The classroom was buzzing with the kind of chaotic energy that only appeared when the normal routine broke. Every student was craning their neck toward the teacher's desk, where something impossible stood.
A headless chicken corpse wearing a tie.
The body was plump, feathery, clearly dead, except for the way it shifted its weight from one claw to the other. The neck was a clean stump, dried blood crusted around the edges. A tie was looped neatly where the neck should have been, giving the impression of a businessman who'd forgotten his head at home.
The teacher, a tall man with a middle part and a face that looked like it held secrets he'd never share, gestured toward the creature with the practiced enthusiasm of someone who'd rehearsed this speech.
"Starting today, we'll be keeping a class pet!" He paused for effect. "The Chicken Devil! Go on, introduce yourself."
The Chicken Devil snapped its wings together in a crisp salute.
"My name's Bucky! I'm eggcited to befriend you all!"
A few students giggled. Most just stared, unsure if this was a joke.
The teacher's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Three months from now, you kids are going to kill and eat Bucky! You see, I want you to understand how precious life is!"
Silence.
Then:
"Buh... Buck-Buck..." The devil's headless body trembled. "WHAT THE CLUCK?!"
The scream echoed through the classroom, down the hallway, probably into the next building. It was the scream of something that had just realized it was walking into a trap with its eyes wide open, except it didn't have eyes.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then the dam broke.
Students surged forward, hands reaching, fingers poking. Bucky was surrounded. While doing so, they took it and put it on a desk.
"Is it really safe to touch a devil?" someone asked from the back.
"Nobody's afraid of chickens," another student answered confidently. "It must be weak."
Hands grabbed at Bucky's feathers. Someone tugged the tie. A finger poked the stump of its neck. Through it all, Bucky sat frozen, its body drooping lower and lower. The dried blood at its neck seemed to gather, forming a single drop that rolled down its chest like a tear.
"But... I don't want to get eaten..." The devil's voice was small now. Hollow. "If you eat me, I'll die..."
"Awww!" A girl clutched her hands to her chest, grinning. "It's so pitiful, it's cute!"
The fake pity hung in the air like cheap perfume.
By the doorway, a girl stood perfectly still.
She hadn't moved since Bucky introduced itself. Hadn't laughed, hadn't pushed forward, hadn't done anything except lean against the frame and watch with eyes that looked like they'd forgotten how to reflect light.
Bottomless pits. Void.
Her gaze drifted across the chaos, the grabbing hands, the grinning faces, the trembling headless thing, and landed on one specific detail.
'It's sitting on my desk.'
The thought was flat. Cold. Just an observation.
Then something stirred in the void of her eyes. Not warmth. Not sympathy. Just a single, quiet pulse of something that might have been recognition. She knew what it was like to be surrounded by people who saw you as strange.
The pulse faded.
Her face went blank again.
'DIE.'
Not directed at Bucky. Not directed at anyone. Just the word, floating in the emptiness of her mind. A reflex. A prayer. A door slamming shut.
She turned, grabbed the door handle, and pulled it shut behind her with a firm click that cut off the laughter mid-sound.
In the sudden quiet of the hallway, she stood for a moment. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Her shoes squeaked slightly as she shifted her weight.
Then she walked away without looking back.
Inside the classroom, someone noticed.
"Yikes, was she glaring at us?"
A few students glanced toward the door, now closed.
"I mean, if I remember right..." A girl lowered her voice, leaning in. "Her parents got eaten by a devil."
The words landed like stones in still water. Ripples of uncomfortable silence. Then someone shrugged, and the moment passed, and the grabbing hands found Bucky again.
Near the back of the room, a boy gathered his things.
"I'm going out too."
He was already standing, already moving toward the door. Average height. Dark circles under his eyes. Bandages peeking out from under his sleeves. The kind of kid you'd pass in the hallway a hundred times and never remember.
"Tanaka-kun!" A classmate called after him. "You aren't going to meet with the weirdo, are you?"
The boy paused. Hand on the door. Didn't turn around.
"No."
His voice was quiet. Flat.
"I'm going to the bathroom."
The door opened. Closed.
And then there were two empty desks in a classroom full of people petting a headless chicken that was going to die in three months.
The girl and Tanaka walked in opposite directions, two currents in the same river, flowing away from each other without ever touching.
The girl, Asa Mitaka, moved through the hallway like she was trying to take up as little space as possible. Shoulders tight. Eyes forward but seeing nothing. Her thoughts were a constant stream of static wrapped around sharp edges.
A group of boys clustered near the water fountains, laughing too loud, taking up the whole corridor.
'Don't walk side by side,' she thought, the words automatic, worn smooth from years of repetition. 'People can't get past you. Move. MOVE.'
She slipped between them without a word. None of them noticed.
Tanaka walked in the opposite direction, hands in pockets, gaze fixed on some middle distance that didn't exist. The noise of the school faded into a dull hum. Thoughts drifted.
'It's strange,' they mused, barely conscious of their own feet moving. 'What gave the teacher the idea for this experiment? A class pet that's meant to be eaten. Three months of care just to teach us that life is precious by ending one.'
A door opened. Someone bumped past. Tanaka didn't flinch.
'I'm sure there are less cruel ways.'
Asa passed the bathrooms. The door was propped open with a trash can. Inside, a cluster of girls crowded around the mirrors, talking, laughing, fixing their hair. One of them leaned against the sink, blocking the only available space.
'Quit hanging in the bathroom,' Asa thought, flat and cold. 'You're in the way. People actually need to use it. GO somewhere else.'
She kept walking.
Tanaka's mind circled back to the classroom. To Bucky. To the way the devil's body had drooped when it understood.
'Humans can be really cruel,' they thought. 'They even scared the shit out of that devil. And they'll eat it in three months and call it a lesson.'
The bathroom door was ahead. Almost there.
Asa reached the stairwell. A couple sat on the middle landing, wrapped around each other, taking up the whole width of the stairs. The boy's arm was around the girl's shoulder. The girl's head rested on his chest. They weren't moving. Just... existing. Together. In the way.
Asa stopped.
Stared.
'Drop dead.'
The thought wasn't angry. It was too flat for anger. Just a statement. A quiet observation about the natural order of things.
She stepped around them, pressed against the wall, and continued up.
Tanaka pushed open the bathroom door. Empty. Good. They leaned against the sink, looked at their reflection. Dark circles. Bandaged forearms. Eyes that had stopped asking questions years ago.
'Sometimes,' they thought, watching the mirror watch them back, 'I feel like humans are just as bad as devils.'
The thought sat there. Heavy. Familiar.
Asa climbed higher. The stairs ended. The door to the roof was ahead, slightly ajar, held open by a broken lock someone had never bothered to fix.
She pushed through into the open air.
Wind hit her face. Cold. Clean. The sky was gray, heavy with clouds that couldn't decide whether to rain.
They didn't know each other. Had never spoken. Would probably never speak.
But in that moment, in different parts of the same building, Akira Tanaka and Asa Mitaka thought the exact same words:
'Humans are the worst.'
And kept moving.
AT THE ROOF
The door slammed shut behind Asa, but she was already tuning it out. She crossed to the railing, leaned against the cold metal, and pulled a snack from her pocket. Some kind of bun thing. Cheap. Tasteless. She ate it anyway, staring at nothing, frown carved into her face like it had always been there.
Wind tugged at her hair. She didn't fix it.
Behind her, the door creaked open.
Asa didn't turn. Didn't react. Just kept chewing her snack and staring at the void.
Footsteps approached. Light. Casual. A voice followed, bright and sharp and exactly the kind of voice Asa hated most.
"You won't make any friends like this."
Asa's jaw tightened.
"Class Prez..."
The blonde girl appeared at her side, leaning against the railing like she owned it. Same school uniform. Same roof. Completely different energy. She was already unwrapping something, a bun, fluffy and white, with a familiar red stamp on the wrapper.
Asa stared down at the city. "I don't need friends. They're pointless."
"Wow, so cool." The blonde's voice dripped with mock admiration. "I think I'll eat here too." She took a dramatic bite of her bun.
Silence. Wind. The distant sound of traffic.
Asa's eyes drifted sideways. Landed on the wrapper.
Chainsaw Man. The logo was hard to miss.
"Ah-" The sound escaped before Asa could stop it. "A Chainsaw Man Bun."
"I'm collecting the stickers." The blonde held up the bun like a trophy. "If you have any, gimme."
Asa looked away. Back at the city.
Most of the buildings below were wrong. Too tall for their lots. Squeezed together like passengers on a crowded train. Someone had done the math wrong somewhere, and the math had never been fixed.
"The city's corrupt," Asa said.
The blonde kept chewing.
Asa kept going, the words spilling out like they'd been waiting for an excuse to leave.
"Most of the buildings are illegally constructed. We have a mayor with a DUI." Pause. "A devil called Chainsaw Man playing Devil Hunter." Another pause, heavier. "And now, we're keeping a Chicken Devil as a pet in our own classroom."
The blonde swallowed. Turned. Studied Asa's profile with something that might have been interest.
Then she smiled. Not mocking this time. Just... amused.
"As far as Bucky goes, hold it in." She shrugged. "It'll be dead in 100 days anyways."
Asa stared at the gray sky.
"I wish Bucky and Chainsaw Man would both hurry up and die."
The words hung in the air between them. Light as ash. Heavy as stone.
The blonde said nothing. Just took another bite of her bun.
This is basically what happened in these three months.
SCENE 1
The teacher stood at the blackboard, chalk in hand, back to the class. A math problem was half-written, some equation that nobody cared about.
"Raise your hand if you can solve this problem!"
Hands went up. A few. Reluctant. The usual.
And then, from the front of the room, a wing.
Bucky's wing. Raised high, feathers slightly askew, the tie still looped neatly around its absent neck.
"Buck!" The devil's voice was bright, eager, completely missing the point. "I don't know, it's not clucking to me!"
For a moment, silence.
Then someone snorted.
A student with a happy face, genuinely happy, the kind of happy that came from never having anything truly bad happen, turned in their seat and shouted:
"Then don't raise your wing, sheesh!"
Laughter exploded.
It rolled through the classroom in waves. Desks shook. Someone slapped their textbook. A girl in the front row was actually wiping tears from her eyes. The teacher turned around, chalk still in hand, and allowed himself a small smile.
Bucky's wing lowered slowly. Its headless body seemed to shrink.
"Bawk..." it said, quietly. "Bawk bawk..."
The laughter continued.
Asa sat in her seat.
She was not laughing.
She was watching Bucky. Watching the way its feathers drooped. Watching the way the dried blood at its neck seemed darker somehow, like the devil was bleeding embarrassment instead of red.
'They're laughing because it's stupid,' she thought. 'They're laughing because it doesn't understand. Because it raised its wing when it shouldn't have.'
The laughter faded. The teacher cleared his throat. The lesson continued.
Bucky didn't raise its wing again.
Asa's expression didn't change.
SCENE 2
Lunch break. Desks pushed together. Food unwrapped. The usual chaos.
Bucky sat on the teacher's desk, motionless, like a very sad lawn ornament.
A blonde girl with freckles leaned toward it, holding up her chopsticks. A piece of chicken dangled from them. Fried. Golden-brown. Steam rising.
"Want some fried chicken, Bucky?"
Her voice was sweet. Innocent. The kind of sweet that made the cruelty underneath invisible to everyone except the people on the receiving end.
Bucky's body jerked.
"Buckaw!" The devil's voice cracked with horror. "Cannibalism is FOWL!"
The class erupted.
Someone choked on their juice. Another student doubled over, wheezing. The freckled girl grinned, pleased with herself, and took a dramatic bite of the chicken.
"But you're a devil!" a boy shouted through his laughter. "You're not even a real chicken!"
More laughter. Louder. Longer.
Bucky's headless neck seemed to droop further. Its wings pressed against its sides like it was trying to make itself smaller.
'Cannibalism is fowl,' it had said. A joke. It had made a joke about itself. About dying. About being eaten.
And they were laughing.
Asa chewed her cracker slowly. Watched the freckled girl take another bite. Watched Bucky tremble.
She was not laughing.
'It knows what's coming,' she thought. 'It knows it's going to be eaten. And it's still trying to be funny. Still trying to make them like it.'
She swallowed.
'Pathetic.'
But the word didn't land right. It felt wrong in her head. Like she'd aimed for contempt and hit something else entirely.
She looked away. Out the window. At the gray sky.
Behind her, the laughter continued.
SCENE 3
Students were standing, talking to eachother.
Bucky sat in the arms of the class president.
The president, perfect hair, perfect posture, perfect smile, held the headless devil like it was a kitten. Like it was something precious. Her expression was soft. Concerned. The kind of expression that made teachers trust her and students secretly hate her.
"Bucky," she said gently, "why don't you just run away?"
The devil shifted in her arms.
"Buck!" Its voice was small. Defeated. "I'm so weak a stray cat would eggsecute me!"
A few students looked up from their worksheets. Smirked.
The president's expression didn't waver. "That's so sad," she murmured, stroking a feather. "There must be something we can do..."
From across the room, a student with short hair raised his voice.
"Okay then, I'll bring my cat next time!"
Laughter. Sharp and quick. A few people actually applauded.
Bucky made a small sound. "Bawk." Quiet. Almost nonexistent.
The president laughed too, a delicate, musical laugh that fit her perfect face perfectly. She hugged Bucky closer.
"You're so funny," she told to no one in particular.
More laughter. Warm. Friendly. The laughter of people who would eat this devil in three months and call it education.
Asa watched.
Her eyes were fixed on the class president. On the way she held Bucky. On the way she smiled. On the way her fingers moved through feathers that would soon be plucked and fried.
Asa's eyes were far away. Elsewhere.
'She's so kind,' Asa thought. 'Everyone thinks she's so kind.'
The president laughed again. Bucky trembled.
'She'll eat it too.'
The thought was flat. Cold. Just a fact.
'In three months, she'll sit at this same desk and eat this same devil and probably cry about how sad it is, and everyone will tell her how kind she is for crying.'
Asa looked down at her desk.
She didn't blink.
Around her, the class laughed and learned and lived their normal lives.
Asa was not laughing.
Asa was not learning.
Asa was not living a normal life.
She was just... there. Watching. Waiting.
For what, she didn't know.
But she'd know it when it came.
THREE MONTHS LATER
The classroom felt different.
Not in any way you could point to: the desks were still in the same rows, the posters still on the walls, the same gray light filtering through the same windows. But something had shifted. Settled. Become routine.
Bucky sat on the teacher's desk like it had always been there.
Which, for three months, it had.
The headless chicken devil had become as much a part of the classroom as the chalkboard or the squeaky third desk from the window. Students greeted it in the morning. Complained to it about homework. Occasionally let it "help" with quizzes by flapping its wings next to the correct multiple choice answer (it was right about 40% of the time, which was better than some students).
The tie had been replaced twice. Someone's mom had knitted a tiny scarf for winter. Bucky wore it with pride.
Today, the scarf was off. The tie was back on. Formal occasion.
The teacher stood at the front of the room, hands clasped behind his back, expression grave. The kind of expression that preceded Important Announcements.
"Today marks three months of having Bucky with us at school."
He paused. Let the weight of the words settle.
"I will now call a student with Devil Hunter aspirations to come forward and kill Bucky."
Another pause.
"All right?!"
Silence.
Complete. Absolute. The kind of silence that happens when twenty-three people collectively forget how to breathe.
Bucky's headless body seemed to deflate.
"Buck... aw..."
The word was barely a whisper. A feather drifting down in still air.
And then-
A grin.
Small. Sharp. Genuine.
Asa Mitaka's face, usually carved from stone, had cracked into something almost alive. Her eyes, normally bottomless voids, held a flicker of light.
'Finally.'
The word echoed in her skull like a bell.
'Finally, something happens. Finally, the stupid experiment ends. Finally, this pointless waiting-'
A chair scraped against the floor.
The class president stood up.
Asa's brain stuttered. Did a double take. Came back wrong.
'...What?'
"Sir."
The president's voice was steady. Confident. The voice of someone who'd practiced this moment in the mirror.
Then another chair scraped.
And another.
And another.
Students rose from their seats like a slow wave. One by one. Two by two. Soon, almost the entire class was standing, a wall of uniforms and determined faces.
Only two people remained seated.
Asa frozen in her chair.
And Tanaka, near the back, watching with an unreadable expression.
The president spoke again, her voice carrying through the silent room:
"The whole class talked it out. And we've decided..."
She looked at Bucky. The headless devil trembled.
"...we won't eat Bucky."
'WHAT?!'
The scream in Asa's head was so loud she was surprised it didn't come out of her mouth. Her fingers gripped the edge of her desk. Her knuckles went white.
'WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WON'T-'
"We eat living things." The president continued, her voice softer now. "We can't deny that. It's just how the world works." She glanced around at her classmates. They nodded. Supported her. "But Bucky isn't a chicken or a devil to us anymore."
She walked to the teacher's desk. Reached down. Lifted Bucky into her arms like she'd done a hundred times before.
"Bucky is our friend."
The word hung in the air. Solid. Real.
Bucky made a sound. Small. Wet. Almost like a sob, if headless chickens could sob.
The teacher stared at them. His face worked through several expressions: surprise, confusion, something that might have been pride. His hand rose to his chest. Pressed against his heart.
His eyes glistened.
"That's..." His voice cracked. He cleared his throat. Tried again. "That's what I wanted to hear!"
'EXCUSE ME?!'
Asa's internal screaming reached new heights. Her face, however, remained perfectly blank. A survival mechanism. The only one she had.
The teacher wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Stood up straighter. Raised his fist to the ceiling.
"Okay! Bucky is hereby pardoned..." He grinned, a real grin, warm and genuine, nothing like the rehearsed smiles from three months ago. "...and will continue to live as a member of the class!"
"BUCKAW!!!"
Bucky launched itself from the president's arms. Soared through the air. Landed in a flurry of feathers on the teacher's head.
"WAHOOOO!!!"
The classroom exploded.
Students cheered. Someone threw a textbook in the air. The freckled girl who'd offered fried chicken was actually crying, real tears, not fake ones. Even the teacher was laughing, Bucky perched on his head like a very confused hat.
Chaos. Joy. Life.
Asa sat perfectly still.
Her face was blank.
Her hands were white-knuckled on the desk.
Her eyes-
Her eyes were fixed on Bucky. On the teacher. On the president. On all of them.
'They're happy,' she thought. 'They're actually happy. About this. About NOT killing it.'
The thought didn't fit. It was the wrong shape for her brain. It scraped against things inside her that she didn't have names for.
'I wanted it to die.'
The realization sat heavy in her chest.
'For three months, I sat here and watched it and wished it would die. And they... they were making friends with it. The whole time.'
She looked at the class president, laughing, tears on her perfect cheeks.
'She meant it. She actually meant it. Bucky is her friend.'
Asa didn't understand.
Didn't understand how you could spend three months with something that was going to die and not hate it. Not wish it would just hurry up and get it over with.
Didn't understand how you could look at a devil, a devil, and see anything except a monster wearing a face.
Didn't understand how they could all be so...
So...
Human.
The word tasted like ash.
Across the room, Tanaka watched.
They hadn't stood either. Hadn't cheered. Had just... observed. The way they always observed.
'How peculiar.'
The thought drifted through their mind like smoke.
'What is their reasoning? Three months ago, they were poking it and laughing at it. Now they're crying because it gets to live.'
Tanaka studied the teacher, laughing under his feathery hat.
'So the teacher isn't as cruel as I imagined.'
A pause.
'Silly Tanaka. Always assuming the worst.'
But even as they thought it, something tugged at the edge of their awareness. A memory. A feeling. The weight of a contract scar under their bandages.
'Humans are the worst,' they'd thought that day on the roof.
And now...
Now they weren't so sure.
Maybe humans were complicated. Maybe they were cruel and kind. Maybe they laughed at things that were going to die and cried when those things got to live.
Maybe that was the point.
Or maybe Tanaka was thinking too hard about a headless chicken devil and a classroom full of teenagers who didn't know what they were doing any more than Tanaka did.
Bucky crowed from the teacher's head.
The cheering continued.
And for the first time in three months, Asa Mitaka and Akira Tanaka, strangers who'd never spoken, who sat in the same room every day without ever really seeing each other, had the exact same thought:
'I don't understand anything.'
The teacher wiped the last of the tears from his eyes. Bucky still perched on his head, wings flapping slightly for balance. The classroom was still buzzing with the electric energy of unexpected joy.
"As your teacher," he said, voice thick with emotion, "I didn't want you to take life lightly. Not even a devil's!" He looked around at his students, his children, the expression seemed to say, and beamed with genuine pride. "I'm so proud of you kids for learning this lesson!"
A few students sniffled. Others grinned. Bucky made a happy buck-buck sound.
The teacher raised his fist again.
"Forget math class for today! Let's all go outside and play some soccer!"
The classroom erupted.
Chairs scraped. Desks shifted. Bodies moved toward the door in a chaotic tide of laughter and shouting. Someone grabbed a ball from the storage closet. Someone else was already arguing about teams. The freckled girl was dragging the class president by the arm, both of them laughing.
Bucky flapped off the teacher's head and landed on someone's shoulder.
"Buck! I'll be the referee!"
"You don't have eyes!"
"I'll feel the calls!"
More laughter. The tide swept them all away, through the door, down the hall, toward the stairs and the field beyond.
And then they were gone.
The classroom was silent.
Empty desks. Open windows. A single piece of paper drifting slowly to the floor.
Asa sat exactly where she'd been sitting. Exactly how she'd been sitting. Hands still gripping the edge of her desk. Knuckles still white. Face still frozen in that same blank expression that wasn't blank at all if you knew how to read it.
She didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Didn't breathe.
'They went outside. To play soccer. With the devil. The devil they were supposed to eat. The devil they were supposed to kill. The devil I waited three months to watch die.'
Her thoughts were static. White noise. Nothing made sense.
'They're happy. They're actually happy. About this. About NOT killing it. About keeping it alive. About playing soccer with a headless chicken devil.'
She stared at the empty teacher's desk. At the spot where Bucky had sat for three months. At the spot where it hadn't died.
'I wanted it to die.'
The thought came again. Sharper this time.
'For three months, I sat here and wished for its death. Every day. Every laugh. Every stupid chicken pun. Every time it raised its wing. Every time someone petted it. Every time it made that stupid sound.'
'And they...'
'They made it their friend.'
'They made it live.'
Asa's hands trembled. Just slightly. Just enough.
She didn't understand.
Didn't understand anything.
"What's with that face?"
The voice came from behind her.
Asa flinched, actually flinched, a tiny jerk of her shoulders, before she could stop herself. She turned.
A boy stood in the aisle between desks. Average height. Dark circles under his eyes. Bandages peeking out from under his sleeves. The kind of face you'd pass in the hallway a hundred times and never remember.
Except now, for some reason, she was remembering it.
'Tanaka,' her brain supplied. 'Sits in the back. Never talks. Didn't stand up either.'
He was looking at her. Not with curiosity. Not with judgment. Just... looking. Like she was a math problem he was trying to solve.
"What face?" Asa's voice came out flat. Defensive. Automatic.
Tanaka tilted their head. Just slightly.
"That one." They gestured vaguely at her entire face. "Like you just watched something die instead of something live."
Asa stared at them.
The silence stretched.
Somewhere outside, faint and distant, she could hear the class cheering. Bucky's distinctive buckaw rising above the noise. The thud of a soccer ball being kicked.
Inside, there was only this. Two people who hadn't stood. Two people who hadn't cheered. Two people who had watched the same thing happen and apparently seen completely different things.
Asa opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
"What do you care?" she finally managed.
Tanaka shrugged. One-shouldered. Casual.
"I don't." They paused. "Just... wondering if you see what I see."
Asa's eyes narrowed. "And what's that?"
Tanaka looked toward the window. Toward the distant sound of laughter. Toward the class playing soccer with a devil they'd decided to love.
"A classroom full of people who just proved they're better than I thought." Their voice was quiet. Thoughtful. "And one person who looks like she wished they weren't."
The words landed.
Hard.
Asa felt something twist in her chest. Something uncomfortable. Something that might have been shame if she'd had enough practice feeling shame to recognize it.
She didn't respond.
Tanaka didn't wait for a response.
They turned. Walked toward the door. Paused with their hand on the frame.
"I'm going to watch." They didn't look back. "You should too. Or don't. Doesn't matter to me."
The door opened. Closed.
And Asa was alone again.
She sat for a long moment.
The classroom was very quiet.
Outside, someone scored a goal. The cheer was loud enough to hear through the walls.
Asa slowly unclenched her hands from the desk. Looked at her palms. At the red marks where her nails had pressed too hard.
'They're better than I thought.'
Tanaka's words echoed.
'And one person who looked like she wished they weren't.'
Asa stood.
Walked to the window.
Looked down at the field below.
They were all there, the whole class, running and laughing and falling over each other. Bucky was perched on top of the goal, wings waving wildly, clearly making up calls as it went. The teacher was actually playing, tie flying, completely terrible at soccer and completely happy about it.
They looked...
Human.
The word came unbidden.
'They look human. Like actual humans. Not monsters. Not devils. Just... people. Being people.'
Asa watched.
Didn't smile.
Didn't frown.
Just watched.
And somewhere in the void of her chest, something shifted. Just slightly. Just enough to notice.
She didn't know what it was.
Didn't know if she wanted it.
But it was there.
And for the first time in a very long time, Asa Mitaka didn't know what to do with a feeling she couldn't name.
What felt like years later, though it was probably only minutes, Asa finally moved.
Her legs carried her out of the classroom. Down the stairs. Through the hallway. Each step felt heavier than it should have, like she was walking through water. Or maybe through something thicker. Something that didn't want her to reach the exit.
She pushed open the door to the field.
The air hit her first. Fresh. Open. The kind of air that tasted like freedom, if freedom was something she believed in.
The scene spread out before her: green field, blue sky, a chaos of running bodies in school uniforms. Someone had drawn goal lines with chalk. Someone else had tied a piece of fabric to a stick to mark the halfway line. It was makeshift and messy and absolutely alive.
And there, standing at the edge of the field, was Tanaka.
They stood with their arms crossed, weight on one foot, expression caught somewhere between amusement and detachment. The perfect pose of someone who wanted to watch without participating. To observe without being observed.
Asa approached. Stopped a few feet away. Didn't say anything.
Tanaka glanced at her. Just once. Then looked back at the game.
"You came."
"Don't read into it."
"Wasn't going to."
Silence. Comfortable or uncomfortable, Asa couldn't tell. Probably both.
On the field, someone scored. Bucky launched off the goalpost and did a victory flap that ended with it crashing into the freckled girl's face. Everyone laughed. Even Bucky laughed, in that headless way of theirs.
Asa's mouth twitched. Almost. Not quite.
The teacher noticed them.
He jogged over, slightly out of breath, tie flying over his shoulder. His face was flushed with exercise and genuine happiness. The kind of happiness that made him look younger.
"Aren't you two going to join in?" He gestured toward the game.
Tanaka shook his head. "Not really. Thanks for asking."
The teacher's expression softened with understanding. "I see." He turned to Asa. "What about you, Mitaka?"
Asa's answer was automatic. A reflex honed over years of keeping people at arm's length.
"No."
The teacher didn't push. Didn't frown. Just nodded thoughtfully.
"You know," he said, almost casually, "high school's more fun with friends."
Asa felt something tighten in her chest. "I'm here to study. Not to make friends."
The teacher opened his mouth to respond-
"HEYYY!"
The shout cut across the field like a knife.
Asa's head snapped toward the sound.
The class president was waving. Both arms. Big smile. The kind of smile that seemed to exist specifically to make Asa uncomfortable.
"Come play soccer with us!"
Behind her, other students were turning. Looking. Smiling. Waiting.
Asa's brain short-circuited.
"No- I-"
She didn't get to finish.
A white blur shot toward her from the field. Fast. Feathery. Terrifyingly determined.
Bucky.
The headless devil flew straight at Asa's chest. Her arms came up instinctively, pure survival reflex, and caught it.
Feathers. Warmth. The slight thrum of a heartbeat that shouldn't exist.
"Asa Mitaka!" Bucky's voice was right there, inches from her face. "Come out of your shell and play soccer with me!"
Asa stared at the headless chicken devil in her arms.
It stared back. Somehow. Without eyes.
"You too, young Tanaka!" Bucky twisted in Asa's grip to face the fence. "I wish to become your friend too!"
Tanaka raised an eyebrow. Said nothing.
But something shifted in his expression. Just slightly. Just enough.
Asa looked down at Bucky. Then up at the class president, still waving. Then at the rest of the class, the freckled girl, the short-haired boy, the boy who'd yelled about raising wings, all of them. All of them looking at her. All of them smiling.
'My name,' she realized. 'He said my name.'
'But only the class president and the teacher remember it...'
The thought hit her like a physical blow.
She scanned their faces again. Really looked this time. At their smiles. At their waving hands. At their complete lack of judgment or cruelty or anything she'd spent three months projecting onto them.
They were just... happy. Happy she was here. Happy she might join. Happy to include her.
'They don't hate me.'
The realization was cold and hot at the same time.
'They've never hated me.'
'I'm the one who-'
Images flashed through her mind. Three months of silent judgment. Three months of wishing death on something they'd grown to love. Three months of standing apart and calling it strength when it was really just-
Fear.
The word surfaced like a corpse in still water.
'I was scared. Scared of being like them. Scared of caring. Scared of losing something again.'
'So I pretended I didn't care at all.'
'I pretended they were the monsters.'
'But they're not.'
'They're just...'
Human.
Asa looked down at Bucky in her arms. At the headless devil that had somehow, impossibly, become loved.
'They're just human.'
'And I...'
'I was jealous.'
The thought broke something inside her. Something she'd been holding together with spite and distance and the cold comfort of being alone.
Her face changed. Just slightly. The frozen mask cracked, and underneath was something raw. Something young. Something that had been hiding for a very long time.
Her mouth twitched.
Then curved.
Then-
A smile. Small. Uncertain. Real.
She looked up at the class. At their waiting faces. At their open arms and open hearts.
And she ran.
She ran toward them.
Toward the green field and the blue sky and the people who had somehow, against all odds, become something she didn't have a name for.
Her feet pounded against the grass. Bucky bounced in her arms, cheering. Behind her, she could feel Tanaka's eyes on her back, surprised, maybe, or just curious. It didn't matter.
Nothing mattered except this moment. This feeling. This terrifying, exhilarating, completely unfamiliar sensation of-
Her foot caught.
Something, a root, a rock, her own stupid untied shoelace, grabbed her ankle and yanked.
The world tilted.
Asa's arms flew out. Bucky flew out with them.
For one perfect, horrible moment, they were both suspended in the air. Asa, arms spread, face frozen in the last shreds of that fragile smile. Bucky, feathers ruffled, scarf fluttering, suspended in golden afternoon light.
Then gravity remembered its job.
They hit the ground.
Asa hit first, shoulder, hip, the breath driven from her lungs in a single explosive oof.
Bucky hit second.
Directly beneath her.
There was a sound.
Wet. Crushing. Final.
Asa pushed herself up. Looked down.
Bucky lay in the grass. The headless body was... wrong. Flattened in a way it hadn't been a second ago. Feathers everywhere. And from beneath the feathers-
Red.
Wet.
Spreading.
Guts spilled across the green grass like something from a nightmare. The devil's insides were strangely beautiful in the worst possible way, glimmering, organic, utterly wrong.
Bucky's voice came one last time. Small. Fading.
"Buck... aw..."
Then nothing.
Silence.
The field froze.
For one long, horrible moment, nobody moved. Nobody breathed. The soccer ball rolled to a stop on its own. The wind died. The world held its breath.
Then-
The teacher moved.
He ran toward the group, face white, mouth open in a shape that hadn't found its sound yet.
The students reacted in waves.
The freckled girl's hands flew to her mouth. Her eyes went wide, huge, and then filled with tears that spilled over before she could blink.
The short-haired boy stumbled backward, away from the body, away from the blood, away from everything.
Someone screamed. High and thin and helpless.
Someone else just stood there, frozen, staring at the mess on the grass.
The class president dropped to her knees. Her perfect uniform hit the grass. Her perfect hair fell forward. Her perfect face crumpled into something raw and ugly and completely human.
"Bucky..." The word was a whisper. A prayer. A sob. "Bucky, no, please, Bucky-"
She reached out. Touched a feather. Pulled her hand back. It came away red.
"BUCKY!"
Her scream tore through the afternoon like glass.
Asa knelt in the middle of it all.
Knees in the grass. Hands hovering over nothing. Blood on her uniform. Blood on her skin. Blood on the smile that had been there just moments ago, now wiped clean by horror.
She looked at her hands.
Red.
She looked at Bucky.
Still. Broken. Empty.
She looked at the class.
Crying. Screaming. Staring at her.
'I killed it.'
The thought was quiet. Calm. The kind of calm that comes before the storm.
'I finally got what I wanted.'
'I wished for it to die for three months.'
'And now it's dead.'
'Because of me.'
Her stomach lurched.
Her mouth opened.
And then she was vomiting, heaving, choking, spilling everything onto the grass next to Bucky's broken body. Again and again until there was nothing left, and still her body kept trying, kept convulsing, kept punishing her.
She couldn't stop.
Couldn't breathe.
Couldn't think.
Around her, the class fell apart.
And somewhere at the edge of the field, leaning against the fence, Akira Tanaka watched.
His face was unreadable.
But his hands, hidden in his pockets, were clenched into fists.
'That's the thing about humans,' they thought. 'You can wish for something for so long. And when it finally happens...'
It never feels the way you thought it would.