The first thing I'm aware of is the light.
It's too bright, a clinical white slash cutting across the ceiling. It's the kind of sterile, impersonal light that belongs in a hospital, not a bedroom.
My bedroom.
My eyes flutter open, grainy and heavy with sleep. The ceiling above me is an unfamiliar plain of eggshell white. My ceiling has glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to it. Has had them since I was seven. A tiny, perfect replica of the Big Dipper lives right over my bed.
There is no Dipper here.
Panic, cold and sharp, lances through my chest. My breath catches in my throat. I push myself up, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The sheets are smooth and cool against my skin, smelling faintly of lavender and a laundry detergent I don't recognize. My sheets smell like jasmine.
This isn't my bed. This isn't my room.
The walls are a soft, pale blue, bare except for a corkboard covered in a meticulous, overwhelming collage of photographs. The furniture is minimalist and new—a sleek wooden desk, a matching wardrobe, a simple bookshelf filled with titles I love next to ones I've never seen. Sunlight pours in through a large window, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. Outside, the world looks vaguely familiar—the shape of the roofs, the green of the trees—but it's all canted at a strange, unsettling angle.
My gaze snags on a mirror beside the wardrobe. The girl staring back has my face—my dark, shoulder-length hair, my brown eyes—but her expression is one of raw, animal terror. She's wearing a simple gray t-shirt and plaid pajama pants I have never seen before in my life.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, my feet hitting a cool, wooden floor. My whole body is trembling. Where am I? Did I get drunk? Hit my head? Was I… kidnapped? The thought is so absurd, so melodramatic, it's almost laughable. But the fear coiling in my stomach is anything but funny. It's real and it's suffocating.
I have to get out. I have to find out where I am.
My hand is on the doorknob, cool metal under my sweaty palm, when I hear footsteps on the other side. They stop. A gentle knock, so soft it barely registers.
"Arisa? You awake?"
The voice is male, low and careful. It sends another spike of adrenaline through me. I don't recognize it. I back away from the door, my eyes darting around the room, searching for a weapon, for an escape. The window? It's two stories up.
The doorknob begins to turn.
My mind goes blank with sheer terror. I press myself into the corner between the wardrobe and the wall, making myself as small as possible. The door creaks open.
A young man with kind eyes and tired lines around his mouth stands in the doorway. He looks to be in his early twenties, with the same dark hair as me. He's holding a tray with a glass of water and a plate of toast. He looks at the empty bed, then his gaze finds me in the corner. His expression crumples, just for a second, with a deep, weary sadness. Then it's gone, replaced by a practiced calm.
He doesn't step into the room. He stays in the doorway, holding the tray like a shield.
"Good morning, Arisa," he says, his voice incredibly soft, as if speaking to a frightened animal. "It's okay. You're home. You're safe."
"Who are you?" I whisper, the words scratching my dry throat. "Where am I?"
He doesn't flinch. He just nods, as if he expected this. "My name is Haruto Sazanami. I'm your older brother. And this is our house. You're in your bedroom."
Brother? I have a brother. Haruto. Yes, the name clicks into place, pulled from the deep well of my memory. He's studying law at the university in the city. I haven't seen him in… months. He shouldn't be here. And this isn't my room. Our home has pale yellow walls and carpet worn thin from years of my terrible dancing.
"No," I say, shaking my head. The movement feels sluggish. "No, this isn't my room. Our home is… different."
Haruto's smile is faint and doesn't reach his eyes. "We moved. A little while ago." He places the tray on the floor, just outside the door, and pushes it gently across the wood toward me. "Please drink some water. There are a couple of aspirin on the plate. Your head might hurt."
My head does hurt. A dull, persistent ache behind my eyes that I hadn't noticed until now. My hand instinctively goes to my temple.
"What's going on?" my voice trembles. "Why can't I remember this place? Why can't I remember you being here?"
"Just… try not to panic," he says, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "Everything you need to know is in here. In your room. It's designed to help. I'll be in the kitchen if you need me."
And with that, he pulls the door closed, leaving me alone with the quiet thud of my own heartbeat and the tray of food sitting just feet away.
It's designed to help.
His words echo in the silence. What does that mean? I look around the room again, not as a prison this time, but as a puzzle. My gaze falls on the school uniform hanging pristinely from a hook on the back of the door. A pleated gray skirt, a white blouse, a dark blue blazer. The crest on the pocket is a delicate cherry blossom. Hanamori High.
Right. I just started my first year there. I remember the entrance ceremony. The sting of new leather shoes and the smell of sakura petals in the air. That was… last week?
Slowly, shakily, I walk over to the desk. On it, my school bag sits packed and ready. Beside it, a series of brightly colored sticky notes are arranged in a neat line.
1. Drink water. Take medicine.
2. Your phone is on the nightstand. It's okay to look.
3. Hanamori High, Class 1-B. Your seat is by the window, 3rd row.
4. Your lunch is in the fridge. Don't forget it.
My own handwriting. I'd know its loopy, slightly-too-big letters anywhere. But I have no memory of writing these notes. I feel a wave of vertigo so strong I have to grip the edge of the desk to stay upright. It's like watching a movie of my life that I haven't seen before.
My eyes drift back to the corkboard. It's a dizzying map of a life I don't remember living. Photos of me and Haruto in this unfamiliar house. Photos of me with a bubbly, energetic girl with pigtails, both of us in Hanamori uniforms, eating ice cream. Her name is Nami, my mind supplies. Nami Koharu. We just became friends.
But there are photos of us laughing in this very room, of us at a cafe I've never seen. They're all dated within the last three weeks. My mind is screaming that it's April, that I've only known her for a few days. The photos insist it's almost May.
I feel like I'm going to be sick.
Then I see him. In a handful of photos, tucked toward the center of the board, is a boy. He has dark, neatly styled hair and calm, intelligent eyes that seem to hold a hint of sorrow. In one photo, he's on a rooftop, handing me a can of coffee. In another, he's laughing at something I've apparently said, his whole face transformed. He's incredibly handsome, in the way of a prince from a storybook. And I have absolutely no idea who he is.
I back away from the board, my mind reeling. Nothing makes sense. It's all my face, my handwriting, my life… but I'm not in it.
The second sticky note floats up in my memory. Your phone is on the nightstand.
I turn. There it is, charging beside the bed. A simple white case, a small cat charm I vaguely remember picking out dangling from the corner. It looks familiar and utterly foreign at the same time. I unplug it, my thumb hesitating over the screen.
What am I going to find? More evidence of this stolen, secret life?
Just as the thought crosses my mind, the phone screen lights up. An alarm? No, a reminder. The screen is plain, just a single, insistent chime.
And the sound… it cuts through the panic like a warm knife.
It's a gentle, melodic sequence of notes, not a standard pre-set ringtone. It feels… comfortable. Known. Like a snippet of a favorite song you can't quite name. A current of something other than fear—a vague, echo-like sense of trust—washes over me. For the first time all morning, one single thing in this terrifying alien landscape feels right. It feels like mine.
On the screen is a single notification with a sunflower icon next to it. It reads: "Good Morning. Watch Me First."
My breath hitches. This is it. The heart of the puzzle. My thumb hovers over the notification, my whole body tense. Part of me wants to throw the phone against the wall, to run out of this house and never look back, to find the familiar yellow walls of my real home.
But another part—a deeper, more curious part—needs to know. The girl in the photos, the girl who wrote these notes, the girl who chose this strange, gentle chime… she's me. And she left herself a message. She was trying to help.
Haruto's voice floats back to me. It's designed to help.
Taking a ragged breath that feels like my first one all day, I press my thumb to the screen. The notification opens to a single video file, cued up and ready to play.
The screen is black for a second, then it resolves into a shaky, handheld video. It's filmed in this very room. The girl on the screen is me. It's yesterday's me, or the me from a day I can no longer access. She looks tired, but there's a determined set to her jaw.
She smiles, a sad, knowing little smile. "Hi," she says, her voice trembling just slightly. "I know you're scared. But it's okay."
Then, from just off-screen, a quiet male voice says, "You can do this, Tsukimi-san."
My video-self turns toward the voice, her smile softening into something genuine. She turns back to the camera, her eyes looking directly into mine. Behind her, just for a flicker of a moment as the camera adjusts, I see a slice of the person holding the phone.
It's the boy from the photographs. The school prince with the storybook face. His expression is patient, gentle, and achingly familiar.
My thumb hits pause. The screen freezes on his face. Who is he? And why is the sight of him making my heart twist with an emotion I can't possibly name?
I look from the frozen image of the boy back to my own terrified reflection in the dark screen.
There's a message here. A story. And I'm the only one who can't read it. With a final, shuddering exhale, I take the leap. I press play. The image moves again.
The video continues, and on the screen, a boy with kind, sad eyes is asking me to trust him.