The rain is a cold, relentless curtain between us, but the warmth of his hands on my shoulders is a solid, grounding reality. The world, which had been a terrifying void of blackness and fear just minutes ago, suddenly has a center of gravity again. And it's him.
"You're freezing," Reo says, his voice tight with concern. The practicality of the statement cuts through my shock. He pulls off his school blazer, already soaked and heavy with rain, and drapes it over my shoulders. It's not much, but it's an instinctual, protective gesture that speaks louder than words.
"How…?" I start to ask, the words getting lost in the wind. How did he know? How did he get here? Why was he waiting in a storm?
"Haruto called me when he realized you were gone," he says, raising his voice to be heard over the howl of the wind. He starts guiding me, one arm firmly around my shoulders, back toward the relative shelter of the stairwell doorway. "The janitor owes me a favor; he leaves a side door unlocked. I came here first. It's your safe place. I just… hoped."
He hoped I would remember. But I hadn't. My body had. The thought is staggering. This isn't just a psychological condition; it's a physical one. My mind may be a sieve, but my body is a library, storing the quiet, repeated lessons of the last few weeks. The path from my bed to the postcard. The route to school. The secret way to the roof. He hadn't been trusting my mind; he'd been trusting the routine he helped me build.
We stumble back into the stairwell, the heavy door slamming shut behind us and muting the storm to a distant roar. The emergency lights cast a pale, eerie glow on us, two drenched figures in a concrete tube. The adrenaline starts to fade, replaced by a bone-deep, shivering cold. My teeth are chattering so hard I can barely speak.
"We need to get you home," Reo says, his face grim. He's already pulling out his phone, his fingers flying across the screen, likely texting my brother.
As we stand there, shivering under the weak emergency light, a new presence makes itself known. Footsteps, heavy and fast, are coming up the stairs. My heart leaps into my throat, but Reo just looks relieved. A second later, the student council president, Mirei Saionji, appears on the landing below us. She's in her uniform, looking perfectly composed despite having clearly run up several flights of stairs. Her expression is a mixture of stern disapproval and deep-seated concern.
She takes in the scene—me, a shivering mess in pajamas and Reo's blazer; Reo, soaked to the bone and still protectively hovering at my side. Her sharp eyes don't miss a thing.
"Kisaragi-kun," she says, her voice echoing in the stairwell. It's not an accusation, but it's heavy with authority. "I just got off the phone with your homeroom teacher, Amamine-sensei. There have been… reports. Concerns filed about the nature of your involvement with Tsukimi-san."
My blood runs cold. Itsuki Kurobane. It has to be him. My hand, without my permission, circles a name like a warning.
Reo doesn't flinch. He steps forward slightly, subtly shielding me from her intense gaze. "Saionji-kaichou. With all due respect, this is not the time or place."
"On the contrary," she says, her eyes narrowing. "Seeing you both like this, alone in the school after hours during a storm, makes it precisely the time and place. The faculty is concerned you are taking advantage of a vulnerable student."
The accusation hangs in the cold, damp air, ugly and sharp. It's the very thing my logical, terrified mind had worried about on that very first morning. But now, after everything—the video, the postcard, the fall on the stairs, and now this, him waiting for me in a storm—the idea is so ludicrous, so profoundly wrong, it's almost laughable.
And that's exactly what I do.
A sound bubbles up from my chest, a hysterical, shaky giggle. It's completely inappropriate. We are being interrogated by the student council president. I am half-hypothermic. But the absurdity of the situation, the sheer, dramatic injustice of the accusation when this boy has been my lifeline, my anchor, my entire world for the last twenty-four hours… it breaks something in me.
The giggle turns into a full-blown laugh. It's a wet, shuddering, half-sobbing sound, but it's a laugh. It's the first real, genuine, unburdened emotional release I've had all day.
Reo looks at me, his eyes wide with surprise. Mirei Saionji looks at me as if I've completely lost my mind.
"Taking advantage?" I manage to choke out between laughs, wiping a mixture of rain and tears from my face with the back of my hand. "He's… he's the only reason I know my own name right now." I look from Mirei's stern face to Reo's shocked one. "This morning, I woke up in the dark and I thought I had been kidnapped. I didn't know anything. The only thing I had was a note—a note I wrote—that said, 'When all else fails, the roof.' And he was here." I jab a finger at Reo. "He knew I'd be scared. He trusted a part of me that I didn't even know existed. He didn't take advantage of me; he caught me when the entire world disappeared from under my feet."
My voice cracks on the last few words. The laughter subsides, leaving a raw, aching silence in its wake.
Reo just stares at me, something new and fragile dawning in his expression. For all the yesterdays he's lived with me, this is the first time this me, the blank-slate morning-me, has ever defended him. Has ever articulated the depth of her trust out loud.
Mirei Saionji's stern mask falters. She looks at me, truly looks at me, and sees not a victim, but a girl fiercely defending her own carefully chosen support system. Her gaze softens, just a fraction. "I see," she says, her voice much quieter now. "Perhaps the reports were… lacking in context."
Just then, my brother Haruto and Nurse Shidou come running up the stairs, their faces etched with panic. They stop dead, taking in the strange tableau: me, Reo, and the student council president in a silent, post-laugh standoff.
"Arisa!" Haruto cries, rushing forward to wrap me in a warm, dry coat he was carrying. "Are you okay? I was so worried."
I just nod, too exhausted to speak, and lean into his warmth. My eyes, however, stay on Reo.
He's still looking at me, his dark hair dripping onto the shoulders of his white uniform shirt. The rain and the fear and the adrenaline have stripped away the calm, princely mask. In its place is a raw, undisguised vulnerability. And in his eyes, I see the profound, earth-shaking relief of a boy who had made a wild, desperate bet on a ghost, and won.
For the first time since waking up in that terrifying darkness, I feel completely and utterly safe.
But the afternoon bell is about to ring. The bell that signifies the end of this chaotic, terrifying, miraculous day. The last bell before the night comes to steal it all away again.
Reo opens his mouth, his expression urgent, as if there is something impossibly important he needs to say right now, before the day ends, before I forget. But downstairs, I can see Itsuki Kurobane, a picture of polite concern, handing a folder to our homeroom teacher—a folder undoubtedly containing his "report." And the world outside our strange, little bubble of a stairwell rushes back in.