Archive of Our Own

The last thing Gakushuu remembers is the screeching of rubber against asphalt and blinding headlights.

When Gakushuu wakes up again, he isn’t in a hospital like he expected, nor in any kind of room at all. Instead of sterile white walls and the smell of disinfectant, a narrow street greets him. The taste of pollution coats his tongue, buildings and pylons densely lining the sides of the road in the midday sun.
Where is he? It must be somewhere in Japan, the suburban area unmistakable, even if he doesn’t recognize it. Gakushuu’s stomach drops, and a numbing cold spreads through his body.
He shouldn’t be here, he hasn’t been back in years. The asphalt stretches into the horizon in both directions, no hints of his location in sight. He reaches for his phone, only to grasp nothing. His tie slithers around his neck, crawling and writhing until he tears it off, panic rising in his veins, only to find his hands empty.
He stopped wearing ties ages ago.
Distantly, Gakushuu watches his empty hands and flexes them. Closed, open, closed, open.
The phantom sensation of metal hitting his right side still burns against his skin.
Bile creeps up his throat, and the world spins as he struggles to breathe, lungs desperate for air that refuses to reach them. His heartbeat thunders in his ears, his chest empty. Has it always felt this hollow? His ribcage constricts against the vacant space, and his lungs burn as they fight against his own body.

He doesn’t know how long it takes until the world stops spinning. His legs are cramped from the crouch he has fallen into, face pressed against his knees and his hands clawing into his hair as he greedily breathes in the mucky air. The sun throws long shadows over the asphalt, and nausea churns in his gut as he forces himself back onto leaden limbs.
The same unfamiliar street stretches in front of him, and his breath stutters in his chest before he smothers the rising uneasiness.
And with nothing left to do, he starts walking.

The winding alleys stretch out like an endless maze. The sun beats down mercilessly, the air dry, and sweat gathers on Gakushuu's forehead, his blazer thrown over his right shoulder.

It's quiet.
Too quiet.

It’s just like the times he left a bar alone after drinking with his coworkers, the constant chatter and droning music suddenly gone, liveliness replaced with his own silence. He never liked it, preferred to leave with anyone—stranger or acquaintance—to draw out the inevitable, no matter how much he hated the lesser physical boundaries brought on by inebriation. It was better than lying in his sparse apartment, praying for a car to drive by or a neighbor's argument to lull him to sleep, to distract him from the poisonous voice inside his head.

Normally, the world is incredibly loud if he listens to it. From his own steady breath to the quiet rustle of clothes whenever someone moves. A small breeze or the growing chirping of birds as the sun starts to rise, a milliard of little sounds to prove that the world is alive. That he is alive, in his own apartment on the other end of the world.

This street is dead.
Gakushuu can't hear a single thing. No distant cars or humans going along their lives, no children screaming and laughing. The typical song of cicadas he has become so accustomed to, only to force himself to get used to its absence in America, is missing, and not even a single leaf rustles.
Japan has never been quiet, but now it might as well be abandoned land.

But this isn’t what raises the alarm bells in his head. It's the missing sound he has never taken note of, not even in his loneliest night when he couldn't hear anything, when he thought his mind was the only noise accompanying him. It has been a constant throughout his life without ever being noticed, indescribable even now that he knows it's missing. But it feels like it has taken everything with it.

Gakushuu marches on, his steps on cracking asphalt, the only sound keeping him sane.

He doesn't know how long he walks, the sun still high in the sky, when a shrill laugh pierces through the silence.
Before he can even try to trace it, a girl darts out of a small side alley, barreling into him. He stumbles, grabbing her arm before his mind catches up to him. The fabric of her oversized cardigan is scratchy, and she barely reaches his waist, wide gold eyes looking up at him as he keeps her from falling down. She's so light, he might as well be holding nothing.

Where did she come from?
Gakushuu can’t take his eyes off her: the first person, the first living being he's met since waking up in this mockery of the place he once called home. Her uneven breathing is the first sound not produced by him.
Maybe she knows where he is?

“Yua!” The shout tears him from his thoughts, and he hastily lets her go and takes a step back.
Another child runs out of the alley, a boy a few years older than the girl, with the same gold eyes. His hair is a tangled mess, two locks defying gravity, and he skids to a stop, body squeezed between Gakushuu and the girl, as he scolds her in soft tones.

Gakushuu averts his eyes, an intruder on their little scene, but he can’t bring himself to step away. Not when he finally isn't alone anymore.
He listens to the hushed whispers of their voices and the scuff of their cobbled-together shoes against the ground as he pretends to read a withered sale sign of a boarded-up corner shop. Foggy windows with spider cracks did a poor job of protecting its insides from the weather, dead leaves and dirt covering empty aisles. Glass shards coated in dust adorn the broken tiles in the front.
When did his surroundings get so run down? They’re a far cry from the street he woke up on, but Gakushuu can’t remember noticing any deterioration on his trek. Though he can’t remember much in general, only his single-minded focus on setting one foot in front of the other, listening to the sounds of his soles meeting the asphalt in this vacant, quiet world. But now he looks around and it seems unmissable: the houses are old, the walls made of dirty wood and plaster. Shoddy repair jobs hold together rain pipes and various hinges, rust covering nearly every inch of metal he can see. Overgrown weeds saturate the small front gardens, a rare flower box providing a bit more variety.
It's a far cry from the part of town he is used to. It’s the kind of neighborhood he saw in the pictures buried in their attic; the principal among a crowd of people in patchwork clothes with an expression Gakushuu has never got to see. The kind of neighborhood he only learned to sneer at.

A tiny voice drags him out of his thoughts, the girl’s words mumbled towards the ground as she and the boy bow their heads. Gakushuu barely registers her apology before the two children dash away, their cheerful shouts echoing in the empty streets until the oppressing silence deadens them.

The sun keeps shining, and paint flakes off the metal poles in front of the store. A squeezing feeling fills his chest, and Gakushuu grits his teeth, shaking his head. The quiet screams at him.

He starts to walk again.

He’s dead, isn’t he?

It isn’t a shocking realization, more like an undeniable fact he knew all along and tried to ignore. But now, standing on an empty street, seeing a younger version of his former friend in an abandoned city, it’s harder to ignore, lurking in the back of his mind like a predator watching its prey.

The young version of Ren Sakakibara sits on a wooden bench, book in hand. He turns a page, eyes focused on the words and his brown hair tucked behind his ears. He must still be in elementary school, dressed in their old school uniform, his school bag on the ground next to him. His low humming slices through the deafening silence, an oblivious tune.

He’s really dead.
It should feel worse, but somehow it’s the same as the last few years. It feels… hollow.
No, that’s absurd, he still had plans, so much he wanted to do, didn’t he? He should be angry, furious, blood boiling under his skin or at least sad, he still wanted to, he, he…
Was there anything he was still living for?
Cold spreads through his limbs, and it's almost as if he doesn’t belong in his own body, a heavy acceptance draping over his consciousness. Maybe this isn’t so different, maybe this isn’t so bad…
Gakushuu thinks back to his small apartment. The three rooms, two unused, which have never got to know anyone except for him and his realtor. The sparse furniture—chosen hastily to fill the void—that has barely seen any use despite living there for over half a decade.
He wonders if anyone would notice his absence. His work would probably call before hearing about his demise through official services. He doubts they would notify anyone else.
They wouldn’t have anyone to notify.

How long will it take for Sakakibara to hear about his death? Gakushuu isn’t sure if he will ever hear about it or if he’ll just assume that Gakushuu broke off all contact for good and finally gives up on maintaining their crumbling farce of a friendship.
He doesn’t know which would be worse.

An excited yell tears Gakushuu out of his spiraling thoughts, and he sees the young Sakakibara waving at him. His stomach turns, and Gakushuu wants to turn and run away. It’s what he’s used to, what he always did. He ran away as soon as they graduated, ran when his phone lit up with another text that would join the mountain of unread messages, ran as soon as his vulnerabilities cracked through his carefully crafted surface.
But this Sakakibara keeps smiling, guilelessly beckoning him to join him, and Gakushuu can’t bring himself to ignore it. Not again. He steps closer, sitting down next to him.
It’s the least he can do, even if it’s too late.

Sakakibara doesn’t appear to be confused by their age difference. Instead, he beams up at Gakushuu and leans against his side, eyes back on his book. He’s a solid weight, and Gakushuu breathes a sigh of relief, muscles relaxing a bit despite himself. It’s calming to have someone next to him, to listen to their breathing, the rustling of clothes, and the occasional turning of a page. To feel like he isn’t intruding for once.

He reads a few sentences of Sakakibara’s book; a children’s book he has never heard of. An irrational part of his mind wishes he did, but he knows it wouldn’t benefit him in any way. Still, Sakakibara seems to enjoy it.
Gakushuu closes his eyes and tries to enjoy the moment, the sounds in the endless silence, not being alone. But his heart starts racing, a constricted feeling hurting in his chest, and his brain yells at him to leave before he makes a mistake. Before he destroys this as well.

“Why are you here?” He can’t help ‌asking. Can’t help ‌breaking whatever peace he found before someone takes it from him. Because Sakakibara doesn’t belong here in this deserted, twisted facsimile of Japan.

Sakakibara doesn’t look up from the page, only shrugs towards the building behind them.
“I’m waiting for my mom.”

Gakushuu glances at the skyscraper, its edges sharp and the glass lining its every side immaculate. The lobby is devoid of any life, looking like it has just been built. He doubts it houses even one person. So he just hums non-committally, unwilling to bring attention to his thoughts.

“Hey, hey,” Sakakibara speaks up, poking his elbow against Gakushuu’s arm, “I don’t understand this.” His finger points at a paragraph, blocking the words he is asking about. “Why is she asking him to spill beans? Why’d she suddenly want to waste food? That doesn’t make sense.”

Gakushuu moves Sakakibara’s hand to the side, ignoring the feeling of too cold skin against his own.
“It’s an idiom. She wants him to reveal a secret or something he doesn’t want to tell her.”
It’s a stupid question, Sakakibara should know this already. It doesn’t look like he’s as ahead in his reading as he should be. His father won’t let him spend time with him like this.

Sakakibara scrunches his nose, unsatisfied eyes back on the page.
“That doesn’t make sense. Why doesn’t she just ask for the secret then? What do beans have to do with any of that?”

Gakushuu suppresses a sigh, his eyes drifting back to the empty lobby. It reminds him of the past, when he used to tag along with Sakakibara and his mother because his father was too busy with his cram school again. Before these meetings were a waste of Gakushuu’s time.
They would sit in the corner of the TV studio, homework between them, with a plate of fruits and juice boxes the staff offered them. Gakushuu would watch as they counted Sakakibara's mother down, her entire focus on her job.
Only for her attention to shift to Sakakibara and him as soon as they turned off the cameras, as if there was nothing more important than them.
He always envied the other, watching as she ruffled Sakakibara’s hair, asking if they needed any help without a hint of disappointment in her voice.

“It’s like before your mother has to be on television. The camera people and others always tell her to ‘break a leg’. Of course, they don’t want her to actually break her leg, it’s just another way to wish her ‘good luck’. It’s the same with the beans and secrets. People aren’t actually talking about beans. It’s just another way for them to ask.”

“That’s weird.”
Sakakibara’s face stays scrunched up, tilting the book from side to side before he closes it and settles back against Gakushuu’s side.
“Thanks. I always wanted to ask you stuff like this.”

Gakushuu raises an eyebrow, peering at his face. It’s illogical, Sakakibara knew how to ask for his help. After all, it was a lot more efficient than bumbling along unsure like a moron.
“You always could, why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” the child swings his legs, mumbling. “Didn’t want you to think I’m dumb.”

A lump clogs Gakushuu’s throat, the feeling of uselessness paralyzing him. He should say something, shouldn’t he? He is supposed to know what to say. Even if he doesn’t understand why.
“I’m sorry,” he forces the words out, stilted and unfamiliar.

“‘s fine. ‘s stupid anyway.”

Gakushuu says nothing, only watching scattered clouds crawl along the sky. He shouldn’t be here. He should have left when he had the chance to.
The deafening silence creeps back, the quiet breaths and rustle of clothes not enough to drown it out.

“Are we still friends?”

The voice is small, almost timid, and Gakushuu nearly misses it, wishes he did.
He doesn’t want to lie, but the truth is even worse. Have they ever really been friends at all? He might have called him his friend, might have reaped the few advantages the status brought him before running away without looking back once. And he can’t say for certain that he regrets it, that he wouldn’t just do it all over again.
But if there is any chance for him to salvage whatever friendship this Sakakibara still imagines with him—however miniscule and selfish it might be—he wants to take it. It would be stupid not to, a far too familiar voice whispers in his head.

“I— I’d say so.” The words taste foul, and Gakushuu wants to throw up. Guilt squeezes his lungs and heart, numbness traveling from his cold fingertips to his limbs. Despite the unceasing sun, his body feels colder than ever.
He tries to ignore the countless missed calls that decreased over time until they ultimately stopped, replaced with a short text at the start of every year. Tries to forget about his half-hearted replies of ‘He’s sorry he hasn’t reached out, work has been busy, but he promises, he’ll come visit as soon as he finds the time.’ that he never planned to follow up on. Tries to ignore the fact that he hasn’t even pretended to be a friend for years—has been a stranger for longer than he wants to admit.

“I’m glad.”

Sakakibara smiles at him, his voice filled with relief and Gakushuu feels even worse. He waits for him to call out his obvious lie, to finally declare Gakushuu a lost cause.
But he just leans more into Gakushuu’s side before he jumps up from the bench, and stuffs his book into his bag.

“My mom is calling me. I should go.”

Gakushuu hasn’t heard anything, the city as dead as when he arrived. Sakakibara is already at the skyscraper’s entrance, one door halfway open, looking back at him with childish innocence.

“I hope we meet again soon.”

He steps through the doorway, and Gakushuu watches as the door swings shut behind him, its glass body displaying the empty lobby, any trace of Sakakibara gone.

Gakushuu prays they never meet again.

He comes across a playground.

Small trees offer a sparse collection of shadows as protection from the afternoon sun. The equipment is worn, bright colors scratched and bleached from their exposure to the elements, and the surrounding grass trampled, dirt shining through the spots. In the middle, not shielded by the trees’ shadows, is a sandbox. A girl sits in it, flipping over her filled bucket next to a line of sand towers.
He doesn’t recognize her, but she is alone in this wasteland, just like Sakakibara.
Hot sand scratches against the exposed skin of his ankles as he sits down next to her.
The girl looks up, long hair falling in front of her eyes. She tucks the blue strands behind her ear and watches him.

“Where are your parents?” Gakushuu asks her, despite doubting that there is anyone except the two of them here—doubting that this child across from him is real.

She tilts her head, her hair obscuring her eyes again, and looks around before she turns back to her toys. “Mommy said she’ll be back soon.”
She picks up a shovel and a bucket and offers them to Gakushuu. He takes them reluctantly, the shapes unfamiliar to his hands and under her orders starts filling the bucket. He watches her push sand into a bow mold while she prattles on about her half-built sand castle. Grains of sand drop from the overfilled mold and clump to the tulle of her dress, next to dirt-covered lace and ribbons. Despite the stains, Gakushuu can tell it is a nice dress, the lavender color complimenting the girl’s hair. It looks expensive. Gakushuu can’t imagine being allowed to play in one of his suits when he was a child.

“Is this okay?” The question slips out. “I mean your dress. Won’t your mother be angry that it got dirty?” He tries to keep his voice neutral, despite his heart racing in his chest. Does he have anything to brush it off? He doesn’t know how to clean tulle, he never had to, but there must be a way, right?

The girl stops her chatter and looks down at her clothes for a second before shrugging. “Mommy won’t like it. But I told her I don’t want to wear it.”

Gakushuu lets out a short “Ah.” not wanting to ask further, his heart hammering. It doesn’t look like she is bothered by the topic, turning back to her sand castle without pause. She said her mother wouldn’t like it. He eyes the swing set. It doesn’t look too dirty, maybe he can convince her to play something else while he searches for something, anything to cover up the stains.

She is patting down the cracks in one of her towers when she speaks again.
“I’m actually a boy.”
Gakushuu’s head whips up. “I'm not supposed to tell anyone, but Mommy always wanted a girl. That's why she says it’s just a mistake and I was always meant to be one,” the girl boy continues, before a panicked look crosses his eyes and he shoots up, tiny hands grasping Gakushuu’s shirt. “But it’s a secret, so you can’t tell anyone!” And there is a kind of urgency—a kind Gakushuu is far too familiar with—in his voice that makes his stomach turn and his mouth parched. He shouldn’t get involved, his ringing heartbeat drowning out everything.

“I won’t tell,” he promises, because there is no one he could tell even if he planned to. The boy relaxes and sinks back into the sand. Gakushuu watches as he picks up the bow mold again. He can’t help the next words that escape his lips.
“What about you? Do you want to be a girl?”

The boy makes a face and carefully looks around before he prods Gakushuu to come closer. Gakushuu shifts towards him and suppresses a grimace when the boy cups his hands around his ear and whispers in the not-whispering kind of way children do.

“I don’t like it. But it makes Mommy happy, so I’ll be one for her.”

The boy musters a wobbly smile, and something inside Gakushuu cracks at the sight—words he heard a thousand times stuck in his throat. Instead, he offers him the filled sand bucket and averts his eyes. He shouldn’t get involved.

“I think you're just fine as a boy.”

He pretends he doesn’t hear the quiet “Thank you.” mumbled towards the ground.

Gakushuu wonders in what purgatory he ended up as he watches a young Akabane climb a wire mesh fence.

He parted with the boy at the playground after a few more minutes of building sand towers and continued wandering. The all-encompassing silence blankets the senseless city again. Streaks of orange and pink color the sky as he treks on, the surrounding streets slowly morphing into a more familiar neighborhood, the houses and streets polished and their walls higher.
It’s here, in the remnants of the sinking sun, where he finds a young Akabane, halfway up the fence in an alleyway.

“What are you doing?” he asks, only to watch the child scramble to keep his grip and glare at Gakushuu. It lacks the heat he is used from the other, especially since he looks like he hasn’t even entered Junior High School yet.
A big scratch covers his cheek, and his clothes look dirty and roughed up. He turns his focus back to the fence, ignoring Gakushuu. Mud speckles adorn the back of his head, his hair clumped and unkempt.
Gakushuu watches as he climbs to the top and jumps down on the other side.

He never knew much about Akabane. Their interactions started with a begrudging acceptance of the other's intellect and a short-lived academic rivalry, and ended there.
He knew Akabane had home troubles—he’d have to be blind not to notice. Everyone at Kunugigaoka High School knew, it was the same kind of open secret as the cancer diagnosis of their Social Studies teacher, the Asano family affairs, or their last year of Junior High. Everyone silently agreed never to speak a word about it.

The mesh fence throws thin shadows over Akabane's face.

“What's it to you?” he spits out. It's rough and his eyes burn full of anger, but Gakushuu can hear his voice shaking, too young yet to know how to mask it.
He watches the child in the growing darkness, alone in an abandoned alleyway. Akabane's hands are tightly clutched into fists, his body tense as he glares. The evening sun highlights his dirty clothes and injured skin, his shaky armor of rage crumbling the longer Gakushuu looks.

People always said they look similar, and right now Gakushuu hates every small bit of resemblance they carry.

“Nothing.”

The air in his lungs is tight as he forces the word out.
Akabane’s face crumbles, his lips trembling with wide and shiny eyes before he twists it back into a scowl, and Gakushuu watches him scoff and run away. He doesn’t try to stop him, ignores the resigned look he must have imagined. It looks too much like his own reflection to be anything but a trick of light.

A tiny voice in the back of his head chides him, but he smothers it, telling himself it’s fine; he never knew much about Akabane and he never wanted to. It’s far too late anyway.

It should feel weirder than it actually does to see a past version of himself.

His younger self dribbles a basketball and throws it at the hoop. It ricochets off the edge of the board and rolls to a stop in front of Gakushuu’s feet. He doesn’t want to pick it up, hasn’t held a basketball for ages and never wants to hold one again. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

His younger self looks at him. He doesn’t know how old he must be, he just looks small as he stands in the darkness, the weak light from the streetlamp at the entrance of the basketball court throwing a long shadow over the ground. A schoolbag lies in the corner of the field, an empty water bottle and neatly folded jacket next to it.

“What are you doing here?” His past self’s voice is ragged, the words forced out between gasps for air. And Gakushuu doesn’t have an answer, hates the feeling of not knowing. It shouldn’t matter, he is talking to himself. None of this is real. Why is he still conscious instead of finally falling into the waiting embrace of nothingness?

His eyes wander back to the basketball, and he kicks it towards the other him.
“I died.” It sounds almost shameful, another admission of his failure.

“Okay.”
His younger self picks up the basketball and rolls it in his hands, watching him. Gakushuu wants to snatch it out of his grasp, bury it somewhere he can never find it again, but just the thought of touching the rubber makes his stomach curl.
The ball thuds against the ground. Once, twice, before it’s back in small hands.
“Can you teach me?”

 The question sounds almost hopeful, as if it weren’t directed at him. It’s stupid, and his past self should know better than to even consider asking for help. Should know better than to think that this could change anything.
He shakes his head, avoiding the pathetic stare of his childish past.

“It won’t help.”
His father never taught him, despite the weathered basketball stored in his office.
Gakushuu found out why when he tried to play with it. That ball is something sacred he could never measure up to. The screams still echo in his mind when he closes his eyes. They still haunt his nightmares when he doesn’t work himself to exhaustion until his body shuts down.
“It’s better if you stop.”

The basketball hoop looms over them in the darkness. A wind blows over the court, and his younger self shivers in his sweaty clothes before he raises his gaze and holds out his basketball.

“I still want to learn.”

His arms shake with exhaustion, but Gakushuu can still see the spark of determination he lost long ago shining in his eyes. It constricts something in his chest, and he fights against the nausea as he steps closer, bugs crawling under his skin.

“Okay.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

Gakushuu pants, the cold ground digging into his trousers as he leans against the pole of the hoop, sitting next to his younger self. The words are quiet but drowned in hope, and Gakushuu tips his head back, watching the starless sky. His vision is blurry, and his eyes feel wet.

“I,” he bites his lip. “I don't know…” It comes out as a whisper, hoarse and cracked.
After all these years, he still has no idea how to answer that one simple question. He has asked it countless times, and every single time he comes back just as clueless as before.
And even now that he’s dead, he still doesn’t know, even as his past stares at him as if he had all the answers.
He should tell himself to let it go. To stop festering that little hope, only to have it crushed time and time again. It’s what everyone has told him.
It’s what he wants, isn’t it? It’s what he did, and he feels miserable, he…
The words are stuck in his throat. He should say them, he doesn’t want to send this child back to his father. Not when there is still hope in his eyes.

“It will never get better, will it?” It’s the same defeated tone Gakushuu sees in his dusty mirror every morning.

“We…”
He hasn’t seen his father in years.

It was the first year after he moved across the globe. His first birthday away from home. His first visit back to Japan, at the pleading of Ren. It’s nice. It feels so warm compared to his new normal, Ren’s family welcoming him with open arms. Gakushuu can’t remember a single day he has spent with so much warmth and love.
It’s perfect, he should be grateful. But the food tastes ashen, the air hard to breathe, and he doesn’t belong. Day turns to night, and he watches his body go through the motions, a passenger in his own life.
He shouldn’t be here. Why did he come? He should have never come back.

The sounds turn too loud, a passing touch too much, and he doesn’t realize he has left their house until he’s already halfway down the street, the January air biting against his skin.
Ren is talking to him, blocking his path.
Gakushuu tunes back into his body, catching the tail end of his words.

“…wrong?”

“Nothing.” Nothing is wrong, he, he just…

Ren’s face makes an expression he doesn’t understand before it morphs into some kind of smile that looks wrong.

“Let's get back. It’s been a long day.”
Ren reaches for his hand, and Gakushuu steps back. He doesn’t understand why Ren looks at him like this. It’s too much like when he lost those three points, and he hates it, he hates it, he should have never come back.

“I should go.”

Ren’s hands drop, and he steps back as well.

“At least let me get your jacket.”

Gakushuu nods and waits, barely registering the warming weight draped over his shoulders a few minutes later. Ren enters his field of vision again, that wrong smile still on his lip.

“Don’t be a stranger.”

And all Gakushuu can do is croak out a small affirmative he knows isn’t true and walk away.

When his father opens the door, it’s already the second of January. The half-crescent moon shines brightly in the night as they wordlessly stare at each other.
Gakushuu never really said goodbye, never told him that he’s back in Japan. Why should he? They didn’t arrange a meeting, haven’t exchanged a single text message since he fled.
They have never celebrated birthdays.
But when Gakushuu enters the dining room, the table is already set for two and the food is cold.
They don’t talk.

In the morning, Gakushuu jumps on the first available flight back to America and never returns.

“We're working on it.”

“You’re lying.” It’s not accusatory. They both know he is.

“I am.”
A light breeze blows through his hair, and his younger self shivers against his arm.
Gakushuu can’t see the moon in the night sky. Is it still whole in this mockery of his past life?

“Why?”

Because he wants it to be true. Because admitting otherwise is worse than lying. Gakushuu’s eyes sting.

“You know why.”

“Aren’t you going?”

Gakushuu squints against the rising sun on the horizon. He already knows what his younger self means, doesn’t need to look. It’s the only logical conclusion.

“I don’t want to.”

Even so, he stands up, closes his eyes and counts to ten. A calm inhale, keep it for five seconds, a slow exhale. He ignores how it stutters in his chest.

And once again he starts to walk.

Far too soon, Gakushuu arrives at the familiar hill. The overgrown mud path leads him through the abandoned forest, his labored breaths and heavy steps the only sounds far and wide. A few branches brush his arms and legs as he treks up uneven ground.
They should have invested in some stairs or at least a path that doesn’t phase out after every few steps.

The old building is far more unassuming than he remembers. Rotten wood supports dirty windows, surrounded by trampled grass and a single dying tree. One door leans against the wall while the other hangs on just one hinge. The smell of death and rusted metal wafts from its decrepit shed at the side.
The floorboards crackle with each step Gakushuu takes, and dust fills his lungs with every breath. Spiderwebs cover every corner, and he wrinkles his nose at the abandoned state. He thought this building meant something, though he should have known better.
It’s not like anyone except his father has any good memories of it.

He reaches the only classroom, its door ajar. His chest hurts, and he ignores his shaking hands as he pushes it open. Hollow relief floods his body—at least he thinks that’s it—when he doesn’t see his father.
Instead, a tall figure he has only read about in newspapers and government documents meets him with an eternal smile. Its bloated head turns towards him, and a yellow tentacle wriggles in a mimicry of a wave.

“Young Asano,” it greets, mouth never moving.

“Korosensei?” It sounds more like a question than it should. The creature's head turns orange with a red circle. It’s taller than he imagined from the few facts the government published.

“Quite right.”

“So I really am dead.”

“Yes.” The answer sounds genuinely sorry. Why?
The sun filters through grimy glass, illuminating the dust coating every surface and floating through the air. It looks quite calm, better than the city he’s been trapped in.

“You didn't clean.”

“There was no reason to. Not without my students.” The creature chuckles, and its head changes again. Whatever the new color means, it talks with the same tone Akabane did about their last year of Junior High.

“Do you regret it?”

“My students? Never. Though I wish it didn’t have to come this far.” The creature answers as it swipes a tentacle over the chalk on the blackboard.
“What about you, young Asano? Your life has been cut shorter than it should. Do you regret it?”

“I don’t know.” His tongue is heavy, and he just feels… tired. Gakushuu takes a step back, the writhing tentacles too close for comfort. They retreat immediately.

“Many don’t. It took me quite a while to know.”

“What happens now?” There is nowhere for him to go.

“I don’t know. We wait.”

Korosensei turns back to the window, the sun crawling higher in the sky. And with nothing left to do, Gakushuu sits down and swipes his arm over a filthy desk. The chair is too small, wrongly bent metal digging into his back and splinters catching on his trousers.

“Teach me.”