I shouldn't be here.
Not in this place
Not in this moment.
Not in this time.
But I always end up here — kneeling in the tall grass, hands shaking, the wind pressing silence into my lungs. The sun hangs low in the sky, a warm orange bleeding into purple, like the sky is bruising. Like it knows what I'm about to see.
Yuu's body lies still a few feet away. His uniform is stained dark, and there's red pooling beneath him — warm, sticky red that shouldn't be on someone like him.
I try not to scream anymore. Screaming never changes what happens next.
The sirens come.
The shadows stretch.
The eyes turn toward me.
"Ren Ayato," the officer says, voice flat, rehearsed. "You were the last one seen with him."
I want to explain — but I already have. In too many versions. In too many resets.
I've told them everything.
I've cried. Fought. Begged.
I even tried staying away.
It never matters.
The cuffs go on.
The world decides I'm the villain — again.
That night, in the quiet of a cold cell, I hear it again. That voice.
Soft. Cold. Mechanical.
"You weren't meant to be here."
And just like that—
April 2.
The sun is back in the same place.
The same wind moves the same curtains.
Yuu is alive.
I am awake.
And it begins all over again.
Peace was never mine. But I'll try again anyway.