“We can talk about this, get down from there!”

“…”

“I know you don’t want to do it, trust your instinct! GET DOWN.”

“…”

The girl barely manages to hold eye contact with me, her body shaking, tears streaming down her face. A long quiet exchange is all that took place for the next few seconds, both the girl and I panting with fear and exhaustion.

“… …. …………..”

DASH. Abruptly, the girl gets away from the ledge and sprints back into the school building. In response, my legs begin to swiftly move towards the school entrance, only a few metres away. Stopped by the closed gate and hesitant for a few seconds, I jump up and struggle over the low hanging fence, roughly 2 metres tall, and blindly attempt to find the girl. Surprisingly open, I rush through the main door without any second thought and begin checking each classroom on the first floor of the school.

“How big is this school?” became a looming thought after I had successfully cleared out 7 classrooms from the entire first floor. Still no sign of the girl, I continued to recklessly search for a person who I did not even know of.

1 full hour had passed. I lay on the ground of the 3rd floor, facing the ceiling, panting and drained. I didn’t even bother to think of the possibility of whether she had already sneaked out of the building while I was searching for her. Talk about pointless motives. Defeated, I decided to take a break and collect my thoughts, because evidently, many things happened in that hour.

“I read her thoughts. Normal people can’t do that unless they’re inside a fictional story of some sort. Surely I’m just being delusional and I’m pretending to understand what she was thinking up there.”

In the end, I was glad she didn’t fall off the building, despite not being able to confront and communicate with her properly. But there was no knowing if she were to attempt such dangerous feat a second time.

What if I could read her mind? I mean, it wasn’t my own conscious I heard in my head, it was clearly a woman’s voice. And no, it was definitely not my own voice; I’d like to believe my balls had dropped enough to produce the most masculine voice you could possibly imagine (has a very high pitch voice for a male). But I do remember wanting to know what the girl was thinking… Perhaps that was a trigger…”

I gave up. Clearly, I was tired and anymore thoughts would begin to hurt my brain. I’ll try again later. I decided to close my eyes. After all, all that searching took away most of my willpower and energy. Surely a few minutes of rest wouldn’t hurt too much…

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I open my eyes. I see eyes. I see eyes. I SEE EY-

The girl’s face was really close to my face. REALLY close, TOO close.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Crawling backwards, the girl falls back onto the floor in front of me.

“What are you doing in my face???”

“Sorry”, she exclaims as she begins to pick herself back up. Her accent sounds very foreign to me, although I could understand her completely.

As I slowly come back to my senses, I could see a white-haired girl with her hair tied up in a ponytail, with her front hair taking the form of curtain bangs flowing beside her sleek and thin face. Her figure appeared slim, and she was wearing a uniform that was supposedly for the school we were at.

The girl stands up, patting down her dress, then crouches back to my level on the ground, where I still laid. Her face clearly portrayed her concern over me, which was very ironic considering that I should be the one with such face at this moment. Violently sitting up, I swiftly turn to her, cross-legged sitting on the floor and begin talking.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“uhhh, ummm” is all she fumbles, as she visibly struggled to come up with a response. Recognising the language as English, I try communicating to her with the little English I seem to remember.

“Do… you… understand what … I am saying?” I say in complete embarrassment. I don’t think this body was made to speak to foreigners.

For a moment, all that was exchanged was intense stares, until the girl breaks this intensity with a burst of laughter. I begin to stare even harder, with a more evident confused face as her laughing continues to ring out in the hallway.

“You should’ve seen your face when you started getting embarrassed” the girl blurted, with perfect annunciation in Japanese.

Completely defeated physically and emotionally, I decided to get up and walk away whilst ignoring the girl. The girl was safe, I’m tired, I want to go get food and get out of here; my passion to help her disappeared in an instant.

The girl suddenly stops laughing, and runs up by my side, with a cheeky smile pasted on her face.

“Where are you going? Why are you leaving me? Hey, heyyyyy?” she exclaims, still cheery from her stupid prank. “I saw you running into the school, so I thought you were a security guard or something, so I hid away from you. You know, I was watching you search for me the ENTIREEE time, and that was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a looong time. Funny enough, that reminds me…”

I continued to ignore her as her annoying remarks persevered through my feigned ignorance, until we reached the front gate I had entered earlier.

“Why are you acting like this? You clearly were about to jump off that building! I was so worried for you!” I shouted aggressively, fed up with her behaviour.

“Jump off? Jump off?!” she scuffs, as she begins to laugh again. “You thought I was going to jump off? You’re funny. I was just looking out towards the town I’m living in now, dummy. The school has the best view!”

“But… you were hanging onto the outside of the fence! OUTSIDE.” I shout.

“So? What’s wrong with that? A little danger doesn’t matter” she says valiantly, in disbelief of what she had just said.

Sigh. What a drag this person is. You know what? If this person is fine, then I’m fine. I don’t want any other business with her.

“Alright, I don’t care. I’m leaving. I came outside to get food, and all I got was stress, and… YOU. Goodbye.” I exclaim firmly, expressing my anger.

Frustrated, I walk away from the front gate and towards the convenience store close to the school and shop for some food. Instant Ramen for tonight’s dinner, and tomorrow’s breakfast. Anddd lunch. Andddd the meal after that. Great.

However, after backing out of that situation, I still didn’t know why her face and thoughts on that rooftop seemed to contrast her words. She clearly was crying. Well, maybe I’m delusional.

Though that night, as I reminisce the stressful first day that was brought upon me, I thought deeply of my current state in this world. A person with no memories, no parents at home, just me. An empty shell that was going to continue living a life that doesn’t even belong to me, or at least I thought. Why can’t I remember anything? Nothing makes sense right now. Sleep was and has always been the right medicine for anything. Today was Sunday, as I checked my phone. Why didn’t I think about checking the day first? Doesn’t matter anymore now. I’ll just live out this person’s life for them and try to get back this body’s old memories soon. I don’t know how that will happen, but it’s worth the try…

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Turning into the classroom another teacher had directed me to, I open the door.

Everyone inside the room averts their gaze upon me. But one set of eyes caught my attention.

I know fate is a thing, but I didn’t expect it to turn out like this. Why was SHE in MY classroom.

End of Chapter 2.