I stood on the school rooftop, below the brightly white sky. The current time and date were unspecified—but it didn’t matter.

How had I found myself there? I did not know, but that didn’t matter either.

Behind me should have been the door I had entered through—but I had no memories of doing so. I couldn’t even turn around to check that, so I relied only on a hunch.

In fact, no world existed beyond that rooftop. It could be said that the rooftop was the world itself—anything else was left unspecified, but I didn’t care—it did not matter.

I knew that the rooftop belonged to my school. I knew that I was a third-year student here. I had memories of that, but I couldn’t recall them. Nonetheless, I did not doubt that, as it didn’t matter.

All that mattered in this world was the rooftop. On top of the rooftop, there stood two figures. One had just entered through the entrance—it was none other than me. I wasn’t anything remarkable. My grades were good, although not perfect. My height was a little bit above average, but I didn’t look like a basketball player yet. There was nothing strange with my outfit either—I wore school uniform, which had not the slightest stain on it.

I said that it was me, but it wasn’t exactly me. The figure had my memories and I was seeing that limited world through its eyes, but I couldn’t control its actions.

It was an imaginary version of me that did not differ from the actual me much. I created it, but unwittingly. It didn’t change that it could have as well been me—if I found myself in the exact same situation, I would have done the exact same actions.

That’s why for now, let’s say it was me.

The other figure—I kept staring at it ceaselessly ever since I entered the rooftop and noticed it—belonged to a certain girl both the imaginary and actual me knew.

It did not mean that it was her. Undoubtedly, it was only an imaginary version of her that I had created—or rather, that had been created subconsciously in my mind. It might have been similar to her from appearance and behavior, but she was certainly different.

She simply stood there, seemingly emotionless, waiting for my input. I recognized the way she looked—she wore the summer school uniform, which consisted of a red ribbon, pure white short-sleeved top, and a skirt.

The strap hung on her left shoulder reached her right hip, where her blue school bag was resting. Certainly it was overflowing—it seemed that there clearly were some unnecessary items inside.

The most noticeable features of her figure were her long, blonde hair and the pure black eyepatch concealing her left eye. Her arms hung limply as her single, blue eye stared back disinterestedly at the figure that had just entered the rooftop—me.

“Err…!”

I opened my mouth. Just like the real me, the imaginary me had a lot of trouble expressing what he had on his mind. I listened to his words with curiosity, because surprisingly, I did not know what he was going to say.

The girl, Lumiya, showed no reaction. She stood far from me, but I apparently did not have the courage to come any closer.

Before I continued, I lowered my head and closed my eyes. I had a habit of doing that before mustering up my courage—it did help a little. I felt the enormous pressure together with him, but it did not affect me.

“P-please go out with me…!”

A gust of wind that hadn’t been there before blew through. It made her long hair flutter, but despite the words I had just said, there was no reaction visible on her.

“…”

I peered at her, awaiting her response. I inhaled and exhaled the air quickly and loudly due to the stress I was going through. I did not think of running away, but it wouldn’t really be possible even if I wanted, since the rooftop was the entirety of this world.

“Fufufu…”

Finally, she moved. Namely, she lowered her head and brought her hand to press at it. There was also some weird noise coming from her, but I couldn’t distinguish it.

“Hahahahaha!”

It became louder. No, she was basically shouting at this point. She was laughing loudly—so loudly that she had to put some additional effort to make her laugh so powerful. It was the last situation to laugh at, so I was shocked.

Soon after, she revealed her face. A tremendously intimidating mocking smile was depicted on it. The way she looked at me with the single eye of hers clearly gave the impression that she looked down on me, even though she was shorter than me.

She looked more than weird. She was straight-up frightening right now.

“Who do you think I am, you lowly human?” she spoke calmly, although with great scorn.

That girl was a peculiar friend of mine—of the imaginary me—and although I coped with her quirks, I did not believe in her self-proclaimed powers. That’s why the way she acted now wouldn’t be all that weird to me… but in the current situation, I did not feel like joking, so I was already deeply humiliated.

“Kaka, you are really foolish, just as expected of a filthy human.”

“L-Lumiya-san…?”

She started gradually approaching me, the scornful look on her face remaining. I was absolutely befuddled, so I did not think of running away—in fact, I couldn’t think about anything.

“What an insolent human. Be grateful that I allowed you to live thus far.”

Normally, I would be nervous, but also glad, but currently, her approaching figure terrified me as if she was a murderer. Nevertheless, I did not even think of running.

“Kaka… did you really believe me? As if I would ever make a human my servant. That’s ridiculous.”

She made a step after another, closing the distance between us.

“Wh-what…?”

“Fufufu… you thought that I was making all those powers up, right? That’s no surprise, for your human minds aren’t ready to comprehend that. And actually, will never be.”

Suddenly, she came to a stop before she reached me. I wanted to breathe with relief, but it was too early for that.

She brought her hand up to her head that she had lowered again.

“It’s true, no such powers exist in your world. They shouldn’t have had awakened within me either, yet they did. Their dumb laws didn’t allow them to kill me, so they sealed away my memories and powers and sent me to this low-developed world”, she spoke self-mockingly, but that did not relieve me.

“I can’t be surprised since I could destroy their dumb world within a few seconds. Kaka, and I shall do it soon!”

She exclaimed proudly. I couldn’t comprehend what she was saying anymore. Sealed away her memories? This low-developer world? I thought that she really had let her imagination run wild, but I was on the verge of actually believing her. The way she acted was too different from the usual.

“W-what are you talking about, Lumiya-san? You really are creative, haha…” I tried to laugh it off, but there was no point—I had confessed to her, and she started behaving like that, so I had already lost.

Suddenly, she let go of her head and looked disdainfully at me.

“Ara? You want a demonstration? Very well, I was going to show you either way.”

She started approaching me again, this time swifter.

“You shall be the first being absorbed by the awakened me. Really, you couldn’t have been more honored. Fufu.”

“…” I gulped because I realized that the figure standing before me wasn’t Lumiya anymore. It was something terrifying that had disguised itself as a lonely middle school girl and had been toying with me until now.

She stopped and raised her hand. She did not press at the eyepatch, but grabbed it instead. Clearly, she was going to take it off for the first time ever.

Immensely frightened, I did not run away but kept looking at her performing that act. Usually, I would be excited if she were about to show me the eye she had always kept hidden, but it wasn’t the case this time.

I was scared of what was under it.

“You’re not even telling me to stop? You’re funny as always…”

“…”

Actually, I did want. I also wanted to run away even if the door led to nowhere—but I simply couldn’t. My legs wouldn’t budge no matter how I wanted to move them. That rooftop world didn’t allow me to.

“Well, goodbye, I guess. Kaka.”

Soon, she revealed it to me. The eyepatch was no longer covering her left eye socket, so I could see its contents clearly.

And inside, there was…

•

I woke up abruptly, drenched in sweat. The room was bright, so it was already morning, fortunately.

“L-Lumiya…?”

As the first thing when I woke up, I spoke her name under my breath. The reason for that was probably what I saw in that dream.

It wasn’t my first time dreaming of her. I guess it wasn’t anything strange, since I had been spending some time with her and often thought about her. But, that one dream… was especially strange, and it was something in my own mind that caused it to be twisted like that.

The character that appeared in my dream looked exactly like her, but it couldn’t be her. Her powers were real—she had even done something to me using them that made me wake up. Why did my subconscious portrait her like that?

In fact, the most important point of that dream was the trigger. In the dream, I had found her on the rooftop alone, and… confessed to her. Like it was only natural between a boy and a girl.

She did not accept, instead laughing at me and revealing her true identity, which was something… profoundly evil.

“…”

If her powers were real, would she do that? Would she use the power of her left eye on me?

Those questions made no sense, because there was no way she had any powers, yet I wanted them answered.

But, more importantly, why had I said that? No, why had my mind thought that it was a good idea to show me that?

The dream had left me confused. It was nothing but a dumb dream, but it impacted me no less than if I had been certain it was a prophecy.

“…!”

Startled, I jumped up from the bed. Something clearly had knocked against my door loudly—no, it was more like a punch. I couldn’t help but approach and open it, to see what had caused it.

“…”

I opened the door that let out a small creak, and I saw nothing. The hallway was empty, and all I could see was the door to my sister’s room—it was closed.

Similarly, there were no boxes spilled out in front of my door or anything like that. That knock had been too loud to be my imagination or an accident, so there was no other way than another human person being the perpetrator.

I hadn’t really checked the clock, so I didn’t know if it was still seven or already eleven o’clock, therefore I didn’t know if my parents were home.

But… it was impossible that my mom or dad would just punch at my door and leave it like that. Hence, it had to be my sister. She was sometimes mischievous, so it was very possible.

Either way, she had already run away. I could find her in either her room or the living room, but I could as well forget about it and return to my room. This was what I would have normally done, but for some reason, I didn’t feel like it.

She was one of those people that kept their room closed and killed whoever had stepped in, even if on accident, so knocking at her door could bring immense consequences. Not that I were afraid of them, but I could as well check the living room first.

As such, I proceeded down the stairs. I still hadn’t changed from my pajamas, but that didn’t matter since I wasn’t leaving anywhere.

“…”

Upon entering the living room, I noticed her figure sitting alone at the table and slowly biting at a toast while leaving her expression disinterested.

“Good morning…”

She didn’t even budge, so I let her notice me.

“Huh? Idiot.”

While she was usually rather impolite towards me, it wasn’t often that she called me an idiot all of a sudden. Something must have happened.

I did not leave, but continued approaching the table she sat at instead.

“I don’t need you here, you little brat. Shoo, shoo…” she dispassionately used one hand to make a gesture at me, showing me to leave.

“Two years aren’t that much of a difference…”

Conversely, I could call her an old hag. Actually, she looked a bit younger than me. If we walked next to each other, she would look more like my girlfriend than my sister, so I obviously avoided such situations.

“Shut up.”

“Something happened?”

Clearly it did, so the sole point of that question was to make her tell me. I probably wouldn’t be able to help either way, nor would she tell me in the first place.

“It’s not like you would understand, idiot.”

“Yeah. You’re right…”

With that, I realized that I had nothing more to do and could go back to lazing around in my room, so I started heading towards the stairs, but unexpectedly, her voice stopped me:

“Hey, wait.”

“Huh?”

“You won’t understand… but I can tell you.”

A sudden change of mind—the way she worded it reminded me of a certain person.

“Okay.”

I approached the table and took a seat across from her, which was coincidentally my usual seat either way.

“It was that idiot”, she said dispassionately.

“That idiot?” I had no idea who she was talking about from that vague description. She had called me an idiot, too.

“No. He isn’t worthy enough to be called an idiot. He’s a complete jerk and I regret having anything to do with him…”

“Oh…”

Could it be that she had a boyfriend and he had dumped her? I had heard something about her having a boyfriend, but I had never seen him.

“It was he who confessed to me first, but he never actually cared about me. It wasn’t that I liked him… I mean, we hadn’t really talked at all before that, but he was considered one of the most handsome guys in the entire school, so I was kinda happy about that”, she hazily explained.

I could not relate. She was right that I wouldn’t understand, but in the end, it was she who asked me to listen when I was going to leave.

“But it was like he got bored of me later. It took me too long to notice”, she spoke with visible sorrow. Her explanation was too vague for me to deduce anything, but it seemed that they weren’t happy in their relationship.

“We haven’t met once since summer break began, he takes an entire day to respond to my messages, so I decided to give up on him.”

“Oh, I see…”

“I haven’t actually told him yet, but I don’t care. We don’t know each other from now”, she seemed to be rather impacted by that loss.

“I don’t think I understand, but it must be hard for you.”

“That’s why, I hope you won’t grow to be such an asshole, you little brat”, she said jokingly as she stood up from her chair to flick me on my forehead. Why?

“Ah, I forgot. There’s no way you would ever get involved with a girl. Haha”, she seemed to have returned to her former self as she made fun of me as usual.

“Haha, that’s not exactly right…”

Actually, there was a girl I got involved with. Of course, I was talking about Lumiya. I had even just dreamed of her and that dream still hadn’t left my head.

“Go away now. Shoo.”

I didn’t feel like squabbling with her, so I listened to her and left the living room.

Naturally still dressed in pajamas, I entered my room again and sat on the unmade bed.

“…”

I knew that the dream wouldn’t leave me alone anytime soon.