Chapter 2 Part 1

“Hello, everyone! I’m Ai Kurosawa! I just moved back in to the city after being away for a few years. Nice to meet you all!!” Ai said with a bow.

The entire class erupted into cheer seeing this astonishingly cute, extremely nice girl transferring into our class. The boys, naturally, were swayed by her good looks; the girls, by her cheerful personality.

And in the middle was me, still flabbergasted by the entire development.

For the first time in my life, I had walked to school with a girl—on a beautiful sunny day, no less. It was like that moody, rain Saturday had never happened. Ai waited for me in the morning, her radiance not faltering one bit by the early morning time. On the way to school, we chatted about her life so far—or at least as much as I could muster, seeing as I still was a bit nervous around her. Apparently her parents moved out due to work almost ten years ago, but recently moved back in. She was a bit nervous about meeting my classmates—but well, as evident by the warm reception, her fears were totally unfounded.

“Nice to meet you, Ai!” “Wow, you’re so cute!” “Where did you live before this?” “Man, I totally want to smooch those tits.”

One of those isn’t like the others, you horn dogs.

“Now, now, kids. Don’t overwhelm Kurosawa right off the bat,” the homeroom teacher said. “Please sit in the empty seat next to Tanaka, if you please.”

“Alright, sensei. Thank you!”

I watched as Ai, still the center of attention, shyly sent smiles at everyone who looked at her—until I realized that she didn’t walk past me, and instead sat down on the empty seat on my left, right by the window.

Hold on. Something’s wrong here.

Tanaka was my surname, and there was an empty seat next to mine, so the teacher’s order made complete sense.

Except I was very certain that until last Saturday, that seat had been taken. But no matter how much I tried to rack my brain, I just couldn’t tell who that person was. What was their name? Were they a boy, or a girl?

While thinking, I found myself staring at Ai, who stared at me back with a confused smile. I rushed to take my eyes off her, in case she thought I was checking her out or something.

What the hell is happening here? Has my memory always been this bad? Did my brain really get this badly scrambled by that migraine?

I shook my head.

I probably didn’t even notice that this person transferred out or something.

It’s no surprise that I didn’t exactly pay much attention to my classmates. All of them either made a habit of ignoring, or outright bullied me. I spent school in my own head or with my brain on fire, so I didn’t have the bandwidth to pay attention to any of them.

Still, I was kinda curious now. Who was this mysterious person who had just until recently sat next to me?

Problem was, I didn’t exactly have anyone close enough that I could approach about this.

Oh, maybe the class representative?

It wouldn’t be out of place, since I had talked with her a few times already.

With my plan in place, I tried to refocused on the class, trying to gather the courage to talk with her.

⬡⬢⬡⬢⬡

The moment the bell signaling the start of first break chimed, all hell broke loose.

My new desk neighbor was swamped with people trying to talk to her—a scene right out of a romance manga. She didn’t seem particularly fazed by all the attention, despite her earlier misgivings about it. I didn’t want to literally be squeezed by all these people surrounding my desk, so I slipped away before it got too bad.

That’s when I spotted the class representative, with her long braided brown hair and square glasses, trying to control the mob as best she could from the side lines. I don’t think she saw me approaching her as she gave a sigh, clearly annoyed by these developments.

“Huh… class rep…”

I have to admit I couldn’t recall her name.

“Ehh! O-Oh. Hi, Tanaka,” she said, trying to see if I really was talking to her. “D-Do you need something?”

“Ah… y-yes. Well, hmm… this might sound a bit strange to ask, but… who was it that sat next to me before Ai transferred?”

The class rep stared at me and pushed her glasses up, trying to buy time.

Then she froze—and I felt classic moment of dejá vù, if I had ever saw one.

It was the exact same reaction my parents had had yesterday.

Is this some new fad I’m not aware of or something?

Just as it started to get weird, she unfroze—and gave a nervous, confused smile.

“That really is a strange question, Tanaka. That seat has been empty since the beginning of the year.”

I cocked my head.

“Huh? What?”

She looked at me, puzzled.

“I know you’re a bit… distracted because of your headaches and stuff, but even you should know that you haven’t had a seat neighbor this year…” She pushed her glasses up. “Right?”

“B-But… I mean, I’m sure I had a neighbor! Like—”

However, I held my tongue. I was about to say they were like this or that, but literally nothing about this person came to mind. They were little more than a fuzzy idea. How could I argue for the existence of another student when I couldn’t name a single thing about them?

So instead, I used another argument. “But look, isn’t it weird that that seat is empty when I’m right in the middle of the classroom?”

My class sat by gojūon order—Ai notwithstanding—meaning that, being named Tanaka, I was right in the middle of the pack. There were about ten students below me on the list, and all five columns of seats in the thirty seat classroom were filled.

Except for the seat to my left, who was now taken by Ai Kurosawa.

This seemed to make the class rep make a double take. “Now that you mention it, it is a bit strange. But I can’t remember why we did that, either.”

“Can you tell me who sits in front and below Ai’s seat?”

“Oh, you don’t remember their names?” She asked, a tinge of judgement in her tone.

I can’t even remember your name, class rep.

“Oh well. That would be Mori and Yoshida.”

I immediately started thinking about the implications.

That doesn’t leave a lot of options for names.

Whoever this vanished student was, their surname started with either a “mo”, “ya”, “yu”, or “yo” sound.

Just as my thoughts began racing uncontrollably, my rational mind put a stop to them.

…Wait, what am I even thinking?

This was such a stupid thing to focus on. Clearly, I had just misremembered that someone sat next to me. And maybe the teachers wanted to leave that seat open because—

“Oh, I remember now!” The class rep suddenly said, interrupting my thoughts at the perfect time. “When we started the year, Yoshida accidentally broke that chair, so he moved back one seat instead of switching it around, and never moved back.”

Huh?

“I think we replaced the chair at some point, so Ai should be fine…” The class rep paused, and stared at me with worry. “Tanaka? You okay?”

I was staring right back at her.

Why?

Because her explanation was exactly what I was about to say. Almost word for word. I thought about the possibility that the chair had been broken, and the class rep just said the exact same thing.

“Hello? Tanaka…? Are you okay? Do you have a migraine again?”

“Oh. S-Sorry. It’s nothing,” I said, trying to ignore the eerie feeling. “Thanks for answering me.”

“R-Right,” the class rep said, clearly suspicious of me now. “If that’s all, I’ll try to calm everyone down.”

She excused herself and returned to the mob, although her attempts were still quite futile.

I just stood still, trying to process everything that was happening.

My dad’s sudden change of heart.

Ai’s appearance.

A vanished student.

My murky memories.

And now, the class rep just saying the exact thing I was thinking of.

It couldn’t all be in my head, right? Something strange was going on.

And I had to get to the bottom of it.

What I had missed during my obsession with these mysteries was a pair of eyes, in the corner of the classroom, staring right at me as I returned to my seat.