There is a kind of madness that grows slowly — not from chaos, but from *order*.
From repetition.
From waking up to the same sunrise and the same April 2 and the same smile on a boy's face who is destined to die no matter what you do.
Ren Ayato was no longer afraid.
He was *tired*.
---
The first thing he did this time was check his arm.
The words were still there.
Carved, faint, red with faded scabs:
> Don't trust the girl.
It had worked. The loop had reset everything *except* that. The skin remembered what the world did not.
That gave him something.
Not hope.
But leverage.
---
He spent that loop watching Serika Mizuno.
Closely. Obsessively.
She never approached Yuu directly.
She never held a weapon.
She never said anything suspicious around others.
But she was always near when things unraveled.
Always there — just far enough to be innocent. Just close enough to be part of it.
---
In Loop #9, Ren tried to confront her in public.
He stood in the center of the hallway during lunch and pointed straight at her.
"She's the reason Yuu keeps dying!"
Everyone turned. Students froze. Teachers whispered.
Serika didn't blink.
Instead, she started crying.
"He's been stalking me," she whispered. "Since last month. He keeps saying strange things… I'm scared."
The crowd turned on him like teeth.
That loop ended in a hospital.
Alone.
---
Loop #10: he didn't speak at all.
He stayed home.
Boarded his windows. Turned off his phone. Hid under the covers and listened to the wind press against the walls like a second heartbeat.
It didn't matter.
Yuu died anyway — this time hit by a car while walking home alone.
Ren wasn't even *there*.
He still got blamed.
---
Loop #11: he tried confessing everything on video.
He stood in front of the cracked bathroom mirror and told the entire story to his phone camera — the dates, the deaths, the whispers, the girl, the resets.
He saved the file to three drives. Hid one in his bag. One in his locker. One under a desk tile.
When the loop reset…
They were all gone.
---
Ren stopped marking time in days.
He began marking it in scars.
Small ones on his thigh. Others on his forearm.
Simple messages. Just enough to remember what mattered.
"Loop 13 – watch art room."
"Loop 14 – Reina lies."
"Loop 15 – Serika *knows.*"
---
By Loop 17, his eyes were sunken.
He no longer walked like a student. He walked like a ghost haunting a body he didn't choose.
He stopped calling Yuu by name.
It hurt too much.
Yuu didn't notice. He never remembered.
But Ren did.
He remembered *all of it.*
---
That loop ended with Serika smiling over him.
He had tried to push her.
He hadn't noticed the rock behind his foot.
He fell.
She didn't need to stab him.
The world did it for her.
---
> "You weren't meant to be here."
---
**April 2.**
Again.
---