From the moment her body betrayed her will in the gym storage room the previous evening until dawn broke, her memories were fragmented. She simply stared at the ceiling of her dorm room. Even when the lights were turned off, the sounds from the next room ceased, and the silence of deep night filled the room, Eri could not sleep. Whenever she closed her eyes, the sensation of the rubber mat returned. The gazes of twenty female students. Rina's soft fingertips. Erika's cold amber eyes. And then—the moment her own body reacted beyond her control. (*No. That wasn't me.*) She denied it in her heart, over and over. The more she tried to deny it, the deeper the lingering sensation etched into her body sank her into self-loathing. When the world outside her window began to pale, Eri finally rose. She put on her uniform. Her fingers trembled faintly as she fastened the buttons. She did not look in the mirror. She was afraid that if she did, the person reflected there would feel like someone other than herself. Morning homeroom. The atmosphere in the classroom was no different from usual. The chatter of her classmates, the sounds of desks opening and closing, Sekiguchi's monotonous voice. No one looked at Eri. Everyone behaved as if they knew nothing of what had happened in the gym storage room the day before. That, more than anything, was terrifying. (*It's become something that never happened.*) Eri clasped her hands on her desk and stared intently at her own fingertips. She headed to the old school building before classes began. The ivy on the connecting corridor was translucent in the morning sun, glowing a pale green. The wooden floor creaked, and the smell of dust hung quietly in the air. The moment she arrived in front of the empty classroom, Eri's feet stopped. A single sheet of white paper was affixed to the sliding door. Handwritten characters. *Eri's Room. Usage Hours: Every Break Period & After School.* Instead of a room number, her own name was posted there. Not a classroom number, not a classroom name. Eri, as a single human being, was being equated with this space. She had known all along it would come to this. It was over a week ago that Erika had said in the old music building, "We'll put a room number on an empty classroom." Still, the shock of actually witnessing it was different. The whiteness of the paper was terribly dazzling, and the blackness of the ink seemed to sear itself onto her retinas. Beside the door, a person stood. A petite female student. An unremarkable brown bob cut. Her slightly upturned, dark brown eyes captured Eri expressionlessly. Her uniform was without a single wrinkle, and the air around her felt chilly and cold just by standing there. Yui Kazama—among Erika's close aides, a presence who had never once appeared on the surface until now. Seeing Eri, Yui gave a short jerk of her chin. It was an instruction to enter. "[cold] Open it." Eri slid the door open. The classroom had already been arranged. A single cushion in the center. Folding chairs lined up against the wall. It resembled the semicircle in the old music building, but it was arranged more functionally, more efficiently. The spacing between the chairs was uniform, and the distance to the cushion was calculated. No waste. No emotion. Yui closed the sliding door behind her with her hand. "[cold] Twelve minutes until class starts." Yui glanced down at her wristwatch, then looked at Eri's face. She was looking, but not seeing. It wasn't the eyes of someone looking at a person. "[cold] I will convey the confirmation items before the first break." Her voice was low and without inflection. Before Eri could reply, Yui began listing the requirements matter-of-factly. Entry was in numerical order. The time per person was fixed. The signal for the end would be given silently. No questions would be accepted whatsoever. Until last night, Eri hadn't even known the name Yui Kazama. And yet, seeing the precision of the inorganic management before her eyes, she understood immediately. From that night Erika had sent the message, "Yui, start preparing the next phase," all of this had been designed. The bell signaling the start of class rang. — The moment the bell for the end of first period rang, footsteps began to gather in the hallway of the old school building. Yui stood outside the sliding door. In her hand was a small memo pad. She handed slips of paper with numbers written on them to the approaching female students. In the order they arrived. No one complained. Orderly, quietly, a line formed. In the old music building, and in the gym storage room, the crowd of students had a chaotic heat. Curious eyes. Appraising smiles. Whispering voices. But in today's hallway, there was none of that. Just by Yui standing there, the atmosphere was managed. "[cold] Number one." Yui called the number without expression. The first female student entered the room. Eri was already on her knees on the cushion. She couldn't clearly remember when she had done so. At the signal of the bell ringing, her body had moved on its own. Her uniform jacket was folded and placed aside. The hem of her skirt touched the edge of the cushion. Her own fingers trembled on the floor as if they were not her own. The first student stood before Eri. Eri did not raise her face. She knew without looking. Over the past ten-odd days, she had come to perceive the other person's intent just from the approaching footsteps and breathing. (*I don't want this.*) Even so, the words surfaced somewhere in her heart. Even if they surfaced, they vanished immediately. The will to resist dissipated before it could take form. Yui approached silently and grabbed Eri's hair. Her angle was corrected. The hand movement was like adjusting a machine part. It wasn't violent. It was precise, swift, and without waste. At the pain of her hair being pulled, tears welled in Eri's eyes. But no voice came out. Finishing the adjustment, Yui immediately released her hand and returned to the wall. The act began. Eri stared at the wood grain of the floor. Knots like tree rings. Cracks in the wax. The tips of her own fingers. There was no reason to raise her face. Even if she did, there was no emotion in the face looking down at her. There was only a glancing gaze concerned with the time, and an irritation that seemed to demand it end quickly. The first person finished, and Yui waved her hand silently. The signal to leave. The next number was called. The second person entered. In the ten minutes of the break, six people cycled through. The bell rang. Yui closed the sliding door. The footsteps in the hallway receded. "[cold] Next is after third period." Yui was writing numbers in her memo pad. Eri straightened her disheveled uniform. Her fingers wouldn't move properly. The simple act of fastening a button felt terribly difficult. Walking down the hallway back to the classroom, Eri felt as if her own feet were not her own. Mild dissociation. Her consciousness floated slightly behind her body, watching herself walk as if it were someone else's affair. — The break after third period. It was the same again. Yui distributed slips of paper, a line formed, numbers were called. Eri knelt on the cushion, stared at the wood grain of the floor, and simply waited for time to pass, sensing the presence of bodies replacing one another. By the time fourth period ended, over ten people had used Eri's body just today. There was a dull ache all over. The scraped skin of her knees stung, and a heavy fatigue pooled deep in her hips. Her mouth was dry, and the taste of her saliva was bitter like iron. Even so, Eri felt that the circuit processing pain as fear was growing dull. Until yesterday, she had feared each person's approach, and shame had pierced her body with every act. Today was different. Fatigue masked her emotions, distancing all sensation. Lunch break. In the hallway of the old school building, a line had formed that reached the end. It exceeded thirty people. There was no murmuring. Yui confirmed the number of people from the front of the line, noted it in her memo, and calculated silently. "[cold] Forty minutes. Up to twenty-eight people." A matter-of-fact voice. Eri was already on the cushion. The same position as always. The same posture as always. Her body had learned it completely, and she had knelt down on her own before the bell signaling the start of lunch break rang. (*Enough, already.*) She muttered in her heart. She didn't even know what "enough" meant. Had she given up resisting, or given up on emotion itself? Either way, there was no meaning in thinking about it. First person. Second person. Third person. The acts continued like an assembly line. Eri's field of vision was on the floor the entire time. The knots in the wood grain. The cracks in the wax. The tips of her own fingers. A scenery she had seen countless times. Once, they had surfaced in her mind. (*I want to run away.*) (*Someone help me.*) (*Why me?*) Such verbalized screams did not visit her even once today. Around the time it exceeded ten people, Eri noticed their absence. She no longer thought of running away. She didn't even think of screaming. The words of emotion were peeling away, one by one. In the void left after they peeled away, only time accumulated. Fifteenth person. (*There are still more next.*) The presence of the line transmitted from beyond the closed door. The sixteenth person entered. Seventeenth. Eighteenth. When it exceeded twenty people, a strange sensation began to be born inside Eri. The fact that the line was still continuing. The existence of over thirty people lined up in the hallway. That—as a sensation of being waited for—began to settle inside Eri. (*It's not that I'm happy.*) She thought so. There was no way she was happy. Nor was she scared. Just, she was being waited for. Her existence, as an object of someone's turn waiting, was certainly positioned there. Only that fact sat, exposed, in the very center of her heart. Twenty-third person. A single tear fell from Eri's eye. A stain formed on the wood grain of the floor. But it was not a tear of sadness. She no longer understood anything about what she was feeling now. Was she feeling nothing, or had she felt too much and broken? It was a tear of confusion, because her own emotions had become an unknown territory to herself. The twenty-eighth person finished. Yui wrote in her memo and waved her hand at the remaining line. A silent signal that it was over for today. A small stir arose in the hallway, and the footsteps receded. The bell rang. — The quiet time after lunch break ended and before afternoon classes began. Inside the classroom, only Yui remained. Eri, still with both hands on the cushion, slowly regulated her breathing. Her uniform blouse was disheveled, her hair stuck to her forehead with sweat, and the skin of her knees was scraped and red. Yui closed her memo pad. Then, she crouched down in front of Eri. Their eyes met. This was the only moment all day that Yui faced Eri directly. Yui said nothing. She just stared intently at Eri's face. There was no emotion in those eyes. No curiosity, no pity, no sadism. There was only measurement. Eyes like those confirming data, inspecting the wear of a part. Eri could not return Yui's gaze. She understood that those two dark brown eyes scrutinizing her face were not those of someone looking at a person. (*This person—doesn't see me as Eri.*) That, more deeply than humiliation or violence through words, shaved away something that had remained inside Eri. The final sensation that she was human. Yui stood up and mechanically straightened Eri's disheveled blouse. She fixed the collar, fastened the buttons, smoothed the wrinkles. Throughout, she was silent. It was the hand movement of someone doing only what was necessary, as a task. "[cold] Tomorrow's schedule will change." Yui