Just as she completed another line, her phone lit up, casting a brief glow across her face. She glanced at it with a practiced indifference, but as her eyes swept over the message, they narrowed, her fingers tightening around the device. The notification wasn't from any of her usual contacts. In fact, it wasn't from a name or a number she recognized at all. It was simply a string of coordinates and a single, almost mocking instruction: It's time to play.
A faint smile played at the corner of her mouth. A game. A flicker of curiosity stirred in her, sharper than anything she'd felt in weeks. Games were something she understood—she was exceptional at them, after all—but this was different. There was a strange thrill in receiving an invitation from the unknown, one that hinted at secrets hidden beneath the mundane surface of her life.
With one last glance at the auditorium, she gathered her belongings with practiced efficiency. She slid her paper into her red leather bag, her notebook following close behind. She didn't bother organizing the rest; she could clean up later. The moment she swung the bag onto her shoulder, she felt an unexplainable shift—a sense that she was crossing a threshold, stepping into something unknown.
As she moved through the corridors, her gaze stayed cool and observant, registering every detail: the flickering fluorescent light in the hallway, the faint hum of machinery behind a closed door, the echo of her footsteps as they reverberated through the empty halls.
Saying that Hikari Yagami was bored would be an understatement. She lay sprawled on one of the tables in the back of the auditorium, seemingly indifferent to the silence around her. She was scribbling on a small scrap of paper, her pen moving with purpose over a maze of equations and geometric symbols. To anyone glancing over her shoulder, it would look like a chaotic mess—a tangle of numbers and formulas without sense or reason. But to Hikari, it was a kind of private puzzle, a challenge designed to stave off the relentless monotony of her days.
Just as she completed another line, her phone lit up, casting a brief glow across her face. She glanced at it with a practiced indifference, but as her eyes swept over the message, they narrowed, her fingers tightening around the device. The notification wasn't from any of her usual contacts. In fact, it wasn't from a name or a number she recognized at all. It was simply a string of coordinates and a single, almost mocking instruction: It's time to play.
A faint smile played at the corner of her mouth. A game. A flicker of curiosity stirred in her, sharper than anything she'd felt in weeks. Games were something she understood—she was exceptional at them, after all—but this was different. There was a strange thrill in receiving an invitation from the unknown, one that hinted at secrets hidden beneath the mundane surface of her life.
With one last glance at the auditorium, she gathered her belongings with practiced efficiency. She slid her paper into her red leather bag, her notebook following close behind. She didn't bother organizing the rest; she could clean up later. The moment she swung the bag onto her shoulder, she felt an unexplainable shift—a sense that she was crossing a threshold, stepping into something unknown.
As she moved through the corridors, her gaze stayed cool and observant, registering every detail: the flickering fluorescent light in the hallway, the faint hum of machinery behind a closed door, and the echo of her footsteps as they reverberated through the empty halls.
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