**Chapter Three: Strange Feelings (1/2)**
The Saita neighborhood of Saikono City was a quiet, unassuming place, its streets lined with modest homes and small gardens. Kyouta's house was no exception—a simple, two-story structure with a faded wooden exterior and a small front yard. Inside, the atmosphere was calm and unpretentious, reflecting the boy who lived there.
Kyouta's room was a small, tidy space with wooden floors and a clean white rug that softened the sound of footsteps. The walls were painted a plain white, and the furniture was minimal: a wooden desk with a small gray clock, a wardrobe, and a single bed. The bed was unmade, its light white blanket half-draped over the edge, one corner nearly touching the floor. Kyouta lay on his back, his right arm resting on his forehead, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm.
He was dressed in an orange shirt and black shorts that reached his knees, his brown hair slightly disheveled from sleep. The room was silent, save for the faint ticking of the clock on the desk. Its hands pointed to 7:05, signaling that there were only ten minutes left before the alarm would ring, pulling Kyouta from his slumber and into the routine of another school day.
But something was off.
Kyouta stirred, his brow furrowing as he turned onto his right side, muttering in a half-asleep daze, "How annoying, brother, you didn't tell me we have guests coming this early..."
He had hoped the movement would silence the noise, but it only grew louder.
"The principal is calling me. Where's the tie, honey?"
"A new annoying morning... Why do I have to go to school every day?"
"Doesn't my face look like it's swollen a little? Other girls will say that I've definitely gained weight. I have to start dieting again. How exhausting."
"There's nothing more beautiful than preparing a cup of coffee while waiting for the newspaper to arrive at the doorstep."
"Damn, another morning..."
The voices were disjointed, overlapping, and utterly random, as though twenty people were speaking at once in his room. Kyouta's eyes snapped open, and he sat up abruptly, his heart pounding.
"These sounds are too random, as if there are 20 people in my room. What is happening?" he muttered, his voice tinged with confusion and frustration.
The voices didn't stop. They grew louder, more insistent, flooding his mind with fragments of conversations, snippets of thoughts, and sounds he couldn't place. He heard cats meowing, birds chirping, cars honking, the rustle of the wind, and the murmurs of people talking—all at once. It was overwhelming, a cacophony of noise that made his head spin.
Kyouta's breathing quickened, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he clutched his head, his fingers digging into his temples. His eyes darted around the room, searching for the source of the noise, but there was nothing. The room was as quiet and empty as it had always been.
"Can you just shut up a little?!!" he shouted, his voice echoing off the walls.
And just like that, the voices stopped. The silence was sudden and absolute, like a radio being switched off mid-broadcast. Kyouta sat there, panting, his hands still pressed against his ears. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead, and his heart raced as though he'd just run a marathon.
For a moment, he simply stared at the wall, trying to make sense of what had just happened. The room was quiet again, the only sound the faint ticking of the clock.
Then, the alarm rang.
The shrill sound jolted him back to reality. He glanced at the clock—7:15. The start of another day.
"Was this a nightmare or something?.." he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper.
Kyouta took a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, his movements slow and deliberate. He opened the wardrobe, pulled out his black school uniform, and dressed mechanically, his mind still reeling from the strange experience.
He glanced at himself in the mirror. His brown hair was messy but presentable, his brown eyes clear and alert, with no dark circles to betray his restless night. His pale skin looked healthy, a testament to his habit of going to bed early. Everything seemed normal.
"Maybe what happened before was just a hallucination..." he said, forcing a smile.
With a renewed sense of optimism, he slipped on his white shoes, grabbed his bag, and tiptoed down the wooden stairs, careful not to wake his sleeping brother.
In the kitchen, he placed an empty plate on the table and poured a handful of biscuits onto it. He brewed a cup of coffee, mixing it with milk to create his favorite morning drink. As he ate, he pulled out his phone and connected to the Wi-Fi, his fingers tapping quickly on the screen.
He typed into the search bar: *"Strange noises after waking up."*
The results flooded in, each one more unsettling than the last.
[ *Daydreaming, a state in which a person is awake but their mind imagines and conjures scenarios or situations and incidents.* ]
[ *Hallucinations are feelings that seem real, they are produced by the mind but do not exist in reality.* ]
[ *Addiction to drinking alcohol or using drugs can lead to hearing sounds that do not exist in the first place, which is a type of psychological headache.* ]
[ *You're probably talking about mentally ill.* ]
[ *If you feel these hallucinations, you should visit the nearest psychiatrist.* ]
Kyouta's expression darkened as he read the results. He turned off his phone and stared at his reflection in the black screen, his brow furrowed.
"Hallucinations? Madness? There's no way what happened to me had anything to do with this. I'm sure it's something different..." he said firmly, though a flicker of doubt lingered in his voice.
He finished his breakfast in silence, his gaze occasionally drifting to the window, where the morning sun cast a golden glow over the clouds and the blue sky.
With his bag slung over his shoulder, he opened the front door and stepped outside, taking a deep breath of the crisp morning air.
"I feel like today is going to be a good day for some reason!" he declared, a smile spreading across his face.
Kyouta was nothing if not resilient. Despite the bullying, despite the chaos of Saikono City, he always found a way to start his day with optimism.
But what he didn't know was that this day would be unlike any other. It was the beginning of something extraordinary, the first step into a new life that would change everything he thought he knew about himself and the world around him.
.
.