Hours later, one by one, the boys were dragged away by homework reminders, chores, or threats of extra punishment from their parents. Kenta complained loudly all the way out, and Hiro's smirk lingered like a shadow as he muttered something about "romance arcs being unfair."
Finally, the room quieted, leaving just the faint clatter of chairs and the hum of the air conditioner. Kae leaned against the table, arms crossed, watching me fasten the watch again.
"You look better," she said softly, a faint smile tugging at her lips.
"Yeah… I feel better too," I replied, glancing down at my wrist. "It's… nice. Having something normal for once."
She tilted her head. "Normal isn't really your thing, is it?"
"Apparently not," I said, a weak smile tugging at my lips. "But right now… I don't mind pretending it is."
I hesitated a moment, then made a silly face, puffing out my cheeks and crossing my eyes while pretending the watch was a tiny, judgmental robot.
Kae blinked… and then burst out laughing, covering her mouth to keep the sound in check.
The sound hit me like a warm sunbeam. I froze, heart thumping, feeling a strange lightness in my chest. I realized… I hadn't thought about the Unknown even once since that laugh. Not about wishes, contracts, or endless histories. Just that moment, that laugh, that… small warmth.
"Okay, that was… really dumb," I admitted, rubbing the back of my neck.
"Yeah," she said, smiling, "but it's not bad."
I swallowed, heat creeping into my face, and for the first time in weeks, the gnawing tension in my chest loosened. There was only the tick of the watch, the fading noise of my friends leaving, and Kae's laughter lingering in the room.
It was peaceful, almost painfully so.
"Well, it's evening already… Thank you, Kae." I said with a wide grin.
"I don't recall allowing you to call me by my name, but I'll let it slide for now." Kae said while clearing out the trash in the classroom.
"Eh, That's a first, I thought you'd toss me around like a ping-pong." I said teasingly.
"Don't push it or I might actually do it." Kae replied.
"I'll try my best." I said.
Outside, the sunset struck the schoolyard with an unforgiving brightness, glinting off the windows and casting long shadows across the asphalt. Most students scurried outside, backpacks bouncing against their spines, but at the edge of the gate, a lone figure sat hunched over, shoulders shaking.
The boy's uniform was wrinkled, his tie hanging askew, and his hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. He buried his face in his hands, muffled sobs rattling through him. "It's… it's impossible… I'll never pass… I'm going to get grounded… everything is ruined…"
He wiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his blazer, leaving streaks of dirt and tears, and kicked at the concrete, a futile attempt to release the storm of frustration that had been building all week. Each footfall echoed in the quiet morning, a metronome of despair.
And then, he felt it. A shadow stretched across him, long and impossibly thin. The air grew heavier, charged with a subtle, alien energy, as if the world had tilted just slightly on its axis.
"Crying over sums and numbers?" a voice purred, smooth and unplaceable, like velvet sliding over broken glass.
The boy flinched, glancing up. His eyes widened. A man — no, a figure stood before him. Tall, impossibly straight, clad in a dark coat that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. The grin was slow, unsettling, too wide for someone so human.
"I… I'm… I'm just… I failed my math test," the boy stammered, voice cracking again. "I can't… I can't do it… and my parents are going to… they'll ground me, and I—"
The Unknown crouched slightly, coming closer, his grin widening just a fraction. "Ah… the sweet scent of frustration. Nothing like a child staring into the abyss of their own limitations."
"I just… I just don't get it," the boy wailed. "Numbers… equations… fractions… why does it have to exist? It's cruel! I hate it! I hate all of it!" His fists clenched, nails digging into his palms, as though he could squeeze the misery out of his own body.
The Unknown circled him slowly, the tip of his shoe tracing patterns in the concrete that seemed to shimmer and fade as if reality itself were trembling. "You're angry… desperate… helpless. But I can help you make your wish come true. Just say the word."
"I wish…" the boy's voice trembled, cracking at the edges. He leaned back against the cold metal gate, tears still dripping, "I wish… Maths didn't exist!"
The words hung in the air like an invisible bomb, vibrating with weight, resonating in the cracks of the schoolyard. The Unknown's grin sharpened, teeth gleaming in the sunlight.
"Ah…" he whispered, voice low and indulgent.
The moment the words left the boy's lips, a quiet tremor ran through the Earth — almost imperceptible at first.
The sky darkened unevenly, a creeping shadow crawling from horizon to horizon. It wasn't the sun going down; it was something stranger, heavier, as if the laws of reality themselves were holding their breath. In classrooms, the scribbled equations on blackboards began to blur, then vanish entirely, as though the ink had forgotten how to be. Calculators froze mid-sum; rulers no longer measured.
The boy clutched his head, confused. His wish had been simple: Mathematics didn't exist. But the result was a subtle, creeping panic. Patterns in nature began to fail: waves lost their rhythm, leaves arranged themselves in no order, and the flight of birds stuttered in tiny, impossible arcs.
A low hum, imperceptible at first, rose from the Earth itself — a vibration through the soles of the feet, through buildings and streets. Then the hum grew, becoming a tone that resonated inside bones and teeth, a sound without sound. The rivers seemed to hesitate, the wind faltered, the very air counting itself out of existence.
The middle schooler, trembling on the empty street outside the school gate, sobbed as he watched the world slowly fold in on itself. His frustration, his petty anger over tests and grounding, had grown into a force vast enough to unsettle the planet.
From the shadows, a figure emerged — the Unknown, smiling wider than sanity allowed. He wandered among the rising chaos, silent and deliberate, his gaze fixed on the boy. "Ah," he whispered, voice curling like smoke. "So small, yet so potent. Such a simple desire… and now, the universe is crumbling."
The Earth trembled again, louder this time, as though acknowledging the power of a wish made in innocence and frustration. Cities, seas, and skies moved in slow, wrong ways, each step of the unfolding disaster measured in hesitation, distortion, and tension. It was catastrophic, but patient — a creeping calamity that allowed every observer to realize the scale of what had been undone before it struck fully.
I was walking home from school, my backpack slung lazily over one shoulder, when it hit me — not in a thought, not in a whisper, but in a wave that seemed to seep into my bones. The world felt… off. Numbers didn't add up in my head; street signs blurred; the rhythm of footsteps and engines faltered as though some invisible conductor had abandoned the orchestra.
A sickening realization gnawed at me: something had gone catastrophically wrong. My stomach dropped, my pulse thudded in my ears. I ran, unsure where, driven by instinct more than reason. The chaos was everywhere. A bus lurched sideways without explanation; a traffic light hung frozen, flashing no sequence I recognized. People paused mid-stride, their expressions frozen in a mix of confusion and terror.
Dark light spiraled upward from the Earth, faint at first, then brighter, more oppressive, illuminating every curve of the planet in a sickly, alien glow. The seas churned with no discernible pattern; the clouds fractured into chaotic geometries. Even the stars above twitched in response, constellations warping as if reality itself were laughing at the audacity of a single frustrated wish.
I fell to my knees, gripping my head. My stomach twisted, my vision blurred. Terror wasn't even the right word — it was raw, primal panic. The sheer scale of what had been unleashed pressed down on me, and I realized with horrifying clarity: there was no undoing this, not yet.
And somewhere beyond the glow, beyond the trembling world, I felt it — the creeping awareness of the Unknown.
The Unknown stretched his arms wide, as if to embrace the unraveling universe, and laughed — a sound that scraped against the edges of reality itself.
"Now, Souta Renjiro," he hissed, voice curling like smoke, "what sort of dance will you perform to this music?"
I choked on my own breath.
"All because of one mortal's foolishness… the entire universe will slowly crumble on itself."
He tilted his head, eyes gleaming like black stars. "Behold, ye world," he whispered, "the majesty of destruction. The true meaning of my existence."
A pulse of darkness flared from him, and the air itself seemed to bend. "Let there be chaos…"
The smile that followed was impossibly wide, impossible to survive unshaken. It didn't just break the laws of physics — it laughed at them.