Tread lightly on borrowed time

Itou Hayato

There it was again, that peculiar feeling. Frowning, Itou put down his pen and stared out across the empty classroom, trying to pinpoint what exactly it was that he was missing. That summer illness had been letting up recently, with no more new cases coming in and many people spontaneously recovering. He had thought at first that maybe he had managed to catch it despite not having come in for most of the month -Now why did I do that anyways? It seemed so unlike him to shrink away from duties when his health was already fairly good- but there was really no excuse for it now.

Something strange had happened at some point, he was sure. Even though Manta Carlos was famous for that sort of thing already, this feeling still was distinctly radiating wrongness. It told him that he was doing something off course, which was ridiculous because Itou knew full well that he was not. He was acting exactly in the way that both he and everybody else of relevance wanted him to.

...Or so he thought. There was an oiliness on his skin but as he made the motions to wipe it away, they proved to him, not for the first time, that there was simply nothing. But the physical proof wasn't doing much to convince him, even though it should have. Itou really despised mysteries. That trait was what made him stay in the military for so long, and that was the trait which also convinced him to leave at last.

It feels like some things should be different, he decided as the minutes passed. That was as close as he could get to properly identifying this strangeness. Maybe it just came with age, which was also ridiculous because he was only forty.

...It was still just a bit reassuring.

Itou Hayato

Itou had only just gotten back to grading papers when he heard footsteps stopping at the classroom door. Glancing up, he saw an unfamiliar Asian student slip in, almost drunkenly. Though the teacher had a rebuke ready on his lips from the moment that the doorknob turned, he let it quietly die upon the observation that the student looked more ill than intoxicated.

"It's fine," he said, although it seemed like he had not been heard. Concerned despite himself, Itou watched as the boy slumped against the wall. It looked like the summer illness had gotten this one at some point, too, which raised the question of why he was not still resting somewhere. The infirmary, the hospital, the dorms. Probably the dorms in this case.

Just as the teacher was about to tell him to get back to bed before he hurt himself or infected anymore people, however, something blotted out the light above him.

What-

And that was all.