Chapter 3

The detention room smelled like rain and old chalk. Rain hammered the windows in sheets, turning the glass into blurry smears of neon from the streetlights outside. Five chairs. Five kids. The clock above the blackboard ticked louder than it should have.

Rin leaned back, boots on the desk, chewing the end of her pen. “So we’re doing this. We’re admitting we all woke up this morning with the same yesterday in our heads.”

Nobody answered right away. Haru, the transfer kid with the too-white uniform, stared at his notebook like it might bite. Beside him, Miko—still in her track jacket—kept rubbing the edge of yesterday’s detention slip between her fingers, the paper already soft from handling.

“Three times,” Miko said finally. Her voice was low, careful. “Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Same detention. Same clock. Same everything except us.”

Kaito, the class rep who somehow always looked like he’d just stepped out of an election poster, pushed his glasses up. “We’re the only ones keeping the minutes. Everyone else resets. Teachers, parents, the whole city.”

Sora, the quiet one in the back row, hadn’t spoken since they locked the door. She sat with her chin on her knees, dark hair hiding half her face. When she finally lifted her head, her eyes caught the neon glow. “If we’re the only ones who remember, then we’re the only ones who can change it.”

The clock ticked. 4:17 p.m. Outside, a delivery truck splashed through a puddle and vanished around the corner.

Rin dropped her feet and leaned forward. “Okay, detective club. What actually happened yesterday that we’re not supposed to know?”

Haru’s pen hovered. “I walked home past the station at six. The big screen was playing the same news loop it always does—train delays, weather, nothing weird. But this morning the same loop was still running. Identical timestamps.”

Miko pulled out her phone, thumb scrolling through yesterday’s photos. She held it up. A blurry shot of the four of them leaving the school gate together, laughing about something stupid. Timestamp: 18:42. She swiped. The same photo, taken this morning from the same angle, but the timestamp read 18:42 again. “My camera roll didn’t reset. Everything else did.”

Kaito’s jaw tightened. “So the loop isn’t perfect. There are leaks.”

Sora spoke without looking at anyone. “Or someone left them there on purpose.”

The room went quiet except for the rain. Rin’s eyes flicked between them like she was counting votes. “We test it. Tonight. We leave something only we would recognize. If it’s still there tomorrow, we know the leaks are real. If it’s gone, we’re just crazy.”

Haru’s fingers tightened around his pen. “What if the person causing the loop finds out we’re testing?”

“Then we find them first,” Miko said. She stood, chair scraping. “I’m not sitting through another Friday that never ends.”

They split the tasks without discussion. Rin and Kaito would check the station screen at six. Miko and Haru would plant a marker at the gate. Sora—quiet, unreadable Sora—volunteered for the roof.

“Roof?” Kaito asked.

“Best view of the whole loop,” she said. “If something breaks, I’ll see it.”

They moved like they’d done this before—which, Rin realized with a chill, they had. Three times, at least. The familiarity sat in their bones like muscle memory.

At 5:50 they slipped out the side door, shoes squeaking on wet linoleum. The hallway lights buzzed overhead, one flickering in a rhythm that almost sounded like a code. Rin caught Miko’s sleeve.

“You okay?”

Miko didn’t slow down. “I keep thinking about my little brother. If the loop resets him too, does he ever grow up? Or is he just… looping with everyone else?”

Rin had no answer. She squeezed Miko’s wrist once, then let go.

The rain eased to a drizzle by the time they reached the gate. Haru pulled a small origami crane from his pocket—folded from yesterday’s detention slip—and tucked it into the hinge of the iron bars. “Marker one.”

Miko took a photo. Timestamp: 17:58.

Kaito and Rin jogged toward the station lights two blocks down. The big screen flickered between ads and news, same as always. Kaito noted the exact second the weather forecast changed slides. Rin wrote it on her wrist in ballpoint: 18:03, rain 60%.

They didn’t notice Sora had already climbed the fire escape behind the old gym until a soft flash lit the rooftop—her phone, taking pictures of the city skyline at intervals.

At 18:42 the group reconvened at the gate. The crane was still there. Miko’s photo matched yesterday’s exactly except for the new timestamp. Haru exhaled like he’d been holding his breath since morning.

Then the lights went out.

Not the streetlights—the whole block. The station screen died mid-sentence. The only glow came from five phones and the distant neon of the city center, three kilometers away.

A single car rolled past, driverless, windows tinted black. It didn’t slow.

Rin’s phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number: *Stop keeping minutes.*

She showed the screen to the others. Before anyone could speak, a second message arrived.

*Or the next rewind starts with one of you missing.*

The rain started again, heavier. The origami crane at the gate fluttered once, then tore free and skated down the wet pavement toward the gutter.

Sora’s voice came from the dark above them, barely loud enough to hear over the downpour.

“Someone’s already watching.”