change the fact that I’m a walking cadaver with no pep in my step.

It didn't.

Mika said something about math problems she hadn't done. I offered to let her copy mine instinctively. Didn’t even have to think too hard about that one.

Probably because I was quite literally not thinking and putting 90% of my brain to work just to stay awake.

She accused me of being a sadist. I neither confirmed nor denied it.

"You're too much of a jerk sometimes," she muttered, elbowing me with no actual intention of hurting me behind it.

Me? A jerk? No, see that’s just silly. I just have a small tendency to... I dunno, tell it how it is sometimes?

Yeah, let’s go with that.

"Say that to your math grade," I told her.

She complained.

I smiled.

At this point in our routine, this is where Mika goes off to find her lady friends and I go off to rethink every interpersonal relationship I’ve ever had.

Half the day blew by like a hastily released chochin in a particularly rough typhoon.

It was now high noon.

Some say lunch hour.

I say it's the perfect time of day I can bento box it up in peace for all of about 5 seconds.

"KEIZO!" A gruff yet affectionately warm voice belted out directly into my eardrum.

My whole body rattled itself as it turned toward its source.

Eiji Hamada.

Wearing a sling on his right arm.

"What's new with you, big guy?" I asked him. He looked good.

Healthy-ish? Maybe that was a sports injury.

"For someone who got smashed up at a café after trying to flirt with a girl whom I had no idea was taken, not too bad." Eiji said with an eye roll.

That was it? Here I thought it was something more serious. Eiji can be a real meathead sometimes.

"What did you do, then?"

"Gave up pursuit entirely, sir!" Eiji saluted at me.

A meathead with principles.

"Yeah, Now I'm just recovering, doing light exercises and gawking at myself in the mirror." Eiji finished, winking in my direction.

Mirror. That reminds me.

"Hey Eiji, has your mirror ever, you know... blinked at you or... stopped fogging up?" I asked cautiously.

He raised both eyebrows.

"Uh..." he stalled. "No?"

I knew it was a stupid question.

"It's that dang calculator man, all those numbers are getting to your head." He teased.

I went along with it, but deep down I knew what I saw.

Mirrors don't just decide one day to not fog up.

Colour me perturbed.