It was a sunny day. The kind of lazy afternoon that made students' eyelids heavy. Ritsu Kaminagi sat near the window, chin propped on his palm, humming something tuneless as sunlight traced warm rectangles across his desk. Outside, a crow preened on the power line. Inside, his teacher droned on about linear algebra.
Ritsu wasn't listening.
He wasn't not listening either. He existed in that gray space between boredom and daydreams—until something dark and fast crossed his peripheral vision.
Thwack.
A chalk duster slammed into his face.
Chalk dust exploded like a tiny white bomb. Ritsu blinked. Coughed. A few of his classmates snickered.
"Repeat what I just explained," the teacher said. Flat. Unimpressed.
Ritsu rose from his seat. The chair scraped against the floor—too loud in the sudden silence. He walked to the board, each step heavier than the last. He squinted at the equations, but not because he had vision problems.
A massive buffalo sat beneath the chalkboard.
It was black. Hulking. Its breath fogged the base of the podium. It chewed nothing and stared at Ritsu with ancient, indifferent eyes.
"What's wrong, Ritsu?" The teacher's voice dripped with taunts. "Can't see or can't understand?"
Ritsu's mouth opened. Closed. His throat felt dry. "Sir, I can't... underrrr-stand."
"Bet you can't."
The teacher turned back to the board and resumed writing. Ritsu should have sat down. He should have rubbed the chalk dust from his face and accepted the humiliation like every other day.
But he didn't.
Because no one else was reacting to the damned buffalo.
He scanned the classroom. Left to right. Row by row. Giggling girls. Bored boys. A kid in the back picking his nose.
Am I the only one?
His gaze landed on Hoshi Yamamori.
She sat one row ahead, spine rigid, knuckles white around her pencil. Her face had gone pale—not the pale of embarrassment, but the pale of someone who had just seen a ghost.
Or a buffalo.
Oh, shit. Yamamori sees it too.
And then Ritsu heard the voice.
"Hoshi Yamamori. High school girl, age seventeen. Likes cute things. Favorite foods: anything bitter or sour—quite a unique taste. Father is a policeman. Mother is a corporate woman..."
The voice belonged to a man. He stood beside the buffalo—neat, tidy, looking perhaps in his forties. He wore a long black coat, and he read aloud from a leather-bound book as if reciting a grocery list.
And Yamamori saw him.
Her pencil snapped.
She didn't look away. She couldn't. Her breathing went shallow—Ritsu could see her shoulders rising and falling too fast. A bead of sweat rolled down her temple. Another.
She was sweating her balls off.
She didn't literally have balls, but you get the idea.
Yamamori's lips trembled. Her voice came out as a whisper, barely audible over the teacher's lecture. "Sir... is it time for me?"
The man looked up from his book. His eyes were old. Older than his face. "Oh, you can see me? I forgot—you're a Yamamori. " He smiled, and it wasn't unkind. "I remember giving a boon to your ancestors. The ability to see death before dying. " He flipped a page. "Don't worry. Almost everyone in this building is going to... ummm, you get it."
Yamamori made a small sound. A squeak. The sound resembled that of a mouse stepping on a tack.
Ritsu should have sat down.
He didn't.
"Sir," he said. "I think you missed my name."
The man's head turned. Slowly. Like a predator noticing a mouse that had just volunteered for dinner, he felt a surge of excitement. "Oh dear. And who might you be?"
Ritsu swallowed. His heart hammered against his ribs. But his fear of missing out—even on death—was stronger than his fear of death itself. "My name is Ritsu. Last name Kaminagi. If that makes searching easier."
He craned his neck. He attempted to catch a glimpse of the names on the page.
Flip.
The man turned a page.
Flip.
Another.
Flip.
Between pages, Ritsu caught a familiar name. Granduncle. Dies next week. Cause: natural causes.
The man frowned. "I can't find your name in the Book of Life and Death—Shēngsǐ Bù." He tapped the page. Tapped it again. "Not even in..." He vanished.
Ritsu blinked.
Then the man reappeared. Same spot. Same book. Same buffalo.
"You are not dying today," he said. "But—"
A chalkboard eraser.
It flew across the room like a guided missile. Ritsu didn't even have time to flinch.
Thwack.
Again.
"Why are you making Hoshi cry? What did you say to her?" The teacher's face was red. Spittle flew from his lips.
Hoshi was crying. Silent tears. Streaking down her cheeks. She hadn't made a sound.
Ritsu waved his hands. "No! No! I didn't—"
"It's time," the man said.
And he snapped his fingers.
The snap was soft. The sound was akin to a twig breaking in a forest.
But the world heard it.
For one heartbeat, everything was still. The teacher's mouth hung open mid-shout. A bird outside stopped singing. Ritsu could hear his pulse—lub-dub, lub-dub—and then the sound was drowned out by screams.
Not just one scream. Dozens. A chorus of terror that rose from every corner of the building.
"Run! Run!" The teacher's voice cut through the chaos. "No—under the tables! Like in the drills!"
The floor lurched.
Ritsu grabbed the edge of a desk. His knuckles went white. A crack split the wall—long and jagged, like a lightning bolt frozen in plaster. Ceiling tiles rained down. Someone screamed "MOTHER!" Someone else laughed—a hysterical, broken sound.
Some students dove under tables. Some ran for the door. Some—Ritsu watched three of them—jumped out the window. They probably thought the ground was closer than it was.
The building began to crumble.
Fwump.
Something grabbed Ritsu from behind.
His heart stopped. His breath caught in his throat. I thought my name wasn't in the ledger. Then—
He turned slowly.
Hoshi.
She had her arms wrapped around him. Her fingers dug into the fabric of his uniform. Her face was buried against his chest, and she was shaking—not the shiver of cold, but the deep, uncontrollable tremble of someone who had accepted the end.
"Sorry, Kaminagi. " Her voice was muffled. Cracked. "I... I love you."
Ritsu froze.
"It's the end," she continued, "so I had to confess."
She sniffled.
Sniff.
Wet. Loud. Embarrassing.
She pulled back just enough to wipe her nose with her sleeve. The fabric came away glistening. She didn't care. She grabbed him again, tighter this time, like he was the only solid thing left in a world that was shaking itself to pieces.
Ritsu's arms hung at his sides. His brain hadn't caught up yet.
Then it did.
He wrapped his arms around her. One hand pressed flat against her back. The other—hesitant, trembling—found the back of her head. His fingers threaded through her hair. Not smooth. Not romantic. Just... holding on.
"If you love me," he said, his voice barely a whisper, "you can call me Ritsu."
She looked up.
Red eyes. Snot-smeared face. Her lips parted, and for a second, she almost smiled.
He cupped her cheek. His thumb brushed away a tear—then smeared it by accident. Clumsy. She let out a wet, broken laugh.
"I might be indifferent to your confession," he said, and his voice cracked. "But I'm happy." He pressed his forehead to hers. Just breathing the same air. "So happy I could die."
He tilted her chin with two fingers.
And kissed her forehead.
She smiled.
The ceiling caved in.