Chapter 2 - ep 1

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐎𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐂𝐀𝐓

The midday sun beat down mercilessly on the high school athletic field, baking the cracked dirt and bleaching the painted white lines into faint ghosts of order. Heat shimmered above the grass where the soccer team ran drills, their voices sharp and commanding—Pass! Over here!—each shout a declaration of confidence Cosmo Lee had never learned to imitate.

For Cosmo, the warmth might as well have belonged to another world.

He sat folded into the narrow gap between the metal equipment lockers, a forgotten seam in the architecture where shadows pooled and sound dulled. The space was barely wide enough for his frail frame, but that was precisely why he loved it. Here, the world couldn't see him. Here, he could disappear.

Cosmo hugged his knees loosely to his chest, the metal at his back cool despite the heat. He adjusted his glasses out of habit, even though they hadn't slipped. His fingers found comfort in the familiar weight of the book resting in his lap.

I can't stand school, he thought, the admission quiet but heavy, like a truth he'd stopped arguing with.

Through the thin slats of the lockers, he watched the other boys move across the field. Their bodies worked in rhythm—muscle, momentum, collision. They laughed loudly, shoved each other without malice, existed without apology. To them, the world was physical and solvable. A challenge meant running faster. A problem meant pushing harder.

To Cosmo, it was a minefield laid out in invisible rules he could never quite remember.

His gaze drifted toward the chain-link fence at the far edge of the grounds, where a couple walked side by side, fingers laced together as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Their laughter floated faintly through the air, light and unburdened.

Getting along with people is practically impossible, he thought, a familiar ache settling behind his ribs.

Friends. Dating. Belonging.

Fairy tales.

He lowered his eyes, retreating from the sight, and focused instead on the cover of his book: What's With That Cat? The pages were worn soft from rereading. He flipped to a section on the "Liquid Cat Theory," studying the diagrams of cats folding themselves into spaces far too small to be logical.

Animals made sense. They didn't judge hesitation or quietness. They didn't expect confidence. They simply were.

"If only people were as kind as animals," Cosmo thought, his grip on the book loosening as calm slowly returned.

Then the locker above him RUSTLED.

The sound was sharp, deliberate—wrong.

Cosmo froze. Every muscle locked as his breath caught halfway in his chest. His heart began to pound, loud enough that he was certain whoever was up there could hear it.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then a voice slipped through the metal like a blade through fabric—soft, amused, and unmistakably real.

"Found you."

Cosmo's pulse spiked violently. Light shifted as something eclipsed the sun, and he instinctively looked up.

A silhouette crouched atop the lockers, outlined by blinding brightness. For one impossible second, his mind refused to assemble what his eyes were seeing. Two dark, tufted shapes twitched against the sky. A long, slender tail swayed lazily, cutting through the glare.

Hallucination, his brain offered weakly. Heatstroke.

The figure moved.

With a fluid FLUTTER, pale, bare legs swung down into view, toes brushing the metal before dropping into the narrow space with him. The landing was silent, controlled—nothing like a normal jump.

"HUH?!"

Cosmo recoiled instinctively, his back hitting the locker with a dull metallic thud. Heat flooded his face, his ears burning as his breath came out in a sharp gasp. His book slipped from his hands, landing crookedly between them.

She was close. Far too close.

Large eyes—curious, alert, unsettlingly alive—locked onto his. She didn't look like anyone from his class. There was something wild in her posture, something unrestrained, mirrored by the unmistakable cat ears perched atop her head. They twitched, reacting to sounds he couldn't hear.

A tail flicked behind her, slow and deliberate.

Cosmo's thoughts dissolved into static. His whole life, he'd wished people were simpler—more like animals.

Now, pressed into his secret sanctuary, staring at a creature that blurred the line between the two, Cosmo Lee realized that fairy tales weren't gentle things.

They were sudden.

They were invasive.

And they were very, very real.

.

The midday sun hung over the high school campus like an unforgiving spotlight, bleaching the concrete paths and turning every open space into a stage. From above, the school looked orderly—a carefully planned grid of buildings, fields, and walkways designed to channel hundreds of students into predictable patterns.

But Cosmo Lee had slipped through the design.

He occupied the one place no blueprint accounted for: the narrow, dust-choked gap behind the outdoor equipment lockers. It was a forgotten seam in the campus architecture, a place where shadows lingered long after the rest of the grounds surrendered to the heat.

Cosmo sat with his back pressed against the corrugated metal, knees drawn close, his frail frame perfectly suited to disappearance. The metal vibrated faintly with distant noise, but here, the sounds were muted—filtered, safer. Through the thin slats of the locker doors, he observed the world he could never quite enter.

On the athletic field, the soccer players were in constant motion, bodies colliding and separating with effortless confidence. Their voices rang out in sharp commands—"Pass!" "Over here!"—words that sounded less like communication and more like proof of belonging. They existed loudly, visibly, as if the space itself had been made for them.

Cosmo adjusted his glasses, the gesture automatic, a reflex born from years of shrinking inward.

I can't stand school.

The thought lingered bitterly. To him, the campus wasn't a place of learning—it was a theater of impossibilities. Beyond the field, along the chain-link fence, a couple walked slowly, fingers entwined as though it required no effort at all. Their laughter drifted through the heat, light and unguarded.

To Cosmo, that single gesture felt mythological.

For someone whose shy nature functioned like a physical barrier, friendships weren't difficult—they were unreachable. Dating wasn't awkward—it was unreal. Those experiences belonged to a different kind of person, one who understood the invisible rules of proximity and confidence.

Fairy tales, all of it.

His gaze dropped to his lap, where his only solace rested: a well-thumbed book titled What's With That Cat? He turned carefully to page seventeen, immersing himself in the familiar diagrams and explanations of the Liquid Cat Theory. The idea fascinated him—creatures so adaptable they could slip into any space, reshaping themselves without fear or hesitation.

Cats didn't struggle to belong. They simply fit.

"If only people were as kind as animals," he whispered, his voice dissolving into the stillness.

The Hunter and the Hidden

The stillness shattered.

A sudden RUSTLE vibrated through the locker above his head—metal protesting under unexpected weight. Cosmo froze instantly, breath catching painfully in his throat. His heart pounded once, twice, far too loudly.

Then a voice slipped down into the narrow space, close enough to feel.

Low. Melodic. Certain.

"Found you."

Before Cosmo could even look up, the sunlight vanished. The glare overhead was eclipsed as something moved between him and the sky. With a fluid, gravity-defying FLUTTER, a pair of pale, bare legs swung down into his sanctuary.

She didn't climb.

She arrived.

The movement was silent, controlled, like a falling leaf that had chosen its landing point long ago.

The Collision of Worlds

"HUH?!"

Cosmo's heart performed a violent somersault. He recoiled instinctively, his head snapping back against the locker with a sharp metallic thud. Heat rushed to his face in an instant, a frantic blush spreading from his neck to his ears until his skin burned crimson.

Crouched within the cramped space—far too close, invading every inch of his fragile comfort—was a girl who shattered the rules of his reality.

Her eyes were wide and unnervingly bright, fixed on him with a focus that felt less human than instinctual. They tracked him as if he were prey, curiosity sharp and unblinking. But it was her silhouette that stole his breath entirely.

Two dark, tufted cat ears twitched atop her head, reacting to sounds he couldn't hear. A slender tail curled behind her, moving with lazy, deliberate intent.

"Wh-wh—whoa!" Cosmo scrambled backward, limbs tangling awkwardly as his grip loosened on his book. It nearly slipped from his hands as panic overtook logic.

For his entire life, Cosmo had hidden in the gaps of the world, wishing desperately that people were more like animals—simpler, kinder, easier to understand.

Now, staring into the eyes of a girl who blurred the boundary between human and beast, Cosmo realized something terrifying:

Some fairy tales didn't stay on the page.

They stepped into your hiding place.

And they found you.

The rooftop was supposed to be a sanctuary for someone like Cosmo Lee—a place governed by predictable forces, where gravity behaved as expected and the sky was simply sky. Up here, there were no crowds, no lockers slamming shut, no eyes measuring him against impossible standards. Just air, concrete, and silence.

But as he stared at the girl crouched before him, the rules of that sanctuary began to dissolve.

The first fracture came from her eyes. They weren't the flat imitation of dyed contact lenses or stage makeup. They were alive—amber pools of molten light that shifted subtly as she focused on him. When her pupils narrowed into sharp vertical slits, Cosmo felt something inside his chest recoil. Instinct screamed that this was not pretend.

Above her dark, wind-tousled hair, two ears rose unmistakably from her scalp. Tufted. Soft-looking. Responsive. They twitched as the breeze passed over the rooftop, reacting independently of her expression.

Reality wavered.

"N-no way…" Cosmo stammered, the sound scraping its way out of his throat. His pulse thundered so loudly it drowned out the distant city hum. "Am I dreaming? Cat ears? Is that… some kind of costume?!"

Fear seized control before logic could catch up. He scrambled upright, movements frantic and uncoordinated, intent on reaching the rooftop door—solid, metal, normal. But panic made his limbs clumsy. His foot caught, his balance vanished, and with a humiliating BOOM, he hit the concrete hard, the breath ripped from his lungs in a helpless, broken, "Urk!"

Cold pain radiated through his chest and palms.

He didn't have time to recover.

Soft, rhythmic footsteps approached him—step, step—unhurried, precise. Bare feet. Too quiet. Cosmo's hands shook as he yanked his book up between them, holding The Liquid Cat Theory like a shield. It was ridiculous, but it was all he had.

Her shadow fell over him, blotting out the sun.

She leaned down, invading his space with casual dominance. A mischievous smirk tugged at her lips as she took in his rigid posture, the way his face burned scarlet under her gaze.

"That's weird…" she murmured. Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried—a low, vibrating hum that seemed to resonate under his skin. "Am I seeing things? I could've sworn…"

She tilted her head slowly, ears angling forward, eyes tracing him with unnerving precision. Cosmo felt dissected, examined, reduced to something small and observable. A specimen. A mouse pinned beneath glass.

He was sure something terrible was about to happen.

Then—

The heavy metal rooftop door groaned open.

The sound hit like a shockwave.

"Ah, if it isn't my darling Cosmo! What are you doing here?"

The voice shattered the moment completely. Cosmo whipped his head around so fast his glasses nearly slid off his nose. Standing in the doorway was a girl in a pink tracksuit, sunlight framing her athletic silhouette. Her smile was wide, cheerful—familiar.

Relief surged through him, sharp and desperate.

"Oh! A-actually, there was this girl—" Cosmo blurted out, pointing wildly behind him, his finger trembling.

The pink-haired girl blinked, her gaze drifting lazily across the rooftop. Empty concrete. Open sky. Nothing else.

"A girl?" she said lightly. "Hm? I don't see anyone."

Cosmo's breath hitched.

He turned back.

The space behind him was vacant. The concrete shimmered faintly in the heat, undisturbed. No footprints. No shadow. No golden eyes watching him. Just absence.

"But… she was just…" His voice dwindled into a whisper, doubt gnawing at the edges of his thoughts. Was I hallucinating?

He didn't get time to decide.

The girl in pink moved closer, and the warmth drained from her expression with terrifying speed. The cheer peeled away, revealing something sharp underneath. She closed the distance in a heartbeat and caught Cosmo's face between her hands.

"Making up stories now, are we?" she purred, her tone sweet and venomous all at once. Her fingers pressed into his cheeks, squeezing until his lips puckered helplessly. Her eyes gleamed with a cruel delight. "Liars deserve punishment."

"Eek!" Cosmo squeaked, muffled and terrified, his hands scrabbling uselessly at her wrists.

But even as fear flooded his body, his mind stayed fixed on the empty space behind him. The place where something impossible had stood.

He didn't know which frightened him more—the girl who had vanished without a trace, or the one who hadn't.

The locker room was thick with the stench of old gym shoes, sweat soaked into rubber and tile, and something sharper beneath it all—cruelty, well-worn and comfortable. Cosmo huddled on the cold floor, knees pulled tight to his chest. The tile leached warmth from his skin as shadows stretched over him, long and distorted, cast by the bodies of his classmates.

They loomed like judges.

"Aww, look at him getting all shy," a voice crooned from above, laced with mock tenderness. "Baby Cosmo's so tiny and delicate—just like a little girl!"

Laughter followed. Not loud, but rhythmic. Practiced.

Cosmo flinched, his glasses slipping crooked on his nose. He didn't fix them. He barely noticed. He felt small in a way that went beyond size—as if his existence itself took up too much space just by being there.

"I mean, I wonder if he can even function as a guy!" the bully snorted. "Haha."

The voice leaned closer, curiosity turning sharp. "Oh wait—doesn't he have a wife or something? That Lapin White girl. Heard they live together or something."

Cosmo's heart slammed against his ribs.

"Huh…?" His voice cracked under the weight of too many eyes. "N-no, we don't live together. She just lives downstairs—"

"Oh yeah?" A girl in a pink tracksuit leaned casually against the lockers, eyes wide with exaggerated wonder. "Wooow. You actually live with Lapin?"

The room seemed to tilt.

Cosmo tried to explain, words tangling, dissolving before they reached his mouth. "N-no, I'm just staying there with—"

But it didn't matter. The truth had already lost.

Whispers rippled outward. The ambiguity was delicious. The pink-clad girl's lips curled slightly as realization dawned in her eyes. "Hold on," she murmured, half to herself. "Are they already in that kind of relationship…?"

Then—

The classroom door creaked open.

Sunlight spilled across the floor, catching on a shock of pale, golden hair. Lapin stood in the doorway, framed by light. She didn't look delicate. She looked dangerous—like a storm compressed into human form, restrained only by a school uniform.

She walked forward, each step steady. Conversations died as she passed. Laughter evaporated. Her presence pulled sound out of the room like air from a vacuum.

Cosmo watched from the floor, face burning with shame—and something fragile, flickering beneath it. Hope.

Lapin stopped.

Her amber eyes locked onto the girl in pink.

"What's it got to do with you?" she asked.

She didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to. The words carried weight, vibrating through the lockers themselves.

The girl stiffened, her smug expression collapsing. Before she could respond, Lapin's gaze swept the room, cool and unflinching.

"That's right," Lapin said calmly, her voice cutting through the silence like a blade. "We live together."

The clack of her shoes against the floor echoed in the aftermath. She didn't look back at Cosmo.

She didn't have to.

The shield she'd thrown over him was absolute.

The rumor had been seized, twisted, and reforged into a weapon—and Lapin White was the one holding it.

The fluorescent lights of the hallway hummed overhead, their low, electric buzz drilling into Cosmo's skull until it synced perfectly with the anxious vibration in his chest. The sound was constant, inescapable—like the school itself was watching, listening, waiting.

Cosmo was pinned against the lockers.

Not by hands.

By reputation.

"Aww, look at him getting all shy," a voice sneered, thick with syrupy mockery that clung to his skin like poison. "Baby Cosmo's so tiny and delicate, just like a little girl!"

The words landed with practiced precision. Cosmo's knees buckled, hitting the linoleum with a dull knock that echoed far louder than it should have. Cold seeped through the fabric of his trousers, a sharp contrast to the heat crawling up his spine and flooding his face. He reached up on instinct, pushing his glasses back into place with trembling fingers, as if clearer vision might somehow fix the situation.

It didn't.

From the floor, the world looked cruelly tall. Shoes scuffed near his knees. Shadows stretched over him, distorted by the lockers' dull sheen. He kept his eyes lowered, staring at the reflection of fluorescent light on the tiles. Silence, to him, felt safer than words—but to the predators circling him, it was blood in the water.

The laughter came sharp and jagged, slicing through the hallway.

"I mean, I wonder if he can even function as a guy! Haha."

Each laugh chipped away at something inside him, something already brittle. He felt himself shrinking—not physically, but existentially, as if the space he occupied was being erased inch by inch.

Then came the hook.

"Oh wait," someone said casually, with just enough curiosity to sound innocent. "Doesn't he have a wife or something? That Lapin White girl. I heard they live together."

Cosmo's breath caught painfully in his throat.

"Huh…?" His voice cracked as he looked up, panic widening his eyes behind thick lenses. "N-no, we don't live together," he stammered. "She just lives downstairs—"

The explanation tumbled out clumsily, half-formed and too fragile to survive contact with the crowd. Truth was tedious. Nuance was boring.

The girl in the pink tracksuit leaned closer, her expression bright with artificial wonder. "You actually live with Lapin? Wooow." She turned slightly, her voice dropping into a whisper that carried perfectly. "Hold on… are they already in that kind of relationship…?"

The words spread like smoke.

The air thickened, heavy and suffocating. Cosmo opened his mouth again, desperate to explain the technicality of shared housing, of coincidence and circumstance—but his throat closed around the words. He was a mumble in a room full of shouts. His voice never stood a chance.

Then—

The atmosphere fractured.

The classroom door didn't simply open.

It yielded.

Light spilled into the hallway, catching on pale strands of hair that gleamed like a blade drawn halfway from its sheath. Lapin stepped through the doorway, sunlight framing her silhouette so sharply she looked unreal—less like a student and more like a presence summoned by the tension itself.

She walked forward with terrifying focus. Conversations died mid-syllable. Phones lowered. Bodies shifted out of her path instinctively, as if making room for something dangerous.

She didn't look at Cosmo.

Not yet.

She stopped directly in front of the girl in pink. They were nearly the same height, but the difference in gravity was unmistakable. Lapin didn't loom. She anchored.

"What's it got to do with you?" Lapin asked.

Her voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. It was flat, measured, stripped of theatrics—the sound of a door locking from the outside.

The girl flinched. The smug curve of her mouth collapsed as sweat beaded along her temple. She tried to speak, to reclaim momentum, but Lapin's amber stare held her in place like a pinned insect.

Lapin didn't wait for an answer.

She turned just enough for her words to reach everyone—to the phones, the whispers, the people who had already decided what kind of story they wanted.

"That's right," she said calmly. "We live together."

The silence that followed was absolute.

In a single sentence, she seized the rumor, drained it of its ability to wound, and claimed it outright. The shame they had tried to carve into Cosmo had been rerouted, reforged into something sharp and unapologetic.

She stood there in her pleated skirt, posture relaxed, expression unreadable—leaving the room to wonder whether they had just witnessed a scandal…

…or a declaration of war.

The storehouse air was thick with dust and the stale scent of old sporting equipment—leather, rubber, metal, all steeped in neglect. The silence pressed down harder than the smell. It wrapped around Cosmo like a weight he didn't have the strength to push back against.

He sat on the cold floor, his back against a stack of wooden crates, knees drawn close. The dim fluorescent light hummed overhead, but his mind drifted elsewhere—pulled backward into warmth.

A playground.

Golden with sunset.

He remembered her face as it had been then—round, bright, untouched by sharp edges. He could almost hear her small voice again, soft and uncertain.

"Really? You're giving this to me? But didn't your mom give it to you…?"

And he remembered himself, smaller too, answering without hesitation. Without fear.

"Yep! You're just as precious to me as my mom!"

The memory glowed, fragile and unreal, like something that might shatter if held too tightly.

"Cosmo! What's got you so lost in thought…?"

The voice cut cleanly through the fog.

Cosmo blinked, the golden playground dissolving into metal shelves and concrete walls. Lapin was leaning over him now, her blonde hair catching a stray beam of light, her expression caught between curiosity and concern.

"Um… Lapin?" he stammered, his heart skipping nervously.

Then everything happened at once.

A dark blur tore through the air.

POOF.

The world exploded into motion. Lapin lost her balance, momentum pitching her forward. Cosmo barely had time to gasp—"EH?!"—before she crashed down onto him. The impact knocked the breath from his lungs, and suddenly her face was inches from his, both of them frozen, both burning red from shock and embarrassment.

The moment was intimate.

Accidental.

And brutally brief.

A black cat—nothing but shadow and motion—lunged for Lapin's chest.

"AAAHH!!!"

Sharp teeth sank into the cord around her neck. The bite was precise. Efficient. In one fluid motion, the cat wrenched the necklace free and scrambled up her shoulder. Lapin clawed at the empty space in panic, breath hitching as realization struck.

"Huh? My necklace!"

The cat was already retreating. It leaped toward the high window, pausing on the sill just long enough to turn back. The green, comma-shaped stone glinted between its teeth, catching the light like a taunt.

"MEOW!"

And then it was gone—vanishing into the dark beyond the glass.

"NO! MY NECKLACE!!!" Lapin's cry echoed off the metal shelves, raw and desperate.

Cosmo scrambled upright, heart pounding, the shock of their fall fading into something colder. He stared at her, at the panic etched across her face.

"Necklace?" he repeated softly.

"Yeah!" Lapin spun toward him, eyes shining with unshed tears. "That cat ran off with it!"

As Cosmo looked at her, the weight of a childhood promise settled heavily in his chest. That wasn't just jewelry.

It was memory.

And he had only just remembered why it mattered.

The heavy silence of the science lab didn't merely break—it shattered.

A frantic skitter of claws tore across the tiled floor, followed instantly by the sharp, crystalline SHATTER of glass hitting stone. The sound ricocheted off the lab walls, too loud, too sudden, snapping Min-soo's thoughts into fragments.

What do I do…?

His heart slammed violently against his ribs, each beat a panicked demand for action. He stood frozen for half a second too long, eyes darting wildly between the wreckage on the floor and the girl beside him. She stared back, her expression pale and unfocused, caught somewhere between shock and confusion.

There was no time to wait for her to react.

A streak of black fur flashed past the open doorway.

Realization hit Min-soo like electricity.

"STOP RIGHT THERE!!!"

The shout tore out of his throat as he spun around, lunging forward with reckless urgency. His hand sliced through empty air, fingers closing on nothing. His foot clipped the leg of a lab stool, sending it scraping violently across the floor. A beaker perched too close to the edge tipped, wobbled—

CRASH.

Glass exploded across the tiles, but Min-soo was already gone, propelled forward by adrenaline and raw panic.

The hallway swallowed him whole.

Fluorescent lights blurred into streaks overhead as polished linoleum flashed beneath his pounding shoes. Ahead of him, the thief fled—a sleek black cat, impossibly fast, a glowing green object clenched tightly between its teeth. The stone pulsed faintly as it moved, catching the light with every bound.

The cat didn't run.

It flowed.

Its body compressed and extended with supernatural grace, tail snapping sharply as it rounded corners without slowing. It was less an animal and more a shadow slipping through the cracks of the world.

"YOU LITTLE THIEF!" Min-soo bellowed, lungs burning as his voice cracked under strain. "DASH!"

The cat never looked back.

It shot straight toward a cluster of students loitering near the lockers—laughing, chatting, completely unprepared. Among them stood a girl with long, pale hair, her posture relaxed, unaware that chaos was bearing down on her like a missile.

"OUT OF THE WAY!!!"

The warning came too late.

She turned just in time to see a black blur tearing toward her feet.

"GAAAH!!!"

She shrieked, leaping backward as the cat ZOOMED past her ankles, close enough that she felt the rush of displaced air tug at her socks. The green stone flashed once, bright and taunting, before vanishing down the corridor.

Before her heart could even slow, a second force slammed into her world.

"SORRY! PASSING THROUGH!"

Min-soo burst through the space she'd occupied a moment earlier, unable to slow, unable to stop. His shoulder clipped hers hard—

THUD.

"AGH!" The sound tore from her lungs as she staggered sideways, nearly losing her balance. Min-soo didn't look back. He couldn't. His momentum carried him forward, legs pumping blindly as his glasses slid crookedly down his nose.

Footsteps thundered away.

Silence rushed in behind them.

The girl stood frozen in the center of the hallway, hair disheveled, breath coming in sharp, uneven gasps. Her arm throbbed where he'd hit her. She stared down the corridor where boy and beast had vanished, indignation and disbelief twisting across her face.

"What the hell?!" she hissed, clutching her sleeve. "Now even you…?!"

Far ahead, the chase tore on, the echo of retreating footsteps the only rhythm left in a school day that had suddenly warped into something wild and uncontrollable.

"What the hell?! Now even you…?!"

Sae-ah's voice cracked as it left her throat, equal parts fury and exhaustion. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, breath sawing through her lungs as she tried to make sense of the madness she'd just been dragged into.

Something snapped.

Before logic could intervene, her hand shot downward. Her fingers curled around the strap of her indoor slipper, foam compressing under the force of her grip.

"Don't even…" she hissed, jaw tightening, "…THINK ABOUT IT!!!"

Her arm whipped forward.

The slipper tore through the air with a violent WHOOSH, a pink-and-white blur spinning end over end. It cut cleanly through the hallway space, propelled by pure impulse and unfiltered frustration.

It struck.

THWACK.

The impact landed squarely against the black cat's midsection mid-leap. The sound was thick and awful, reverberating down the hall. The cat—Cosmo—let out a startled, pained—

"MEOOOW!!!"

The world tilted.

"N-NOOO!!!"

The scream tore from the boy chasing it, raw and panicked, echoing off sterile tile and locker doors. He lunged forward, arms flailing as the cat's trajectory went horribly wrong.

The window.

Open.

Too close.

His hand clawed desperately toward the frame, toward the falling blur of fur and green light—but gravity answered first. The cat vanished over the ledge, tumbling out of sight.

Outside, the air was deceptively calm.

Bright.

Still.

"HUH…?!" The boy's mind fractured as his momentum betrayed him. He hadn't just reached for the cat—his body followed the motion, carried past the point of no return.

For one impossible heartbeat, time FROZE.

He hung suspended against the sky, weightless, the world eerily silent. Clouds drifted lazily above. Below, the school courtyard yawned open, distant and terrifyingly far away.

Then reality slammed back into place.

SWOOSH.

"COSMO…?!" Sae-ah's voice drifted faintly from above, thin and distorted, already too far away.

The boy's instincts took over.

He tucked.

Arms wrapped around fur as his fingers caught the scruff of the black cat. He pulled the trembling body tight against his chest, curling protectively around it as they fell together—boy and beast locked in a chaotic spiral.

Wind roared past his ears, deafening, relentless.

A final reminder of how much weight a single moment could carry.

And then—

Only the fall remained.

The wind howled like a living thing—a predatory scream that ripped the breath straight from Min-ho's lungs as the earth surged upward to claim him. The world had narrowed to motion and terror, to the violent pull of gravity and the shrill roar in his ears.

This wasn't how it was supposed to end.

Not like this.

Not over a cat.

Not today.

His body tumbled helplessly through open air, limbs stiff with panic, glasses slipping crooked on his face. The sky above fractured into streaks of blue and blinding white, while the concrete below blurred into an indistinct, rushing gray.

Is this how I die…?

The thought surfaced with terrifying calm, slipping through his mind like a whisper. His chest felt unbearably heavy even as his body floated, weightless and doomed—a leaf torn from its branch and flung into a merciless gale. His heart slammed against his ribs, every beat echoing with unfinished time.

Memories flashed behind his eyelids—not his past, but his future. Things he hadn't done yet. Words he hadn't spoken. Ordinary tomorrows that suddenly felt priceless.

There's still so much I want to do…

Against his chest, something moved.

Min-ho sucked in a sharp breath as the small, dark shape he had thrown himself after began to squirm violently. Claws pressed through fabric. Fur brushed his chin. The cat wasn't clinging to him in gratitude—it was thrashing, rigid with fear.

Then it spoke.

"What are you doing, you moron?!"

The voice was sharp, furious—and unmistakably human.

Min-ho's eyes flew open, shock momentarily eclipsing terror. He stared down at the black cat cradled in his arms. Its yellow eyes burned with intelligence, wide and blazing with an ancient, furious light.

"I'll survive because I'm a cat," the creature snarled, baring small, sharp teeth. "But you're going to die for real!"

The words hit harder than the fall.

Min-ho's mind short-circuited. His mouth opened, soundless at first, before a strangled gasp forced its way out.

"D-did you just… talk?!"

The cat growled in irritation, twisting just enough for Min-ho to see what it carried clenched between its teeth—a glowing, jade-green jewel. The light pulsed like a heartbeat, casting eerie reflections across Min-ho's glasses and skin.

"Oh, for crying out loud," the cat snapped. "I was going to choose real carefully…"

Its gaze sharpened, measuring him in an instant—his trembling arms, his reckless leap, the way he had shielded it without hesitation.

"…but if you're crazy enough to dive after a cat," it continued, voice dropping into something almost solemn, "you'll probably do just fine."

The air around them changed.

It didn't simply rush anymore—it ignited.

A sudden explosion of jade-colored light erupted from the jewel, engulfing them both. The violent pull of gravity vanished, replaced by a dense, humming warmth that wrapped around Min-ho like a cocoon. The screaming wind fell silent. The fatal speed softened into suspension.

Min-ho's body jolted, not with impact—but with connection.

Heat bloomed in his chest, spreading outward, threading through his veins. Something ancient and vast brushed against his consciousness, as if a door he never knew existed had been flung wide open.

The cat's voice transformed.

Gone was the petulant snarl of a cornered animal. What spoke now was deep, resonant, and impossibly old—like a proclamation carved into the bones of the universe itself.

"BY THE POWER OF THE JADE JEWEL—"

The light intensified, spiraling around them in twin helixes of emerald fire. Symbols flickered within the glow, too fast to read yet heavy with meaning. Min-ho felt something latch onto him, not painfully, but irrevocably.

"—I DECREE THE REOPENING OF THE ZODIAC RACE—"

The school courtyard below shimmered, frozen in time, distant and unreal. Min-ho hovered in the air, suspended between pavement and sky, between the life he knew and something vast and unknowable.

"—TO DETERMINE WHO SHALL CLAIM A SEAT!"

The final words rang out like a divine verdict, echoing across reality itself.

Several feet above the pavement, Min-ho's ordinary life came to an end.

The fall was over.

But the race had just begun.

The golden hour bled slowly through the wide windows of the school infirmary, painting the sterile white walls in hues of amber and soft bronze. Dust motes drifted lazily in the sunbeams, suspended like fragments of time itself. The room was quiet—too quiet—broken only by the faint hum of fluorescent lights and the distant murmur of students heading home.

The nurse stood beside the bed, her silhouette outlined by the sinking sun. She watched the boy carefully, her trained expression calm but her eyes betraying something deeper—unease, curiosity, perhaps even disbelief.

"The memory loss is probably from temporary shock," she said gently, her voice steady and professional, as if she needed the reassurance as much as he did.

Cosmo nodded slowly, though the motion felt delayed, as if his thoughts had to travel a longer distance than usual. "Oh…" was all he managed. The word felt hollow, empty of understanding. His mind was like a chalkboard freshly wiped clean, the residue of erased thoughts still clinging to the surface.

She continued speaking as she packed away her instruments, the metallic clicks sounding unusually loud in the stillness. "You might experience lingering symptoms—headaches, dizziness, confusion. So make sure to visit a doctor if anything feels off, okay?"

"Alright… thank you," he replied automatically.

When he stood, his legs felt faintly disconnected, as though they belonged to someone else. He walked out into the quiet hallway, the rhythmic step-step of his shoes echoing between the lockers. The school felt abandoned, drained of its earlier chaos. He reached up and scratched the back of his head, a frown settling in as he tried—and failed—to grasp onto something solid in his memory.

Everything felt distant. Muted. As if he were watching his own life through frosted glass.

By the time he reached his apartment complex, the sun had sunk lower, turning the city into a mosaic of brick, steel, and glowing amber light. He leaned against the balcony railing, the cool evening breeze brushing against his face, but it did little to clear the fog pressing against his thoughts.

My head does feel a bit foggy… he thought, releasing a quiet sigh.

Inside, the door creaked loudly as he entered his apartment. The space was dim and cluttered—half-unpacked boxes stacked against the walls, loose papers scattered across the floor. It looked like the life of someone mid-transition, paused between before and after.

Exhaustion settled over him heavily, the kind that seeped into the bones. A day half-lost to memory weighed on him more than any physical pain.

"I should wash up and go to bed—"

He froze.

His gaze locked onto the bed.

Sitting there—completely at ease atop the rumpled sheets—was a small, sleek black cat. Its posture was regal, its body relaxed, as though it had always belonged there. Its tail flicked slowly, rhythmically, each motion deliberate.

"AGH!!!"

Cosmo stumbled back, his heart slamming violently against his ribs.

The cat didn't flinch.

It merely watched him, golden eyes unblinking, tail continuing its calm du-dun rhythm.

A sharp fragment of memory stabbed through the haze—an alleyway, movement, something stolen. His breath caught. He raised a trembling finger, pointing straight at the intruder.

"Y-YOU! You're that thief cat from earlier!!!"

The cat let out a soft, almost offended hmph. Slowly, deliberately, it lifted its gaze to meet his.

"Thief?"

The voice didn't come from the room.

It bloomed directly inside his mind.

"Please," the voice continued coolly, "that necklace was mine to begin with."

Cosmo went completely still.

His finger remained outstretched. His mouth fell open. The world seemed to tilt—not violently, but just enough to unseat everything he thought he understood.

"Huh…?"

 (๑•́ ₃ •̀๑)