A Curse Was Born in the Rain
The rain had been falling for hours.
It drummed steadily on the rusted roof of the hospital morgue, where everything was too quiet — a hollow kind of silence, like something sacred had been broken and left to rot. Namin Kyotosawa stood barefoot on the cold tiles, his school uniform soaked, clinging to his frail frame. His arms were wrapped tightly around himself, though he no longer shivered. Shock had taken its place.
He stared at the door. The one that led to the room where they'd taken her.
Where they'd taken Claria Tsukihara.
They said it was an accident.
A truck on a wet road.
A girl's body thrown like a ragdoll.
A young boy, spared by pure chance.
But Namin didn't believe in chance anymore. Not after what he saw.
He remembered her hand reaching for his.
Her eyes full of promise.
Her mouth moving — the last words she would ever speak:
"Let's get married someday, okay?"
And then… blood. Metal. Screaming.
---
They let him see the body. A mercy, they said. Closure. But the thing lying behind that frosted glass wasn't Claria anymore.
She had been so full of life. Bright. Curious. Loud when she needed to be. She protected him. She pulled him from the shadows others left him in.
Now she was just another statistic in a wet June accident report.
And yet… something lingered.
Something wrong.
---
The first time Namin heard her voice again, it came not in a dream — but in the waking world.
A whisper.
Then another.
And then her voice, unmistakable, too close to his ear:
> "I'm not gone."
---
He collapsed in the alley behind his middle school three days later, screaming as black tendrils erupted from the pavement.
Claria's curse had awoken.
And it loved him too much to let him go.
---
The doctors couldn't explain the incident.
The priest fainted when he saw the marks on Namin's neck.
His parents—already distant—signed the school withdrawal papers in silence.
No one dared approach him now. Even animals turned away.
At night, she would hum lullabies that made the lights flicker.
During the day, her presence twisted space — windows cracking, glass trembling at the sound of his voice.
A haunting began.
A boy cursed by love.
---
Until one day, someone knocked on the door.
A man wearing a blindfold and a white coat. Smiling far too casually for someone standing in front of a living curse.
> "Yo," he said, waving lazily. "You must be Namin Kyotosawa."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Gyuto Satomu. I'm here to take you to Metropolitan Curse High."
"You've got a girlfriend problem. And I think we can help."