The sky above the city was gray.
Not the kind of blue that promised a bright day,
nor the golden orange that gave hope of a peaceful dusk.
Just... gray.
A heavy blanket of clouds pressing down,
as if the world itself knew the storm raging inside my chest.
I stood at the edge of the university rooftop.
Alone.
The cold wind brushed against my hair, carrying the wet chill of drizzle.
But that wasn't what made my body tremble.
It wasn't the height. It wasn't the rain.
It was the simple, painful truth:
I had no reason left to hold on.
My name is Ren.
And right now, I'm just another broken man—shattered, hollow, forgotten.
---
My first love destroyed me.
My best friend betrayed me.
And the life I once clung to...
is now nothing more than a fading scar in the rain.
They say time heals all wounds.
But what if time is the reason the wounds never close?
I'm not here for attention.
Not to become a tragic headline.
I didn't even bother to write a goodbye note.
All I wanted... was to stop.
Stop feeling.
Stop hoping.
Stop breathing in a world that no longer remembers me.
---
I stepped forward—one foot past the edge.
Maybe one more gust of wind would be enough to push me over.
But it wasn't the wind that brought me here.
Not even the desire to die.
It was the emptiness.
The kind of silence that stretches so deep, it drowns every scream inside you.
If I disappeared today, nothing would change.
The world would keep spinning.
Ayaka and Reiji would laugh together as if nothing happened.
And me? I would just... vanish.
And maybe, that was okay.
I just wanted silence.
---
But just as my body leaned forward—
Time stopped.
I mean it.
Stopped.
The rain froze mid-air.
The wind fell silent.
The world held its breath.
And in that weightless void, I heard something.
Not a scream.
Not a whisper.
But a voice—warm and steady.
"Ren..."
I didn't know who it was.
But for some reason, it didn't scare me.
It... comforted me.
"If you could go back...
To the moment before everything fell apart...
Would you still choose the same path?"
I tried to answer.
But my mouth was sealed—
Not by fear of death,
But by something worse:
The fear that my life was never meant to be anything more than this.
"Or... would you change everything,
Even if it means carrying the pain all over again?"
---
I didn't know if I was dying,
Or if time itself had stopped to ask me that one final question.
But as the world rewound—
memories spinning backward like film in reverse—
I understood one thing:
I'm not done.
---
And if time really gave me one more chance,
Then I swear—
> I'll choose my own path.
Not to forgive.
Not to take revenge.
But to find the version of me that was lost...
Somewhere between pain and time.<
---
[END OF PROLOGUE]
---