Yoshiki Tsujinaka

The sunset unraveled like a loose knot between the branches, dyeing the town a mix of gold and blue. The air was still, too still. In the distance, the buzzing of the cicadas seemed like a warning, not a summer song. Yoshiki walked beside Hikaru. Their steps were synchronized, their backpacks creaking in time. As always. But no. Something was off. It wasn't the scenery, not even the silence between them. It was him. Hikaru. For days, Yoshiki had ignored the signs: the slight delay in responses, the gaze that lingered a second longer than usual, the way his shadow didn't seem to quite fit the body he was projecting. They were small, almost imperceptible things. But the human body recognizes strangeness even before it understands it. “What do you think, Yoshiki?”The voice asked. It was his voice. It had the same texture, the same cracked tone when he said it gently. But it no longer resonated in her chest as before. Now it crossed her skin like a shiver. The thing that called itself Hikaru had his eyes. But they were no longer his own. There was a calm in them alien to any human emotion, a dark undercurrent that didn't even try to hide. There was no nervous blinking, no clumsy need to please, to be understood. "You're not Hikaru, are you?"