A World

"Why are you all here?" Akira deadpanned with his bike at Hiroko near him, including Wu, Nobuhiko and Asuka as they all walked side by side.

Asuka blinked. "I don't know either. Nobuhiko said I should come because it's your bir—"

Nobuhiko slapped over Asuka's mouth.

Asuka slapped Nobuhiko back with a glare, then realized with a muffled, "Ah, right."

Asuka and Nobuhiko concluded a gaze at Wu.

Wu averted his gaze to Akira.

"Who are we kidding," Wu sighed. Showing his phone, "You're brother texted me and Asuka got a text from your mom saying we should come by for a surprise early dinner."

"But that's tomorrow." Hiroko said.

They stopped to look at each other. Akira's house in the distance.

Wu hit Hiroko in the shoulder whispering, "Why'd you say that, it's no longer a surprise!"

"Why you hitting me!" Hiroko hit him back. "You're the one who just explained the surprise!"

"Stop fighting." Nobuhiko parted the two nudging each other repeatedly between laughs. "I guess we all had the dates mixed up."

"Strange coincidence." Akira snickered as they continued to walk with him. "But it wasn't really a surprise. My mom and brother told me you'd be coming over anyway."

"Awww, so no free dinner today?" Hiroko slumped.

Asuka raised a brow, "Do you pay your parents for food or something?"

"Hehe~" Hiroko looked away. "They make me do chores here and there..."

"We could ride our bikes and mess around, if you want." Akira smiled to them.

Hiroko gasped in delight preparing to sprint, "I'll get mine and be back real quick!" Thinking, "Mom wouldn't mind if I go out in the neighborhood if I said Aki invited me!"

"What about us!" Wu cried latching to Nobuhiko.

"Oh!" Hiroko halted. "Ask Aki!"

Wu frowned at the sight of Hiroko leaving.

"I'll be fine just sitting on the side." Nobuhiko shrugged.

"Hey, Park, can I borrow yours?" Asuka walked to Akira calmly sauntering the pedals.

"Catch me first!" Akira grinned cycling faster.

Asuka huffed chasing after him.

"Hey, Paaaaark!" Wu called. "Do you have a spareeee? Like your brothers' or somethingggg?"

Akira looked back, slowing down to a corner. "Yeah, just ask him upstairs!"

A mini truck, Kirasum labeled, smashed against Akira and crushed his limbs. Blood puddling out of his mangled bones piercing through his torn off skin. Wu screamed. Asuka fell back trembling. Akira's vision was blurred, tilting over, his head trickling blood that drowned out figures of people running toward him.

"Akira!!" Wu roared.

Akira flared open an eye but it kept shutting close.

Hiroko dropped her bike.

"AKIRA!!!!" Hiroko shrieked. "Someone call an ambulance!!"

Nobuhiko pulled out his phone. "Hello! Please, we need help—"

"Where's the driver—?" Asuka held her breath.

Wu sprinted towards Akira's house.

"The ambulance is coming!"

Hiroko held Akira in her arms. "Akira, speak to me, please!"

"No, no, no, no—!" Kaneda's voice.

Before he could reach him, Akira stopped seeing.

"Can you hear me, boy?" the Nurse's voice.

"He's not responding." another's said beside.

Heart rate monitor alluding beeps.

"But he's alive."

Muffled silence. Moving blurs.

"Young Park lucky to survive. But he might not be able to wake or live out his daily living any time soon."

"Is it a coma, doctor?" Yuu's voice.

"I'm afraid so."

Kusanagi Residence.

"Where were you?" a stern bark.

Hiroko closed the door behind her, a woman glaring with her hands on her hips.

"Akira almost died. We sent him to the hospital." Hiroko muttered.

"Louden your voice!! You're always mumbling! So annoying." the woman sighed leaning closer to her.

Hiroko turned away saying, "Akira. Almost died. We sent him. To the hospital."

The woman's face fell. "Oh! That poor boy. Is he still alive?"

"Yes. They said he's in a coma."

"Oh, that's fine. When he wakes up makes sure he remembers you and—"

"For the last time, Mom. I only see him as a good friend."

"But you said you liked him! I just want you to have better children than me with a smarter husband!"

"...I was a kid, Mom. There are other kinds of love out there. Akira is pretty to look at. He says things I barely understand but it makes me look passed what he looks like. It's interesting how he thinks and I like to listen to him turn those thoughts into words. To let him know that outside of his house someone is there to hear him out. No matter how many times I flirt like you said I should, I'd always end up joking with him. Because he's my friend."

Wu laughing with her.

"And besides..."

"I asked where you were, Hiroko."

Hiroko blinked.

"Oh..." Hiroko trailed off. "The hospital."

The woman glared at her.

"It wasn't me, though!" Hiroko shrank folding her arms. "Akira had an accident, and we had to—"

The woman's face softened. "Oh, thank goodness! Is he alright? Did you save him?"

Hiroko's face darkened. "He is. But the doctor said he had a coma."

"That's fine. Make sure to visit him after school everyday..."

Hiroko stood still, looking down.

"What are you just standing there for?" the woman sat on the couch, raising the remote. "Go make dinner right now."

"Where's Dad..." Hiroko asked, switching to house slippers.

"Haa?!"

"Where is Dad?!" Hiroko shouted.

The woman stomped towards her and slapped her face. "YOU DARE RAISE YOUR VOICE AT ME?"

"But you always can't listen so I adjusted the volume for you—!"

The woman slapped her cheek. "That's not how you respect your elders. Speak properly to me next time, you good for nothing child!"

Hiroko gritted her teeth. "I'll be making dinner now—"

The woman slapped her cheek. "ARE YOU MAD?"

Hiroko was silent. Relaxing her jaw. Focusing on her breath.

"ARE YOU DEAF? ANSWER ME RIGHT NOW!"

"I'll be making dinner now, Mother." Hiroko calmly said, looking her in the eye with a small smile.

The woman studied her face and tsked. "Go."

Hiroko headed to the kitchen. Face numb in indifference.

The front door opened revealing a man in suit and tie.

The house was silent besides the TV and Hiroko preparing food in the kitchen. Hiroko shallowly breathed in a steady pace, careful not to be heard. Hiroko's eyes were wide, trying to stop tears from letting go and causing a fuss. The man glanced at Hiroko, then he went up the stairs.

"Stop crying." the woman snapped.

Hiroko swallowed and rubbed her tears to continue.

"Tch. Your good for nothing father can't even say that to you when he's already here. Always sleeping! So troublesome!"

Hiroko said nothing as she continued to slice a skinless onion.

A Tenkei-Teki Ichiryū Academy.

Clouds gathering over, forming a grey ceiling encompassing the sky.

Class 2-B.

"You might have heard the news." Mr. Gotoge said.

The room was silent and casted in the shadow of the sun's abscence. Wu slumped on his chair, eyes dim with nowhere to focus itself. Hiroko sunk on her desk, eyes distantly looking through a window that was cascaded by rain.

"A foremost student from Class 1-A is being hospitalized due to a car accident, that took place yesterday, in the near Neighborhood." Mr. Gotoge informed. "Rampaging vehicles with unknowing drivers are becoming common in The City. Please be careful, dear students."

"I heard there were some that didn't have any drivers at all..." one murmured.

"I heard that from Ayanami, who was there when Park—." another shivered.

Class 2-A.

The sky was speckled with a few clouds. Blue skies peaking through.

On his seat, Nobuhiko rested his head against his palm and recalled.

At the train station, "I saw someone push Park." Asuka had said.

Nobuhiko only stood, glancing at her.

"What do you mean?" Wu furrowed his eyes.

"I don't remember clearly..." Asuka held her forehead. "But I know what I saw. They wore our school's girls' uniform. I couldn't move. And it was almost like—"

Asuka fell silent. 'If I say I pushed him without thinking things would get even more troublesome. It was a strange dreamlike perspective where I saw myself from all three points of view. As if I was watching myself push him—but, I didn't seem "myself".

'I'm practically an outsider to Wu, Hiroko, and Akira and his family. I might get diagnosed with a mental illness for potentially killing a student like Akira in a school like this, the others and my future will only be bothered—Though I know it wasn't me! Someone else was...but how could they have—?'

"It was almost like what?" Wu gripped on Asuka's shoulder.

Asuka swallowed. "I don't know. I didn't see their face."

Wu let go of her, looking away and downward in distraught. "Sorry if my grip was too hard..."

"It's fine.."

"So, She was right." Nobuhiko thought on his desk.

"Come." a voice.

Nobuhiko had stopped on his tracks, right between Class 2-A's empty room and the barren hall.

"To the roof." a low whispery voice.

Nobuhiko narrowed his eyes to where the sound came from, holding onto his bag cautiously. The sun had its rays touch the roof. Above, a single cloud passed over her.

Stairs.

"He hasn't noticed, just how long I've waited."

Leading to a door.

"The present is fleeting, once you realize that moment had already passed. . . . "

The Girl with black hair turned to look at Nobuhiko with a smile, she was wearing the school's uniform, wind passing by.

"Would you like to know my name?" She asked.

Nobuhiko stared at Her thinking, "It's the same voice."

"Why would I need to?" he inquired.

"What if I told you," The Girl said. "the connection between the Black Book and my nightmares?"

"I don't understand." Nobuhiko studied her face. "But how did you call me like that?"

"When I'm supposed to be up here?" She added.

Nobuhiko nodded.

The Girl searched his face.

"I'm human." She only told, looking away. "The only difference between you and me is..."

She looked back to Nobuhiko. "If God wasn't here I would be your Creator."

Nobuhiko backed away defensively, muttering, "What's that supposed to mean..."

"It doesn't really matter." She said, reaching a hand to the blue sky. Outlining a cloud in the shape of an abstraction.

"What are you doing in the rooftop?" Nobuhiko asked her.

She lifted her head up a bit before thinking, "Why am I even surprised you'd talk to me?"

The surroundings turned grey as She kneeled down to lay on the floor.

Nobuhiko's colors remained and saw the stranger's were, too. He looked around in confusion. Opening his mouth to speak before shutting them to study the stranger's demeanor.

"I stopped any significant events from happening in this world." She said. "It's practically stopping Time, but if I did that it would lead to all things ceasing to function on their respective paces, allowing atoms to make nothing exist by their immobility. Although I could account for a convenient Deus Ex Machina to work in my favor—"

She grunted a roar, Nobuhiko jumping a bit.

"I'll just simplify. Too much communication means too much energy to back it up." she covered her eyes. "You have two options."

Nobuhiko tensed himself.

"Either you converse with me here, or leave and ignore my proposal." She added, "Pick the latter and everything will return back with their colors as a signal."

Nobuhiko raised a brow. "And if I pick the former?"

The stranger sat up, eyes jaded in shadow. "I'll spare you from what's to come."

The roof was silent as the wind passed by.

She crossed her legs, staring off. Hearing the door softly close. The stranger watched Nobuhiko sit a good distance from her.

"If I told you to do something for me," the Girl said. "Would you follow?"

Nobuhiko met eyes with her.

"I might, if I have to." Nobuhiko answered. "But I remember you asked,"

She gazed away from him.

"So I'd like to know your name."

She leaned the back of her head against the floor. "I go by Kira."

"....Is it not your real name?"

Kira only closed her eyes with a smile, "People find my name difficult to pronounce. And I've been called by this for more times that I embrace it."

"I see... I'm Yokohama Nobuhiko."

"I already know." Kira chuckled sadly. "But it's nice to meet you, Nobu—Yokohama."

"Nice to meet you, too..."

"Let's do this quickly." Kira announced. "If I correctly predict future events on the next few daysw I need you to play a game."

"What kind?" Nobuhiko raised a brow.

Kira smirked.

Nobuhiko's phone buzzed against his pocket. He was right between Class 2-A's empty room and the barren hall, taking out his phone.

"Killer's Game: Her Black Book of Nightmares successfully downloaded."

Nobuhiko's thumb leaned towards it, then stopped. Before pressing the application.

"Cannot open Killer's Game: Her Black Book of Nightmares. Please visit the A Tenkei-Teki Ichiryū Academy rooftop for additional information."