Sora's words echoed in the silence of my room long after I got home.
Don't you dare hide.
It wasn't permission. It was a command. A strategy. My exile was over, not because I had chosen it, but because it had failed. The guardian at the gate was opening it a crack, not out of kindness, but out of necessity.
I felt a dizzying mix of relief and terror. The thought of seeing Sina again, of talking to her, was like a rush of pure oxygen to a drowning man. But the stakes were higher now. I wasn't just a random weirdo trying to score a date anymore. I was an experiment. A "new variable" in Sora's desperate equation to find Sina's peace.
If I messed this up, I wouldn't just be pushing Sina away. I would be betraying Sora's trust—a trust that felt as fragile and conditional as a spider's web.
Sleep was once again a distant country I couldn't visit. Instead, I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, trying to formulate a plan. The old playbook was useless. The extravagant, high-concept introductions felt wrong now. The prophetic cat, the secret agent, the time traveler... they all felt like lies. And I was tired of lying, even if they were fun, harmless lies.
Yesterday's "echo" and today's "haunting" demanded something different. Something truer. But what was the truth? Hi, my name is Kelin, and I've been in love with you for eighty-one consecutive days, each of which you've completely forgotten?
That was a one-way ticket to a restraining order.
My morning text to Zeke was short and cryptic.
Me: Mission is back on. But the rules have changed. New C.O. in the field.
Agent Pineapple: ??? A new Commanding Officer? Wait. You don't mean… Sunglasses Girl?? NO WAY.
Me: Meet me at the gates. Be normal. For the love of God, just be normal.
Agent Pineapple: 'Normal' is not in Agent Pineapple's vocabulary! But for you… I'll try.
Walking to school on the morning of Day 81 felt like walking into my own trial. The familiar courtyard was no longer a stage for my romantic comedies; it was a laboratory. When I arrived, Sora was already there, leaning against the wall near the entrance, looking impatient. Zeke was a few feet away, trying his best to look "normal" by pretending to be intensely interested in a loose thread on his jacket.
"You're here," Sora said. It wasn't a question. "Good."
"What's the plan?" I asked, my voice low. "You said a new variable was needed. What is it?"
"You are," she stated flatly. "I spent last night recalibrating. For the first time, I changed the notes."
My blood ran cold. "You... changed them?" The notes were sacrosanct. They were Sina's entire reality.
"A small addition," Sora clarified, pulling a folded piece of paper from her pocket. It was a copy. She unfolded it, showing me the last line, written in her own neat, precise handwriting, different from Sina's slightly more looped script.
It read: P.S. (from Sora): You might feel a little strange today, like you're looking for someone. That's okay. Be open to new people.
I stared at the words, my heart hammering. It was a primer. A way to frame the "static" not as a glitch or a sign of madness, but as an expectation. A strange sort of permission slip to feel the echo.
"It's a gamble," Sora admitted, her voice tight with tension. "It could backfire. It could make her more anxious. Or... it could give her a framework to process the confusion. To give the ghost a name, so to speak." She looked at me, her gaze intense. "Your name, Ishida."
Before I could process the weight of that, Sora's eyes flicked over my shoulder. "She's here."
I turned. And there she was.
She was walking slowly, her eyes already scanning the courtyard, just like yesterday. But today, the frantic anxiety was gone. It was replaced by a hesitant, cautious curiosity. She looked like someone who had been told to expect a visitor, but didn't know their face.
Sora pushed off the wall. "Alright," she commanded in a hushed, urgent tone. "This is the experiment. No crazy stories. No cats. No meteorology. Just... be a person. A kind, normal person. Go say hello."
"But what do I say?" I whispered, my mind a complete blank.
Sora gave me a look that was witheringly unimpressed. "My guess is 'Hi' would be a good start. The rest... is up to you, variable." She then raised her voice to a normal, friendly volume. "Sina! Over here!"
Sina's head snapped in our direction. Her eyes widened slightly as she saw me standing next to Sora. A flicker of something crossed her face—recognition, confusion, intrigue.
She walked towards us, her steps uncertain. Zeke, seeing his cue, gave me a frantic thumbs-up and then made a hasty retreat, pretending to get an urgent call.
"Sora," Sina said, her voice soft. Her eyes kept darting towards me. "I... you're here early."
"Just waiting for you," Sora said, her voice a perfect imitation of casual friendship. The only sign of her tension was the way her fingers were clenched at her side. "Oh, by the way, this is Kelin Ishida. He's in our history class."
The introduction was so stunningly, beautifully normal. No theatrics. Just a fact.
Sina's full attention landed on me. She looked into my eyes, and I could see the cogs turning in her mind. She was connecting the face to the name. She was processing the 'static' through the new filter Sora had given her. The vague feeling of a missing piece was coalescing around me.
It was my turn. My heart felt like it was going to beat its way out of my chest. All I had to do was be normal.
I offered a small, hopefully not-too-shaky smile.
"Hi," I said. "Sora's right. I sit in the back. The one who's always half-asleep."
It was a simple, self-deprecating truth.
Sina didn't laugh. She didn't make a witty comeback. She just kept looking at me, her amber eyes wide and searching. And she said the five words that changed everything.
"I know," she said, her voice a whisper of pure, impossible certainty. "I know you do."