Dozens, if not a hundred people, walked toward the school's entrance. That included the familiar group of Hisa, Rem, and Kōji.
Although he walked alongside them, they led the conversation throughout. He smiled a reply back when necessary, then the useless thoughts flooded his mind again. But unlike the past half year, scarce warm memories flashed in his eyes.
Those memories became real when he saw Suzuka. She stood beside a tree, watching over the sea of students. No one could miss her height.
Her gaze locked with his.
He snapped his head away, yet a gentle warmth spread in his cheeks. Noticing he had almost come to a stop, he hastened his pace to catch up to Hisa and Rem, but a hand lay on his shoulder. He looked back and up to see Suzuka's face.
"Good morning," she deadpanned.
"H-Hey, morning."
Barely a second had passed, yet the weight of everyone's gazes around him crushed his chest. The itching heat stabbed his arms. He reached to scratch it when Suzuka asked.
"Were you planning to ignore me?"
"Huh?! No, not at all! I…" He lowered his voice. "Talking to me like this will only make the rumors about—"
"I don't care."
His mind went blank. "Right. Hisa and Rem might get suspicious again, though. It's the first time they've believed a lie from me. Probably because it was your idea."
"My idea worked?"
Her brows raised, the sudden surprise leaving him speechless.
"It did. Anyway. We should get going before—"
"Wait. I must give you this."
She extended her hand in front of him, the exact same coins she had spent the previous day laying on her palm.
He blinked one too many times.
"No, no. I said it was fine. It was only some lunch."
Her brows furrowed. "The last thing I want is being in debt—"
SLAM!
Someone crashed into her from behind, pushing her into him. He tried to catch the coins from her hand, to no avail. They scattered on the paved ground.
They turned to see who had done it, but all they saw was an endless stream of people walking past. Regardless, they were to blame for standing in the middle of the path. He was to blame.
His heart pounded as he saw her crouch to pick up one of the coins, her silky dark hair brushing her cheek.
He rushed to pick up the two other coins and extended his open hand before her.
"I'll accept the payment of your debt," he smiled. "Sorry for annoying you."
As soon as she gave him the coin, he took off.
He couldn't hold back his heart from bursting out of his chest much longer, just like the tears out of his eyes.
What was going on with his brain? He couldn't even understand his own emotions anymore.
He stood in front of his locker by the time he regained his senses.
Hisa closed hers.
"Where were you?" she questioned. "You disappeared for a minute."
He jolted at his heart skipping a beat.
"Oh, I just needed to take a breather." He entered his locker's combination and hid behind its door.
"Is that so?"
Her steps made him glance over the door.
"You still suck at lying," she shot before turning around the corner.
The world quieted.
His hands organized his stuff as his mind swirled.
In one blink, he stood at the door of the classroom. Hisa rummaged through her bag in her seat, while Rem checked her phone.
A notebook lay on his desk when he arrived, drawn waves painted its cover.
"Rem, why's your notebook on my desk?" he questioned.
Still checking her phone, she stood up and answered.
"I wonder why." She grabbed it and opened it to show him an… abstract whale? "Whoa! Look at this adorable sea creature. Who might've drawn it?"
"Wasn't it you?"
"Yep."
And like that, she leaned back against the column and continued to check her phone.
Used to her weirdness, he merely sat down. He glanced at Hisa while hanging his shoulder bag on his desk. She still rummaged through her bag.
He looked down at the sunlight shining on the floor.
"I'm sorry I lied," he said. "It's just that…"
She turned around and stared at him.
He hadn't been able to come up with an excuse to hide the body-swapping, especially one that didn't involve lying.
Could he just have told them the truth? That meant proving such an absurd thing was real without being able to demonstrate it. Chances were it wouldn't happen again. That was why he'd rather forget about it.
Hisa closed her eyes.
"I wasn't scolding you or anything," she said. "It really is okay if you don't wanna tell us everything you do. I'm just… disappointed that you'd rather lie to our faces than be honest and ask for space."
He frowned. "You'd rather I push you away? Isn't that… worse?"
"Are you listening to yourself? Of course we'd be sad if you don't wanna hang out with us as much anymore, but we get it. Heh. I wonder if this is how moms feel when their kids leave home."
A chuckle escaped his mouth.
She smirked. "I'm happy you've found someone else to spend time with. Just… stop lying. To us and to yourself."
Rem raised her head from her phone and smiled at him. She headed back to her seat, while Hisa returned to rummaging through her bag.
He knew they meant well, yet his broken brain insisted on crushing his chest.
The teacher arrived, and homeroom began. He had already seen the notes Suzuka had taken for him the previous day. They spread evenly across several pages, grouped into tables and boxes in various colors. He found everything he needed within a few glances, completely the opposite of his notes. Nonetheless, he would need to plan how to make the most of the remaining pages; the notebook had only half left since he reused an old one.
His heart beat faster, realizing how awful the notes he took for her were in comparison, but the sudden sleepiness chilled his blood. Although it felt similar to the previous day, he hadn't crashed into her again. The same couldn't be happening… right?
He struggled to keep his eyes open by the end of the first class, yet he managed to stay awake—physically, at least—until the bell for the break chimed.
"I'll see you later," his mouth spoke to Hisa and Rem as he stood up and walked out of the classroom.
His surroundings changed entirely with each blink. The stairs, the corridor, a classroom, another corridor, faceless people, the laboratory's door…
Until his vision remained dark for too long.
…
"Kurei."
His body wouldn't stop shaking until he opened his eyes.
It was him. He was shaking himself.
He lifted his head from his arms, yet couldn't catch his breath until his body spoke before him.
"It's me, Araki. We swapped bodies again."
Air filled his lungs, and the pressure in his chest alleviated after one sigh, but it rose to squeeze his head.
In her body, he hid his face between his arms again.
"Why is this happening? I just wanted a calm start to the year…"
"Do you hate being in my body that much?"
He raised his head. "I didn't mean anything bad, but don't you…?"
The weight of her intense, scrutinizing gaze suffocated all emotion.
"What is it?" he hesitated.
"Your reactions are very confusing. Most of them don't seem genuine, yet they don't feel fake either. I know a double-faced person when I see one, and you're not one of them."
Feeling his face heating up, he turned away.
"What am I supposed to say to that?" he whispered.
Was he truly not one of them?
"Perhaps it's in part due to seeing my own body's reactions," she said.
"Right." He looked back at her in his body. "We didn't crash into each other, so should we still try the same? Doing it with less intensity doesn't work, nor does asking for our bodies back."
"Turns out words aren't magical."
He replied, "It didn't hurt trying. As you said, it's crazy enough that this is real."
"Suzuka Araki is correct, words aren't magical."
"I know, I'm just trying to be—Kawahara?!"
Kōji and Suzuka snapped their heads around. A girl sat at the desk behind them, her lunch reflected in her glasses as she ate it.
The corners of her lips raised slightly when she stopped chewing. Her eyes shifted up behind the glass to meet theirs.
Suzuka's brows furrowed. "When did she get here?"
Kōji asked, "Did you…?" Realizing he'd expose themselves, he fumbled his words into another topic. "I mean, we know the lab's closed off out of class, but we needed a quiet place to… to…"
He looked at Suzuka, pleading for help to come up with a lie. She merely stared back.
"To practice!" he shot. "Yeah, we were just practicing a play. Isn't that right, Araki?"
She looked at him for a moment, then closed her eyes and crossed her arms.
"That's right."
With her smirk gone, Kawahara questioned.
"I have approval to be here during breaks." She pushed her glasses up with two fingers and looked at him. "But do you, Kōji Kurei?"
"Ah, well…." He clapped his hands together and begged, "Please forget we were here! We'll leave now."
He signaled Suzuka to leave with his head, but halted his steps at Kawahara's crude refusal.
"No, you'll not."
"Huh?"
She closed the lid of her lunch box and stood up. She walked around the long desk, approached Suzuka, and leaned in to whisper in her ear.
Her brows twitched once. They remained furrowed as she looked at Kawahara to reply.
"That's none of your business."
"I understand." She glanced at Kōji and extended her arm to point at him. "Kōji Kurei is controlling Suzuka Araki's body." She pointed at Suzuka. "And Suzuka Araki is controlling Kōji Kurei's body."
His jaw dropped. "What?"
"How are you so sure?" Suzuka asked.
Kawahara sat on a stool. With her hands in her lab coat's pockets, she crossed her legs.
"Suzuka Araki has been replying to words directed at Kōji Kurei, and vice versa. That means Suzuka Araki has been acting as if she knew me, while we've just met. Lastly, based on prior knowledge about Kōji Kurei, his reactions have been rather different than before. Though that data is three years old, and the observation might be refuted."
His mind stayed blank, while Suzuka's frown became more prominent.
"So, you'll simply believe something that crazy?" she said.
"It's not simple at all. Not only is it scientifically impossible, but it also verges on the realm of fantasy. However, I won't discard a phenomenon before corroborating it."
Did she call them a phenomenon?
The staredown continued, their illegible expressions frozen.
Kōji's eyes switched between the two again and again.
"I think we can trust her," he said to Suzuka. "She's always been sincere—too sincere—and we need all the help we can get."
"I know that, but I don't know how a high school student could be useful in a situation like this."
Kawahara replied, "I believe you're still clueless about the cause and how to reverse the effect. I am used to experimenting and finding solutions. Unless you want to risk your mental health being questioned, I am the only person who can help you at this time."
Suzuka stared into her soul.
Eventually, she sighed, and her frown softened as she turned to Kōji.
"You seem to know each other, so if you trust her help, I'll trust she won't tattle on us to a psychiatric ward."
He smiled. "Thank—"
"I didn't state I'd help you," Kawahara interrupted, "though you may interpret it that way. Tell me all the details, and I'll be convinced."
His heart throbbed.
Suzuka replied, "That's the problem; nothing of note has really happened."
He exhaled in relief. Despite knowing Suzuka little, he expected her not to care and reveal that he—
"Kurei merely crashed into me, which caused his hand to fall on my b—"
He jumped to cover her mouth with his hand.
"On her b-belly!" he shot. That wasn't good either, but anything was better than what had truly happened. "My hand fell on her belly. Then we got awfully sleepy during class until we couldn't stay awake any longer. When we woke up, we were controlling each other's bodies."
Kawahara's sinister stare pierced his soul. Was she onto his lie?
A muffled breath warmed the palm of his hand, moistening it slightly. Suzuka looked up at him, expressionless.
He snapped his hand away.
"S-Sorry!"
He looked down at his palm.
"It's your body's saliva," said Suzuka, "just clean it on your blazer."
"Oh, right."
He reached for his body's arm—Suzuka's—and hesitantly brushed his palm over the blazer. About to do a second pass, his eyes connected with hers. She looked away, still showing no emotion.
Kawahara hummed. "Curious. I heard word of you touching her breasts."
He slammed his scorching face on the freezing desk and scraped his brains out.
"I'm done for!"
"Hey, don't pull my hair out," Suzuka scolded.
His hands stopped at once. His arms dropped dead, swinging off the desk.
She continued, "Now that I hear someone else say it, it does sound like you were sexually assaulting me."
He propped himself up. "Now you realize?!"
"But as I said, I'll simply deny it. You just happened to fall into that position fortuitously."
"People won't believe an excuse that sounds like it's straight out of a manga."
"I don't read it."
"Oh. Still, it was my fault for crashing into you."
His hand reached to scratch his arm, but it stopped at her gaze.
"And it was my fault for standing in the middle of the path," she added.
They exchanged a glance before looking both down at the reflective floor.
"There's no point in assigning blame," Kawahara said. "The fact is that you're controlling another person's body. The priority is finding the trigger mechanism."
Kōji and Suzuka looked at her. Was she worried about them?
"That way, you might be able to swap bodies at will, which would be crucial for experimenting."
No, she wasn't.
She kept going. "With the data available at this time, the constants in two of the three swaps are a crash and the touching of a breast."
He clenched his fists and teeth.
"Please don't suggest replicating that."
"I wasn't going to. You didn't crash into each other this morning, did you?"
"Someone crashed into me from behind," Suzuka answered, "but I didn't bump against Kurei, no. Nor did he touch my boob."
He brushed his face and sighed.
Slightly smirking, Kawahara stood up. She pushed her glasses up, then returned her hand to her pocket.
"I say we replicate that."
Kōji and Suzuka looked at each other before she stood up.
"So, we stand in front of each other, and you push Kurei from behind?" Suzuka asked.
"Correct," Kawahara answered, "but you shall also replicate the action you were doing at that moment."
Suzuka glanced at her, then looked at Kōji.
"Do you have the coins in your pocket?" she asked.
"They should be in there."
She reached for them and offered them to him. He grabbed them and turned his open hand.
"You kept refusing them in the morning," she said, "I still don't understand why."
His chest heated up, taking a smile out of him.
"I'd say that's the normal—"
SLAM!
Kawahara crashed into him from behind, pushing him into her. He instinctively tried to keep the coins in his hand, to no avail. They scattered on the ceramic floor.
The two of them looked at her.
She pushed her glasses up. "Was that accurate?"
"I'd say too accurate," Kōji answered.
Seeing Suzuka about to crouch for the coins, he rushed to pick them up.
He felt the weight of a gaze when he grabbed the last coin. Suzuka stared down at him. It took a moment for her brows to rise at his sight before looking away.
He stood up, noticing the slightest tint of red in her cheeks.
"Based on the current data, the outcome will have to wait until after class, unfortunately," Kawahara said, typing on her phone. "Let's meet at the tall cherry tree near the gate at that time; I may have a hypothesis. We shall leave before getting reprimanded."
She walked out of the laboratory, indifferent to their reply.
Kōji looked back at Suzuka. She closed her eyes instantly, yet he noticed she was still staring at him.
"That's right, we should leave," she said. "Make sure to eat something this time. You can spend as much as you want."
"Oh, okay. I don't have much money, but I brought lunch, so you can eat that. Sorry if it's not up to your standards," he laughed nervously.
She stood still for weirdly long, then continued walking without saying a word.
"By the way," he called before his brain could process what it planned to convey. "Thanks for… making such organized notes yesterday, and sorry for mine being so messy."
"Messy?" She looked back. "They were short and to the point; no useless clutter and colors, which mine was full of."
"Not at all, they were so useful and pleasing to look at. Had no questions by the end," he grinned.
They stared at each other. She showed no emotion in his body's face, yet he felt no hostility.
"Alright."
She turned around and stepped out of the laboratory.
He watched her walk away until he caught his smile. About to touch his lips, he remembered they were Suzuka's.
A sudden realization jumped into his mind.
How did Kawahara know that the first two swaps were after touching Suzuka's breast?
He shook the useless thought away and headed out.
Nothing of note happened on the way to the cafeteria. He bought and ate the same food as Suzuka had the previous day, thinking she might be on a diet.
Despite the countless gazes, no one approached him. He also managed to catch his hand each time before scratching his arm—Suzuka's arm.
He headed to her classroom with five minutes to spare.
"Hey, fancy meeting you here."
A guy said at the top of the stairs, a few steps away from the door. His light-colored hair seemed familiar, but Kōji couldn't recognize him. No one else stood around, and he looked directly at him. Did he know Suzuka?
The guy looked to the side, then back at Kōji.
"Just wanna pay my respects for transferring here in the last year, that's incredible. You must've studied a lot, or you're just that smart."
The conversation came to a halt.
What was Kōji supposed to say? What would Suzuka have said?
"I know! How about we study together one of these days? I'd love to learn a lot about—from you. You'll help me get a position higher than fifth, and I'll help you get used to Kasen and its subjects. How does that sound?"
Kōji's head became lighter in the cold.
There it was.
The inside of his body burned.
The long-forgotten pain of defeat he had promised to never feel again by never losing again.
As if that mattered anymore.
He wouldn't meddle in Suzuka's life either.
"Sure," he answered.
"Awesome! Talk to you later, then." The guy walked away but suddenly stopped. "Ah, my name's Tsuga. I sit at the back. Can't believe I forgot to mention that."
He turned around the corner and disappeared.
What had just happened?