---
The morning train rattled louder than usual. Or maybe it was just the silence inside Sora's head, growing louder with each passing stop.
He stared at his reflection in the window. Same uniform. Same expression. Same boy—clean, calm, composed.
But something was off.
The knock from the shuttered shrine echoed in his mind like it hadn't finished yet. As if it was still happening. As if the sound had followed him home and was still tapping, gently, from somewhere inside.
He touched the inner pocket of his jacket.
The three notes were still there, folded perfectly. They felt heavier now. As if meaning had mass.
No new note had appeared this morning. But the absence felt intentional.
Someone was waiting.
---
Homeroom was already underway when he arrived. Ishikawa-sensei didn't acknowledge his lateness with more than a glance. Others would've reprimanded him, but Ishikawa… he watched.
Sora sat quietly at his desk, eyes flicking over the classroom.
Most students weren't looking at him. A few were.
Yuto Takahashi glanced up quickly, then away. Ayaka Nishimura, one of the girls from the stairwell the day before, kept whispering to the girl beside her. Their eyes flicked to Sora now and then.
He said nothing. He observed.
He took out his notebook and began writing—not class notes, but observations.
Ayaka: Nervous. Shoulders tense. Likely guilty.
Yuto: Shifted away when I sat. Possibly afraid.
Kaito (rear corner): Watching me longer than others. Curious? Or involved?
He drew lines between names. Small patterns of suspicion.
Then he flipped to the next page and saw something that shouldn't have been there.
A fourth message. Not written with his hand. Not even with a pen.
Burned faintly into the paper, as if by heat:
"You're not mapping them. You're tracing the trap around yourself."
He stared at it. Felt the paper. Smooth. Untampered.
He closed the notebook slowly.
---
During lunch, Yuto tried to act normal.
"Hey," he said, sitting down across from Sora with his half-eaten melon bread. "You, uh… feeling okay?"
Sora raised an eyebrow. "Define okay."
"I just mean… you seem off lately. More than usual."
"I didn't realize you were tracking my emotional baseline."
Yuto laughed nervously. "Yeah, well, just trying to look out, I guess."
Sora gave him nothing.
Yuto hesitated, then leaned forward, voice low.
"Listen, I don't know what's going on, but… yesterday, after you left? I saw someone go through your desk."
Sora's gaze sharpened. "Who?"
"I don't know. I didn't recognize them. Hoodie, face mask. Could've been from another class. I thought it was weird, but I didn't say anything because…"
He trailed off.
Sora finished for him. "Because you only act when it benefits you."
Yuto winced. "Hey, I'm trying to help, man."
Sora leaned back. "Next time, take a picture. Or don't speak."
He stood and left Yuto staring at the table.
---
After school, Sora didn't go straight home.
He walked.
He wandered.
Through shopping alleys and old stone paths behind shrines. Past shuttered arcades and silent libraries. Looking for something. He wasn't even sure what.
Maybe the shrine mailbox again. Maybe the watcher.
Maybe proof that he wasn't imagining the cracks forming in reality.
And then, near a forgotten footpath by a rusted water tank, he saw someone standing under a bent telephone pole.
Black hoodie. No visible face. Motionless.
Watching him.
He stopped walking. The figure didn't move.
He took one step forward.
The figure vanished. Not walked away—gone, like smoke folding into itself.
Sora stood there a long moment.
Then he turned and walked home.
---
That night, his father wasn't home.
His mother said nothing.
The television murmured, forgotten.
Sora locked his door, sat at his desk, and opened the notebook again.
The burned message was still there.
He flipped back to his "web of people." The map had grown—names, habits, emotional patterns. Dozens of pages. Like a living blueprint.
And yet, the message echoed louder than the map.
"You're tracing the trap around yourself."
What trap?
Who was writing these?
He stared at the diagram until sleep dragged him down like a tide.
---
In the dream, he was eight years old again.
Standing in the hallway. Knees bleeding. Crying without sound.
A belt lay on the floor. His father's voice echoed from somewhere behind the closed door.
"Look at me. Don't cry. If you cry again, I'll give you something worth crying for."
Sora didn't move. Just trembled.
Then, in the dream, something new happened.
A voice—unfamiliar, soft—whispered near his ear.
"You remember more than you admit."
He turned around in the dream.
And saw… himself. Older. Staring back. Bleeding from the same place on his head.
---
He woke with his pillow damp.
Not sweat. Not tears. Just… damp.
He looked at the clock. 3:34 a.m.
And on his desk, under his notebook, was a fifth message.
"We are the ones who see the puppeteer, not the strings."
---
By the time morning classes began, Sora was already certain of two things.
One — someone in the school had access to his personal materials.
Two — whoever they were, they were toying with him.
It wasn't fear that crawled under his skin. It was rage.
Someone had stepped into his system. Into his order. Into his rules.
And Sora didn't like rule-breakers.
---
"Hey!"
Sora turned his head.
Ayaka Nishimura was standing behind him during break. She looked tense, fidgety, biting the inside of her cheek.
"What is it?" he said flatly.
She glanced around, then leaned in.
"You think I'm leaving those notes, don't you?!"
Sora blinked, slowly. "I never said that."
"You're staring at me. Writing things. Whispering about traps and threads. Everyone's saying you're going crazy!"
There it was. Fear. But behind it—guilt?
Sora stood.
His voice sharpened.
"I don't care what 'everyone' is saying. I care about truth. And the truth is—someone's been watching me. Closely."
"I didn't—!"
"You had access. You were near my desk. You've been whispering."
"I didn't write anything!!" she snapped, her voice cracking. "Why would I?! What do you think I get from this!?"
He paused.
She was shaking now. Eyes glassy.
Something about her reaction felt wrong. Like someone else had wound her up and pointed her at him.
Sora backed off.
"This conversation is over."
He turned and walked away, jaw tight.
She wasn't the one.
Someone else was pulling her strings.
---
Later, in literature class, Ishikawa-sensei handed back essays on the theme of self-deception.
Sora's came back with no grade.
Instead, just one red-inked line under the title:
"What happens when the observer becomes the observed?"
He looked up at Ishikawa.
The teacher was already looking at him.
Their eyes locked.
Sora's lips tightened.
Enough.
---
That afternoon, he did what no one expected.
He approached Kaito Mori,the quietest boy in class, who usually sat in the back corner near the window. Pale, thin, glasses always fogged. Few people ever noticed he existed.
Sora walked right up to him as students were packing their bags.
"You've been watching me."
Kaito blinked up at him. "Huh?"
"You never talk. But you look. A lot."
Kaito fidgeted. "I-I didn't mean anything by it... I just… you don't act like the others."
"Is that why you went through my desk?"
Kaito's face paled instantly.
"I—what?! I didn't—!"
Sora leaned in, voice low and cold. "Don't lie to me. I saw your reflection that day. In the hallway window. You weren't as invisible as you think."
Kaito's hands trembled.
"I… I just wanted to see your notes! That's all!"
"Why?"
"I… I thought maybe you were writing about them too."
Sora's eyes narrowed.
"Who's 'them'?"
Kaito swallowed. Looked around.
Then whispered:
"The ones who leave the messages."
---
Sora froze.
"You know about the notes?"
Kaito gave a tiny, frantic nod.
"They started leaving them in my books last year… at first, they didn't mean anything. Just random questions. Riddles. But then—" he stopped. Bit his lip.
"Then what?"
Kaito leaned closer.
"One of the notes told me someone in our class was lying. That they'd cheated on the entrance exam."
Sora blinked. "Who?"
Kaito's lips quivered. "Ayaka."
The blood in Sora's arms ran cold.
"Did you confront her?"
"I… I left the note on her desk."
"And?"
"She cried. Denied everything. But the next day, someone left me a note."
Sora's voice dropped. "What did it say?"
Kaito looked him dead in the eyes.
"You're not ready to play this game."
---
---
The two boys stood in the hallway long after the others had gone.
Kaito's hands were clenched. Sora's were still. But his mind was a whirlpool.
"You didn't tell anyone else?" Sora asked.
"No one would believe me," Kaito replied, voice low. "They already think I'm weird."
Sora nodded once. "Good."
Kaito gave a shaky laugh. "Wait… you're not mad at me?"
"No. I'm interested."
"In… the notes?"
"No," Sora said flatly. "In who's watching them."
---
They agreed to meet that night.
Not online. In person. In a park near the old train yard. Isolated. Forgotten.
When Sora arrived, Kaito was already waiting under the flickering streetlamp. Hands stuffed into his hoodie. Eyes darting around.
"You brought the notes?" Sora asked.
Kaito nodded and pulled out a small folder. Inside were seven scraps of paper. All cryptic. All typed, not handwritten. Not burned like Sora's—but every bit as unsettling.
"A mask worn too long becomes a face."
"Even mirrors can lie."
"Not all puppets have strings you can see."
"We only reveal what you're ready to notice."
Sora read them one by one. Slowly. Carefully.
"These weren't written randomly," he muttered. "They're part of something."
"I know," Kaito said. "But no one else seems to notice. Except you."
Sora looked up. "Why now? Why me?"
"I think…" Kaito's eyes dropped. "I think they're choosing."
Sora's eyes narrowed. "Choosing what?"
Kaito looked back at him, terrified.
"Who gets to remember."
---
The next day, everything cracked.
It happened during third period.
English class.
Ayaka was called on to read aloud. Her voice wavered, but she pushed through the first paragraph.
Then her eyes widened.
She dropped the book.
Everyone turned.
She stepped back, lips trembling. "Who… who wrote this?!"
There was confusion. The teacher looked up from his desk. "Wrote what?"
Ayaka picked up the book again, her hands shaking.
She pointed to a line on the page. Her face had gone pale.
Sora strained to see. There was nothing unusual.
"I—It's not—" she gasped. "This isn't what was printed! It's… It's talking about me!!"
The teacher frowned. "Ayaka, there's nothing there."
"I SWEAR IT'S THERE!!" she screamed.
Half the class stood up now. Someone called the nurse. Someone else tried to take the book from her.
She screamed again. Backed into the corner.
Tears streamed down her face. "Stop it!! STOP IT!! I didn't cheat!! I DIDN'T!! I—I—!!"
Her voice broke.
She collapsed onto her knees, sobbing.
Sora sat completely still.
His pulse was calm.
But his mind?
Exploding.
---
He waited until after class to move.
The classroom had been emptied. Ayaka had been taken away. The teacher looked shaken, muttering something about stress and hallucinations.
Sora approached her desk.
Nothing unusual. No message.
Until he opened her English book.
And found, on the last page, written in impossibly fine red ink:
"The string breaks when the guilt weighs more than the silence."
He stared at it.
Then slowly… smiled.
Not out of joy.
But satisfaction.
Someone was escalating.
And Sora was ready to respond.
---
That night, he dreamt of blood again.
Not his own.
His father's.
The image wasn't clear. Just a blur of movement. Shouting. A fist. The sharp crack of bone against wall. Sora screaming.
But the sound was muffled.
Like the dream didn't want him to remember it all yet.
He woke up with his fists clenched and sweat freezing on his spine.
And on his desk, next to the now-usual notebook, was another message.
This one wasn't typed. Or burned. Or inked.
It was cut into the surface of the wood.
"How far are you willing to go to become the one holding the strings?"
---
---
The next morning, Kaito didn't show up to school.
Sora wasn't surprised.
He checked his phone—no messages.
He asked the teacher. "Sick," Ishikawa-sensei said. "No details."
Sora stared at the desk beside his.
Empty.
Hollow.
---
He left school early that day.
Too much noise. Too many eyes.
Something had shifted. The atmosphere buzzed like a building about to lose power.
On his way home, he stopped at the small bookstore near the forgotten shrine.
Nobody else was inside.
He picked up a worn copy of The Prince by Machiavelli. Fitting.
But as he opened the book, a note slipped out.
Folded once. No handwriting.
He unfolded it slowly.
"You already know what you're becoming."
Sora froze.
Then flipped the paper.
On the back, a single line:
"You're not the first."
---
That night, the wind outside screamed louder than usual. Even the city seemed to want to turn its face away.
Sora lay in bed, eyes open.
Memories started to rise again.
The belt. The bruises. The silence.
But this time, something more surfaced.
A voice. His father's.
Screaming.
"Stand still, damn you!! You don't talk back to me!! I'll rip that smug look off your face!!"
Sora remembered backing into the wall. Crying. Not loud. Quiet, whimpering sobs.
Then—
Crack.
His ribs. He remembered that now.
He remembered the sound.
He remembered coughing. Blood on the tatami.
He remembered—his mother—walking away.
Looking at him.
And walking away.
---
He sat up, breathing hard.
Something had changed.
He wasn't angry.
He wasn't scared.
He was… clear.
Focused.
A line had been crossed inside him. Quietly.
He picked up his notebook.
Turned to a fresh page.
At the top, he wrote:
WHO IS THE PUPPETEER?
Then below it, a list of suspects. Then another list: watchers. Then tools. Then patterns.
And one final heading:
NEXT MOVE.
---
At midnight, his phone buzzed.
A message from Kaito.
"Meet me. The old bridge. Come alone. Please."
---
The bridge was rusted. Abandoned. The city had built a bypass around it years ago.
Kaito stood in the middle, hood up, shivering.
His eyes were sunken.
"They're watching me," he whispered.
Sora approached slowly. "You mean still?"
Kaito shook his head. "No. I mean… now. I can feel it. Like they're inside my thoughts. I can't sleep. I see them in the mirrors sometimes—!"
Sora reached into his jacket and pulled out a note of his own.
He handed it to Kaito.
Kaito blinked. "What's this?"
Sora said nothing.
Kaito opened it.
Inside:
"Then stop watching. Start controlling."
Kaito's breath caught. "You want me to… join you?"
"No," Sora said. "I want you to fight back."
Kaito looked up at him. Eyes wide. Hope flickering.
And then—he smiled.
A weak, broken thing.
"Okay."
---
The next morning, Kaito didn't show up again.
But the entire class found something on their desks.
A folded paper. The same message for each student:
"All of you are being watched.
Some of you are being judged.
Only one of you is choosing."
---