Monday, October 22nd. Day six.
When the alarm went off, I no longer felt despair. I felt something else: a purpose. In the previous loop, I had found the name of the disease. Today, I would study its anatomy. My target was clear: Sasaki Rina.
The mission for the day was still the same: Observe. Record. Do Not Interfere. But with a sharper focus.
I began my investigation with the best asset I had in the normal world: Tanaka Kenta.
"Morning," I greeted as Kenta approached my desk. "Woah, you said it first! The eighth wonder of the world," he joked.
I ignored his teasing. "I want to ask you something. About Sasaki Rina."
Kenta looked surprised. "Rina? That's random. Why?"
"Just curious," I said, trying to sound as casual as possible. "She and Aizawa are really inseparable, huh?"
"Oh, that," Kenta nodded in understanding. "They've been like that since middle school. The complete package. Aizawa the goddess, and Rina her stylish best friend. You can't imagine one without the other."
Since middle school. That confirmed my suspicions. The wound was old, and Rina was there when it all happened.
Throughout the day, I watched Rina, not Nanami. I saw how she always laughed the loudest at Nanami's jokes. I saw how she was always quick to help Nanami fix her hair. She played her role as the supportive best friend so perfectly it made me sick. It was a masterful performance.
My biggest challenge was to find Rina when she wasn't playing her part, when she wasn't with Nanami. That opportunity came after school. Nanami had a student council meeting, while Rina walked out of the gate with two other girls from the next class—her other group, a circle where perhaps she was the center.
This was my chance. I kept my distance, using the crowd of other students as camouflage, and followed them to a family cafe not far from the school. I took a table in the far back corner, hiding my face behind a novel. From here, I could hear their conversation quite clearly.
At first, they just discussed trivial things—annoying teachers, piling assignments. Then, one of the girls asked, "Rina, you're not joining Nanami for the student council meeting?"
Rina let out a small scoff. A sound I had never heard from her when she was with Nanami. "What for? To listen to her get praised again? No, thanks."
"You two seem so close," the other girl said.
"Close?" Rina laughed cynically, exactly like Nanami's laugh when I tried to warn her. "That's what you see. You know, during the middle school beauty pageant, I did everything for her. I carried her bag, got her drinks, even ran back to the classroom to get a hairpin she'd left behind."
She paused for a moment. The tip of her spoon trembled slightly as she stirred her drink. The bitter expression on her face softened for a second, replaced by a flash of painful memory. There was a flicker of reluctance in her eyes, a remnant of their former friendship. But the flicker vanished as quickly as it came, replaced again by a cold mask of resentment.
"When I got back, I heard her and the others laughing in the changing room," Rina continued, her voice growing quieter and full of venom. "One of them said, 'Rina is really like your personal bodyguard, huh, Nanami?' And you know what I heard? Laughter. Nanami laughed too. 'A bodyguard'. After everything I did, that's all I was to her."
"From that moment on," Rina said, gazing out the window, her voice trembling slightly, "I realized. No matter how hard I tried, in her world, I was just a background character." She clenched her fist under the table. "Sometimes... sometimes I hate doing this to her. But then I remember that laughter, and the pain comes back. So, yeah... why not just enjoy the show when the main character falls?"
I ducked my head, hiding my face behind the book. I didn't feel anger toward Rina. Strangely, what I felt was a sliver of pity. The tremor in her voice, the flash of doubt in her eyes... she wasn't entirely heartless. She was wounded, too. A victim of social hierarchy and a painful misunderstanding.
This problem wasn't black and white. It was a complicated, gray mess.
I don't remember how I got home that day. All I know is that when the sound of ambulance sirens echoed in the distance, my mind was no longer focused on Nanami. My thoughts were consumed by the tragedy of two girls: one crushed by expectations, and the other crushed by the feeling of being invisible.
Beep. Bip. Bip.
Day seven. I opened my eyes. I had found the source of the wound.
Now, I had to find a way to heal it..