The school bell, like a rusty key, grated open the dull afternoon.
Before the teacher finished assigning homework, the air in the classroom was already bubbling with impatience.
The soft clatter of desks and chairs, the crisp snap of zippers closing, and the girls' chatter merged into a joyful stream, carrying their wonderful weekend plans, and quickly surged towards the door.
Figures in pairs skipped and chatted in the corridor, discussing shopping, movies, games, or some unspoken rendezvous point (a Live House, of course).
As the tide receded, the classroom quickly became empty and silent, leaving only a solitary figure.
After a long while, Shiina Taki finally lifted her head from her arms. Her black hair, pressed down, was a bit messy, making her complexion appear slightly pale.
She looked around blankly, a silent sigh escaping her lips, and then buried her head back down, as if to cut off the entire world, to shut out the shocking scenes of yesterday.
Takagi Naoko's seat, empty all day; the unfamiliar school doctor on duty in the infirmary; and Yahata Umiri, who uncharacteristically skipped the band support activity, all reminded her that yesterday's bizarre events were not a dream.
"And this..."
She fumbled inside the collar of her school uniform shirt and pulled out a thin silver chain, at the end of which hung a simple metal locket.
She forced open the lid; there was no photo inside, only a sharply faceted crystal shard, firmly embedded in the groove.
Sunlight streamed in diagonally from the window, refracting on the crystal's facets, emanating an indescribable brilliance, like the eye of some living creature.
The girl was slightly stunned; the light was beautiful, but it no longer possessed the gravity that seemed to draw her soul in when the man handed it to her yesterday.
It now lay quietly, as if asleep.
"Friend? Companion?"
"Meaningless, completely incomprehensible..."
Leaving this thing behind was by no means a wise decision.
That man, his world, the so-called "journey" he pursued, was permeated with non-human bizarreness and danger. That was definitely not a domain ordinary people like her should tread.
Throw it away! Along with that unsettling memory, throw it into the sewer and flush it away!
She had always walked what she considered the "correct" path, using her inner compass to discern right from wrong. She should never keep something of unknown origin and full of unknown dangers.
Her fingers tightened around the cold metal locket, but she made no move.
"One by one, they're all so baffling..."
"Me too..."
An unexplainable vexation rose in her heart. She shook her head vigorously, as if to cast off those chaotic thoughts.
She abruptly stood up, swiftly gathering the books and stationery scattered on her desk and stuffing them into her school bag.
To make time to look after Umiri over the weekend, she had specifically asked Togawa Sakiko to move the band meeting forward by a day, and fortunately, everyone else had agreed.
Zipping up her school bag, she took a final look at the crystal shard in the locket, now dormant and no longer refracting light. Her fingertips hesitated for a moment, but in the end, she tucked it back inside her collar, pressing it tightly against the skin of her collarbone.
The cold touch came through, like a warning talisman embedded in her flesh.
She took a deep breath, slung her school bag over her shoulder, and strode out of the empty classroom.
============
The afternoon in the shopping district was filled with the sweet scent of baking and a lazy atmosphere.
Hazawa Coffee Shop—the well-known "base" of the Afterglow band—still had faded band promotional stickers on its glass windows.
There was still an hour until the agreed meeting time, and there were few customers in the coffee shop.
In the most inconspicuous corner, Fuuki sat quietly. His dark grey casual attire helped him blend into the background, and the black brim of his hat obscured the scattered golden hair on his forehead.
In front of him was a cup of black coffee, the dark brown liquid unsweetened and unmilked, emitting a pure and intense bitter aroma—this seemed to be the taste a certain keyboardist disliked most.
He did not intend to directly participate in this initial gathering of the girl band, at least not at the moment.
For a band composed of young girls, which should be brimming with dreams and vitality, his mere presence was an abrupt dissonance.
More crucially, would his not-yet-fully-understood Gravity—that mysterious power he hoped would emerge and flow among the band members—be destroyed, distorted, or even disappear due to his intervention? That remained an unknown.
This gathering was a valuable observation opportunity for him. He needed to play the role of a pure observer, recording every subtle moment of Gravity's emergence and convergence from a corner where they would be unaware.
As for his agreement with Sakiko... hadn't he come? Just not entirely, like a "thus come one."
Like the "shadow" members that might exist behind any organization or team, he decided to minimize his presence, silently becoming a background character in a shoujo anime, whose face is blurred and whose features are too lazy to draw.
His gaze drifted aimlessly out the window. The shopping district was bustling with pedestrians, their hurried steps forming a flowing tableau of urban life.
He idly counted the figures passing by the display window: housewives with shopping bags, students with school bags, ordinary office workers in purple suits leaving work... Just then, a swift white shadow flashed across the edge of his vision without warning.
"A cat?"
Fuuki's gaze subconsciously followed the shadow. Looking closely, he saw a girl in a Hanasakigawa Girls' School uniform, squatting under the dense shade of a street tree outside the coffee shop.
Her back was to the window, her white, shoulder-length hair swaying gently in the afternoon breeze, as she carefully and softly stroked a calico stray cat curled at her feet.
"It seems school is out now. Given the distance, Shiina Taki should be the first to arrive."
His thoughts naturally turned to the black-haired drummer. According to the continuous intelligence from 'Spider,' her family environment was normal, and her sister Shiina Maki's life trajectory was as usual, with no special activities.
So, the "urgent matter" she mentioned yesterday... was most likely her personal business.
Perhaps visiting Yahata Umiri, who had suddenly taken leave? This guess formed in his mind.
He picked up his coffee cup, his thoughts diverging along this line, trying to deduce possible influencing factors.
At that moment, the scene outside the window subtly changed.
The white-haired girl who had been squatting in the shade, playing with the cat, had stood up at some point. She held the docile calico cat in her arms, her small chin resting on the cat's soft head, and she slowly turned around.
Those eyes—the left as clear as the blue sky, the right as transparent as golden honey—her heterochromatic pupils pierced through the coffee shop's glass window, curiously landing on the young man in the corner.
The soft music flowing in the coffee shop, the hustle and bustle of the street outside, all seemed to fade into a blurry background under that gaze.
The girl tilted her head slightly; her gaze seemed not to be looking at a person, but rather scrutinizing a... form?
A moment later, her small nostrils flared almost imperceptibly, and a hint of confusion appeared on her delicate face.
"A snake?"
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