Chapter 44: The One With Eyes Like Gold.
A lukewarm breeze drifted through the park, stirring the fringe of her cardigan.
Yuuta sat alone on the weathered bench outside the campus gate, a paper cup of tea in one hand, the other resting on her lap. Her phone lay face-down beside her bag. She hadn't checked it in twenty minutes.
The night was cool. Still. Stars caught in the branches above.
She wasn't waiting for anyone. She just... didn't want to be indoors.
Her mind had been quieter lately. Not calmer, not cleaner -but quieter. As if grief had finally stopped screaming and instead just sat beside her, breathing slowly.
Then-
A figure approached.
She didn't hear him. Didn't see him arrive.
He was simply there.
White-haired. Tall. Pale. His coat looked expensive in a way that felt wrong-like silk pulled from a mausoleum. And his eyes-
She froze. "You-"
He raised a gloved hand. "Please, don't ask how I know you." His voice was low, intimate. Polished like old bone. "I introduce myself as Rave."
Yuuta braced herself, dropping her bag onto the seat beside her. "Rave," she echoed, tasting the name. It sounded like a promise and a warning. "Do I know you?"
Rave's golden gaze flicked away momentarily, then back. "Not yet. But we share mutual acquaintances-people I believe you care about."
Her heart tightened. "That's-helpful? But unsettling."
He inclined his head. "I apologize for the intrusion. But I wanted to speak with you in private."
She drew in a slow breath. "Then speak."
Rave sat down beside her-not too close. Just enough to be heard. His hands rested in his lap, black gloves creaking slightly as his fingers folded together.
"You loved someone," he said simply. "A long time ago. And then... he changed."
Yuuta's throat tightened. "You're talking about Renji."
He nodded once.
"You were his friend?"
"I was something adjacent to that," Rave said. "We shared time. Not understanding."
"That's vague as hell."
"That's the only way I speak," he replied, almost apologetic. "Vagueness is safer than honesty. Honesty turns men into monsters."
She studied him.
"So why are you here now?"
He took a breath. Then said, "Because you're at a crossroads. And I have an...interest in how you choose."
"Choose what?"
"Whether to keep pretending you're just a teacher," he said, eyes glinting, "or acknowledge that you're part of something much larger."
She stared.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"You've felt it, haven't you?" he said, his voice gentler now. "The sense that time's fraying around him. Around Tokusake Ren."
Yuuta blinked.
The silence said more than words.
"I don't know what you are," she finally whispered.
"I'm not important," he said. "He is."
Yuuta turned her face away, jaw clenched. "...He's just a boy."
Rave chuckled. "He's never just been a 'just a boy'. You know that."
There was a pause.
Then she asked, quietly:
"Is he going to be hurt?"
Rave looked at her-serious, golden eyes catching the low light.
"Almost certainly," he said.
"Then why are you here?" she asked, more tired than angry.
"To give you the same gift I gave him," Rave said, rising to his feet. "A choice."
He turned, slowly walking away.
Rave stopped.
Turned his head slightly.
"The kind that will define whether your regret remains...or evolves."
And then he walked into the dark.
.
.
.
.
.
.
That night, Yuuta didn't sleep.
She sat by her window, the lamp left on, her tea gone cold on the desk.
Rave's words looped endlessly in her ears-regret remains... or evolves.
What the hell did that mean?
She had spent years locking her past behind well-placed smiles and the structure of classroom life. Being dependable. Being respected.
But he had looked at her like he could read the crumpled pages she kept folded inside.
Worse still he hadn't judged them.
That made it harder.
And Ren...
That boy with too-old eyes. Who sometimes flinched at laughter like it was a sound he'd forgotten belonged to joy.
The one who had confessed love-not childish, not sweet, but trembling and heavy, like something born from a darker timeline.
She hadn't answered him.
She couldn't.
But the guilt still settled on her shoulders like a soaked blanket.
Meanwhile-Ren stirred.
His eyes opened sharply in bed-like he'd been yanked from sleep.
No sound.
No movement.
Just the faint, lingering pressure-like someone had been in the room and left only a heartbeat behind.
His body was tense.
There were no footsteps in the hallway.
No knocks.
Only moonlight creeping in from the window like a quiet observer.
He sat up.
(Was it a dream?}
No, it was a presence. Like intuition had kicked in too hard.
Like something had just shifted-and he wasn't told the rules had changed.
He stood, stretched, paced.
His eyes landed on the desk where old textbooks were stacked beside a photo frame.
A picture of his parents.
And him. Before it all fell apart.
He picked it up.
In his past life, he had ignored them. Outgrown them too early. Chased shadows and gold, and bled himself for a life that never wanted him back.
Now?
Now he was trying. Helping in the garage. Watching his mother hum her silly songs in the kitchen.
Trying to remind himself of warmth.
But there was something wrong tonight.
Not with the house.
With the air.
A pressure.
A... watching.
"Something's coming," he whispered.
His voice sounded too calm to be his.
Across the city-Akeshi stood at his window.
No lights were on.
His phone was turned face-down.
He had felt it too.
That ripple.
That invisible weight that slid across the world like a needle dragging across skin.
His eyes glinted leaf-green in the dark as he muttered:
"...Someone opened the wrong page."
And far beyond them all-
Beneath a shattered skyline, behind a rusted gate that shouldn't exist in this time-
Rave stood on the edge of a cliff.
Hands behind his back.
Golden eyes scanning the fog below.
Behind him, something stirred in chains. A wet rasp. A smile with too many teeth.
Something not yet awake.
Not fully.
Rave didn't look back.
"I've pulled the thread," he murmured. "Let's see who unravels first."