Erano knelt by the mattress, looking down at Emo with sorrow carving deep lines into her face. Emo sat slumped against the wall, her body sinking into the soft mattress beneath her, but her eyes were far away, dull and unfocused. Her disheveled hair framed her face, which was pale and damp with sweat. Lips cracked and dry, she muttered unintelligible words under her breath, her voice faint and eerie, like a chant from a broken spirit.

"Emo," Erano whispered, her voice barely holding steady as she held a bowl of rice and soup, carefully cooked and seasoned. “Please, eat something.” She placed the bowl down beside Emo on the tatami mat, feeling an icy wave of helplessness wash over her as Emo gave no response. Her eyes were empty, lost to memories or horrors Erano could not even begin to imagine.

Erano’s memories of Emo flooded her mind in that silence. The girl in front of her was the same friend she had grown up with, bonded in grief as children when both their mothers had died in the same bus crash. They’d clung to each other through the darkest of nights, wailing together as their fathers, too, withered from heartbreak, succumbing in the end, leaving them truly alone. They had enrolled in Dahlila Junior High together, moved into the dorms side by side, and even found comfort in the night stars, pretending their parents watched over them from the heavens. But seeing Emo like this—this hollowed, muttering shell—shattered Erano’s heart anew.

The chime of the school bell echoed through the room, muffled but undeniable, a cruel reminder that life continued outside this suffocating sorrow. Erano took a deep breath, set the bowl down, and forced herself to step away, heading into the bathroom to sort through their clothes for laundry. The sounds of fabric shifting beneath her hands provided a strange kind of calm, grounding her in the mundane until a knock at the door shattered her fragile routine. Erano's heart skipped a beat. She hurried to the door, hoping for some sort of relief.

When she opened it, she found a small group waiting, the familiar faces of her classmates from the 9-B council, worry etched on every face. Sora was the first to step forward, glancing past Erano into the room. "How is she?" Sora asked quietly.

Erano sighed, shaking her head as her eyes drifted to Emo’s frail form against the wall. She didn’t need to answer for them to understand.

As the group filed in, Subaru’s gaze flickered to Emo, only to dart away as her broken muttering clawed at his nerves. A slight shiver betrayed his discomfort, though he quickly masked it, pretending not to have been startled. Alvia leaned in close, whispering, “Kinda rude, don’t you think?”

Subaru rolled his eyes. “I was just surprised, okay?” he muttered, glancing away.

As Alvia walked past him and into the room, Zen moved directly to Emo’s side. With a quiet determination, he brushed her hair away from her pale face, gently tying it back the way she used to wear it. When he finished, he slumped down beside her, his gaze solemn as he broke the silence. “Nobody cares about what’s going on with us.”

Erano’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

Akihiko answered for him, his tone laced with frustration. “When you left class, Erano, to take Emo here, you told our homeroom teacher what was happening. And she just… continued with class. No expression, nothing.” His voice faltered. “At lunch, the other students were already talking about Emo, about how she was… sick, how she’d lost her mind. Not a single person asked us what happened, or if she was okay.”

His eyes darkened, and he clenched his fists. “Sometimes, it’s like everyone in this school is a mindless ghost, just walking through life without caring for anything real.”

“Yeah, he’s right,” Sean said, taking a seat on the other side of Emo. His voice softened as he looked at her. “I know we’re all here because of the things we’ve lost—family, friends, our pasts.” His own eyes grew haunted as he recalled the memories. “I lost my parents, my siblings. They’re gone. And sometimes I feel like they’re right there with me, just out of reach. But I know one thing. They wouldn’t want me to give up.”

Sean let out a trembling sigh, eyes wet as he looked around the room. “Maybe I sound insensitive saying this, but they need to learn to live. Time won’t heal everything if you just sit in the pain. And seeing them… seeing us all like this… it’s too much.”

As he spoke, his gaze never left Emo. He had fought so hard to survive, to find meaning in the emptiness that followed his family’s deaths. And every day in this school reminded him of that loss, of that endless, hollow ache. Seeing his classmates—his friends—trapped in that same misery chipped away at his resolve. A part of him felt selfish for even thinking he could move on, could live while others could not.

But he stayed by Emo’s side, a silent vow to hold her together until she found her way back.

The silence lingered in the room, thick and heavy, as each of them sat lost in their own thoughts. The weight of everything—the suffering, the loss, the exhaustion—pressed down on them, mingling with the faint, haunting murmurs still coming from Emo. The club members were caught in a trance of shared pain, and it felt as though the air itself had turned to lead, making it hard to breathe.

After what felt like an eternity, Elicy and Sora exchanged a glance, silently agreeing it was time to leave for a while. They slowly stood, stretching limbs that had stiffened in the room’s suffocating atmosphere. Sora cast a gentle look at Erano, as though hesitant to disrupt the delicate balance. “Ray was worried, so I’ll let him know what’s going on,” she said softly. “The teacher held him back for attendance.”

Erano nodded in acknowledgment, her gaze still fixed on Emo’s fragile form. Elicy turned back as she reached the door, glancing over her shoulder. "I'll grab my bag from class too," she murmured. "Left it there when I ran over with the others."

With a final nod from Erano, the two girls slipped quietly out of the room. As Elicy closed the door behind them, the muffled silence of the dorm receded, replaced by the dull hum of school life outside. They walked briskly, leaving the building and stepping into the open space leading to the basketball court, the distant sounds of sneakers squeaking on asphalt and echoed yells filling the air.

A group from the sports club was in the midst of practice, their movements sharp and intense as they ran drills for the upcoming match. The rhythmic pounding of basketballs against the ground seemed to underscore the harshness of everything, each bounce like a pulse of something unresolved.

Just as they were about to pass the court, the unmistakable sound of a basketball being thrown too hard echoed in the air. Elicy barely had time to turn before the ball came hurtling at her with alarming speed, slamming directly into her side. The impact threw her off balance, and she stumbled, hitting the ground hard on her front. The sudden, sharp sound of her body colliding with the asphalt cut through the noise around them like a cruel snap.

Sora gasped, immediately dropping to her knees beside Elicy. Her hand reached out, panic flaring in her eyes as she took in her friend’s scrapes and dirt-streaked skin. "Hey! What the hell!" Sora shouted, her voice raw with a mixture of anger and shock. “Can’t you see?!”

A boy approached, wearing the standard sports uniform—a bright orange tee and shorts. He looked down at them with vacant eyes, his face devoid of any reaction, almost as if he were watching something entirely meaningless. Without so much as an apology or a flicker of concern, he stooped down, picked up the ball, and simply turned away, walking back to the game as if they were no more than a mild inconvenience.

Sora’s expression twisted in disbelief, her hands tightening as she glared after him. "What the..." she muttered under her breath, frustration bleeding into every syllable as she turned her attention back to Elicy. She gently hooked an arm under her friend, helping her up with care as Elicy grimaced, dusting off her scraped hands.

The two girls exchanged a look, something unspoken passing between them. The emptiness in the boy's eyes, his lack of empathy—it reminded them of what Akihiko had said.