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"You were supposed to smell it again today."
The girl stood with her hands folded over a cloth-wrapped notebook, her fingers tucked tightly into the fabric. Her eyes didn't shift from mine. They were large—almost too large for her face—and a shade of soft grey that didn't reflect light so much as absorb it.
I stared at her from behind the desk. Kurose didn't move.
A gust of hallway air drifted into the room, stirring the curtain slightly behind her.
The girl's expression didn't change.
Kurose, finally, spoke.
"You're a first-year."
The girl tilted her head slightly, as if calculating whether this was a question or an accusation. Then: "Yes."
"You're not assigned to this room."
"No one is."
"What's your name?"
"Tanabe Mio."
Kurose glanced at me once. I didn't respond. I wasn't entirely sure I'd exhaled since the girl had spoken.
"Tanabe-san," Kurose said evenly, "why are you here?"
Mio blinked once, slowly, as though that question had been filtered through four layers of meaning before reaching her.
Then she stepped inside.
Kurose didn't stop her.
Mio walked soundlessly across the room and placed her notebook—carefully—on the desk between us. She didn't sit down.
"You moved the fan," she said to me.
It wasn't a question.
"I touched it," I replied.
She nodded. "That's how it spreads."
"What spreads?" I asked.
She looked at me like I was the one being slow.
"The scent."
Kurose folded her arms. "You've smelled it before."
Mio nodded once.
"How many times?"
"Four."
"Same room?"
"No. Twice here. Once in the old science lab. Once in the north stairwell."
Kurose frowned. "And you recorded it?"
"I remember them."
Mio touched the cover of her notebook gently with her fingertips.
Kurose turned to me. "Are you hearing this?"
"I'm trying not to."
Mio smiled. It was faint. Too faint. Her face didn't seem built for smiling, and when it happened, it looked like a mask adjusting itself rather than an emotion surfacing.
"Did it speak to you?" she asked suddenly.
"What spoke to me?"
"The scent."
I stared.
Kurose leaned slightly forward in her seat, watching both of us now. Her gaze was sharp, but not invasive—like she was mapping something in real-time.
I chose my words carefully. "I heard a voice outside the room. That's it."
Mio nodded again. "Male or female?"
"Female."
Her fingers tensed slightly on the notebook.
She opened it.
The pages were covered not with writing—but symbols.
Tiny, handwritten, abstract marks in patterns that made my eyes ache. Not runes. Not kanji. Just... shapes. Every inch of the page was filled.
"You wrote that?"
She nodded.
"What does it mean?"
She didn't answer.
Kurose finally stood, walked to the cabinet, and returned with a third teacup.
She set it in front of Mio.
"Jasmine and yuzu," she said.
Mio lowered her gaze to the cup. She didn't touch it.
Kurose sat down again.
"This is not a club," she said plainly. "We don't advertise. We don't recruit. We don't even have a charter."
Mio didn't look up.
"But," Kurose added, "we do follow rules. Rule one: don't make assumptions. Rule two: always question the memory before you question the evidence. Rule three—"
"Don't breathe deeply," Mio said.
Kurose's expression flickered—just for a moment.
"You already knew that?" Kurose asked.
Mio nodded.
"I wrote it."
The silence that followed was different from the others.
Kurose and I exchanged a glance. Her brow furrowed slightly—just enough to make me wonder whether she was uncertain, or calculating how to proceed.
Mio's hand hovered over the teacup now. She hadn't lifted it. But her fingers trembled slightly.
"She won't come today," she said softly.
I leaned forward.
"Who?"
"The third girl."
I felt something cold settle in my stomach.
"There's another one?" I asked.
Mio nodded.
"She came before me. She left something here."
Kurose stood abruptly. Her chair shifted behind her with a wooden scrape.
"You're guessing."
Mio looked at her, unmoved. "No."
"You couldn't know that."
"I can."
"How?"
Mio raised her hand slowly.
Then pointed to the floor under the table.
I followed her gaze.
At first, I didn't see it.
But then—
Half-tucked beneath the table's edge, pressed into the seam where two desks met, was a matchbook.
Small. Black. No logo. One match missing.
Kurose reached down and picked it up with two fingers. She turned it over once. Twice. Then looked at me.
I shook my head. "Not mine."
She looked at Mio.
Mio said nothing.
Just looked at the cup of tea.
Then, very slowly, she leaned forward and drank.
One sip.
No expression.
When she set the cup down, the silence returned again. But this time, I couldn't tell whether it was because we were all waiting for someone to speak—or because something else had joined us in the room and none of us wanted to acknowledge it.
Then, with quiet finality, Mio said:
"She only leaves things behind when she wants to be found."
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