Sara chewed the end of her pencil until it cracked. She tried to focus on the textbook in front of her, but the words bled over each other, turning the whole page into alphabet soup. Her eyes were sore and it took her a minute to realize it was because she hadn’t blinked in a while. She gave herself a shake, not too hard as to draw the attention of the teacher, who looked like he was sleeping standing up.

She sighed.

“Your brother again?”

Sara glanced at Yuri, sitting next to her. The girl had her textbook propped up on the desk, her phone placed behind it.

Sara nodded. “I think he’s really gone missing. My parents don’t believe me.”

Yuri lifted one perfectly done eyebrow. “Isn’t he, like, 30?”

“I said brother, not dad.”

At the front of the class, the teacher looked back from the blackboard. His spectacles shone in the afternoon light, shielding his gaze.

Sara focused back on her textbook. She needed to keep her mind occupied. She thought about next week’s chemistry quiz and whether or not she needed to make a new set of cue cards for that.

She opened her pencil case for the necessary stationery, stopping when she saw the black cube sitting among her erasers. After she had gone into Yuzuru’s room on Saturday, she tried to tell her parents what she found. But when she saw her kendo coach coming through the door, everything screeched to a halt and she forgot all about, well, everything.

Sara shuddered. She didn’t want to relive that horrible dinner, eating cold noodles as the adults talked about her as if she wasn’t there.

She took out the cube. It was cold and exceptionally solid, with edges that were filed down so it was just smooth enough to not cut her fingers when she squeezed it.

“Is that a new hair accessory?” Yuri asked.

Sara shrugged. She handed it to Yuri, who spun it between her fingers like a toy.

“It’s too heavy. It’ll kill your neck.”

The teacher cleared his throat.

When the cube was back on Sara’s desk, she tried to make an educated guess as to what it might be.

The material suggested something heavy like platinum, but a block of pure platinum this big would cost more than 77,000 yen.

Sara wasn’t actually sure. It had been a while since she last checked the online markets, and longer since she had the free time to daydream about starting her own jewelry line.

Now, it was taking everything she had to keep her head above water. Between a part-time modeling gig and kendo training, every shred of her after-school life was taken up by studying.

It was a miracle she even had a friend, though if Sara was honest, she was sure Yuri was just latching onto her in the hopes to be introduced into the modeling industry.

Anyway, it didn’t make much sense for Yuzuru to have a block of rare metal just lying about in his room. Unless it was fake, of course, in which case Sara had completely wasted her time.

She pocketed the cube. No, she knew her brother going missing had something to do with this chunk of metal. Whenever she held it, she could feel there was something wrong with it.

The teacher finished his last time and announced to the class everything on the board was homework.

The collective groan was almost loud enough to drown out the sound of the bell.

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When the last class of the day ended, Sara got up and packed so quickly it made Yuri pause.

“You have a date or something?”

“Just want to borrow the lab for a project.”

Yuri made a face. “Ew. Staying after school for personal activities?”

“Parents are out late today and I don’t want to go home to an empty house.” Sara shouldered her bag and left out the door, leaving Yuri behind without saying goodbye.

She walked quickly, weaving between students as they swarmed out of their classrooms. She wanted to get to the chemistry department before the crowds thinned. This way, she would lower her chances of being…

A hand enclosed around her arm, yanking her to a stop.

Oh, great.

Sara turned around, every muscle tensing with the desire to fight or flee.

“You’re in a hurry.”

Slowly, she turned her eyes up to meet the gaze of Akari, her wicked nemesis and all-around evil person.

The short-haired girl was flanked by her lackeys, one on either side. They formed a wall against the student bodies, singling Sara out.

Akari’s grip didn’t loosen. She pulled Sara in and slung an arm around her shoulders.

“Someone special waiting for you?”

Sara laughed bitterly. “You really think I have time to waste on other people? Some of us have actual work to do.”

Akari’s two lackeys placed themselves in front and behind Sara. Moving together, they shepherded her up the steps to the third year’s floor, then up another flight until they were standing outside the door leading up to the roof.

It was locked, but that was the point.

“Could we just skip the program for today?” Sara asked, her bravado slipping as the noises of leaving students dimmed in the background. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Skip?” Akari asked. “No. But we can fast forward.” She was standing closer to the door, a few steps higher than Sara. Her lackeys blocked the lower ones. There was nowhere for Sara to go.

Nowhere but through.

Akari turned and smiled. Without warning, a fist lodged into Sara’s stomach. Sara doubled over, bile rising into her throat.

In kendo, you would only earn points by striking your opponents in the right places while having the right stances and positioning. But even if you get those perfect, judges could still rate you low based on a multitude of other factors, so it was more accurate to say a match was more akin to a dance than a duel, which is another way of saying Sara wasn’t trained for an actual brawl.

Gripping the stair’s railing, Sara swallowed the bitter liquid flushing into her mouth. Her eyes stung but she wouldn’t cry. Not in front of these goons. She reached for the shoulder strap of her bag, wanting to swing it like a weapon, but Akari grabbed a fistful of her shirt and shoved her against the railing

“I heard your mom wanted to sue me,” she said. “Let’s give her some fingerprints to work with, then.” She raised a hand, fingers curling into a fist.

Sara rushed forward and rammed her shoulder into Akari. She felt the air leave the girl in a loud whoosh. As the girl struggled for balance, Sara pulled back a leg, ready for the killing kick.

The lackeys were on her, nails digging into her scalp. A stocking-covered knee appeared in her vision. Stars burst in front of Sara’s eyes. The world tilted, pain following as she tumbled down the stairs.

She lay there, on the riser between the third and top floor, wheezing and bleeding. But not crying.

She wouldn’t cry.

The bullies came down. They kicked her a little before Akari announced she was going home. They started to leave, the lackeys going first in case any teachers were passing by the bottom of the stairs. When it came time for Akari, she turned to give Sara one last kick but stopped.

“This looks expensive.”

Sara opened her eyes, watching as Akari bent to pick up the black cube off the ground.

“Think I’ll be keeping this.”

“Wait...” Sara grabbed for it but Akari pushed her back down.

“Finders keepers,” Akari said.

"Give it back," Sara snarled. "I'm not warning you again."

Akari’s face darkened. She stepped closer and rested her foot on Sara’s nose. “You know you talk too much for someone crawling like a worm,” she said.

Sara stayed very still and forced a smile onto her face. “I'm only talking,” she said, “to buy time for the teacher to get here.” She glanced past Akari, tricking the girl into turning around.

Of course, there was no teacher. Sara wrapped her arms around Akari's ankles and pushed with all her strength. Akari shrieked, arms pinwheeling as she tipped over the edge. She managed to snag Sara’s tie, ensuring neither of them could escape the plummet down the twelve flight of solid steps.

That was fine with Sara. As she stared into Akari’s face, time slowed. She noted all the acne scars that were on the bully’s face and wondered if that was why Akari was the way she was. But truth be told, she didn’t care. She was going to cause the bully a lot of pain and that was all that mattered.

Waiting for them at the bottom, the lackeys looked up with horrified expressions. Further away, the throngs of human bodies continued streaming down the hallway, oblivious to the two girls who were about to have their bones broken on the concrete.

And then there was the cube, the thing that caused Sara to crack. It flew just out of reach beside Akari’s frozen face. Sara watched her arm move toward it, as slowly as the world around her.

Just as the first step greeted their bodies, Sara’s fingers closed around the cube. She squeezed it. The world churned, and everything burst into light.