Aro sat by the window now.
The teacher had assigned him the seat beside Rin.
Because of course.
The classroom buzzed with low voices — not loud, not silent, just... tight.
Thirty students. Desks full. Windows open but stale.
Laughter from the back row. A pen clicking somewhere on repeat.
But between Aro and Rin, the air felt different.
Like a conversation waiting to happen in a language neither remembered how to speak.
"Have we met before?"
It was Rin who broke it.
She hated silence when it had weight.
Aro blinked slowly, watching her hands.
They were tracing the desk again.
"...No," he replied.
But his eyes flinched. Like they'd seen her with a knife.
Later, at lunch, he ate alone on the roof.
Below, the classroom was a mess of noise — chairs dragging, someone yelling about the cafeteria curry.
Up here, wind and sky.
Rin found him there.
"People say I'm weird," she said, standing awkwardly near the door.
"Because I don't remember my dreams. But I think I do. Just… not from this life."
Aro didn't move.
But his knuckles clenched the railing tighter.
"Then don't remember them," he whispered.
"Let ghosts sleep."
She tilted her head. "But what if we're not dreaming? What if we're just... remembering wrong?"
His expression cracked for a second.
A flash of panic, then gone.
She didn't push.
Just sat beside him, the wind too soft to be called breeze.
They didn't speak.
But something returned.
Like the sound of a bell that was only ever felt in the ribs.
That night, Aro found a thread on his pillow.
Red. Old.
He didn't know how it got there.
He didn't sleep.
Some people dream in color.
Others dream in wounds.