The world felt colder that morning.
Azuki sat at the edge of his bed, blinking at the soft light filtering through the cracked window of his small room. The calendar on the wall still read the same date as yesterday. His heart pounded as he rubbed his eyes and looked again. Still the same.
He grabbed his phone. No messages. Not even the group chat he was always ignored in. Strange.
Shrugging off the unease, he got dressed and stepped outside. The streets were the same—same cracked sidewalk, same tea stall down the lane. But something was off.
"Uncle?" Azuki asked, stepping up to the tea vendor.
The man turned, confused. "Do I know you?"
Azuki blinked. "It's me, Azuki. I come here every morning—"
The man shook his head. "Never seen you before."
A chill passed through Azuki's spine. Shrugging it off as a joke, he rushed to school. But there, it was worse. His name wasn't on the roster. His seat was taken. The teacher didn't recognize him. Not even his closest classmate, Haru.
Even his mother didn't remember him when he returned home.
"Who are you?" she asked, standing behind the locked grill gate, her eyes guarded.
The sky darkened unnaturally fast. A strange pulse echoed in the air, like a distant temple bell ringing where no temple stood.
Azuki fell to his knees. "What's happening to me?"
From the shadows, a whisper came: You were not forgotten, Azuki... you were erased.
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