There were questions I couldn’t answer yet.
That wasn’t unusual.
What bothered me was that more and more people were starting to ask them.
I was packing my things after class when Niel stopped beside my desk.
He looked around the classroom first, as if checking whether anyone was listening, before lowering his voice.
“Rafael.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“Dante asked me something again.”
I closed my notebook.
“What did he ask?”
Niel scratched the back of his head.
“He wanted to know where you usually go after school.”
My expression didn’t change, but my attention sharpened.
“Anything else?”
“He asked about your family, too.
Like whether you have relatives who own a business or something.”
That was more interesting.
The questions weren’t completely unreasonable on their own.
People were curious, and teenagers gossiped.
Dante had always been nosy.
But combined with everything else, they formed a pattern.
“What did you tell him?”
“That I don’t know.”
“Good.”
Niel frowned.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
He looked at me for a moment before lowering his voice.
“So you think Dante’s still looking into you?”
“Probably.”
“Because of Rosalie?”
“Maybe.
But I’m starting to think it might be more than that.”
Niel’s expression became serious.
“You mean what happened to me?”
“Partly.
He asked about where I go after school and whether my family has relatives who own a business.
Those aren’t exactly questions you’d ask just because you’re jealous.”
Niel nodded slowly.
“Yeah.
That does sound different.”
“That’s why I want you to be careful.
If Dante asks you anything else, just tell him you don’t know.”
“I will.”
He hesitated before adding, “He’s really interested in you lately.”
“I noticed.”
Niel gave me a worried look.
“You think he’s planning something?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer seemed to bother him.
It bothered me too, but I wasn’t going to pretend certainty just to make either of us feel better.
A pattern wasn’t an explanation, a suspicious person wasn’t automatically guilty, and knowing what someone had done in the past didn’t mean I knew what they were going to do now.
The future was already changing, and I couldn’t afford to make decisions based on assumptions.
I glanced toward the schoolyard.
Dante was standing near the far side of the building with two other students.
One of them was the older student I’d seen talking to him before.
The older student noticed me looking, and our eyes met for a moment.
He said something to Dante, who then glanced in my direction.
I looked away first, not because I was afraid, but because there was nothing to gain from staring.
I turned back to Niel.
“Don’t tell Dante anything about me that you don’t already know.”
Niel nodded.
“I won’t.”
“Even if he keeps asking.”
“Yeah.”
I put my notebook into my bag and stood.
“Let’s go.”
Niel didn’t move.
“Actually…”
I looked at him.
“What?”
He pointed toward the hallway.
“Rosalie’s still on cleaning duty.”
I paused.
“She is?”
“Yeah.
Her group got assigned today.”
I glanced toward the classroom where Rosalie was supposed to be, then looked back at Niel.
“Why are you still here?”
He smiled.
“I was waiting for you.”
“For me?”
“Obviously.”
“That sounds suspicious.”
“It isn’t.”
He picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder.
“Come on.
We can wait for her.”
I nodded, and we walked toward Rosalie’s classroom together.
She was still inside when we arrived, sweeping the floor near the windows.
A few other students were cleaning as well, but most of them were already finishing up.
Rosalie noticed us and smiled.
“Rafael?”
“Hi.”
Niel leaned against the doorframe.
“She said she’d be done soon.”
Rosalie looked at him.
“I never said that.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I wasn’t.”
“See?
We’re already having a misunderstanding.”
Rosalie laughed quietly.
I shook my head.
“Niel, just help her.”
He looked offended.
“Why me?”
“Because you’re already here.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
I picked up another broom and handed it to him.
“Now you’re useful.”
He stared at the broom, then at me.
“You’ve changed.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Rosalie smiled as she watched us.
A few minutes later, the three of us were cleaning together.
While we worked, Niel kept trying to avoid the more unpleasant parts of the floor, which eventually earned him a complaint from Rosalie.
“You missed that part.”
“I didn’t miss it.”
“I was saving it for later.”
“Later?”
“Yes.”
I looked at him.
“You’re terrible at cleaning.”
“I’m excellent at delegating.”
“You’re not delegating.
You’re avoiding.”
“Same skill set.”
Rosalie laughed again, and even I couldn’t help smiling.
By the time we finished, the classroom was clean.
Niel stretched his arms while Rosalie placed the broom back where it belonged.
“Thank you for helping,” she said.
Niel pointed at me.
“Thank him.
He forced me.”
“You volunteered,” I said.
“I was emotionally manipulated.”
“You walked here willingly.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
Rosalie smiled, and the three of us left the classroom together.
As we approached the school gate, Niel slowed down.
“I’ll be heading this way.”
He pointed toward the road leading away from ours.
Rosalie and I stopped.
“See you tomorrow,” he said.
“Tomorrow,” I replied.
He started walking, then turned around.
“Don’t forget your escort duty.”
I stared at him while Rosalie covered her mouth, trying not to laugh.
“Niel!”
“What?” He grinned.
“You’re going to wait?”
I looked at him.
“Yeah.
We’re walking home together anyway.”
Niel’s grin widened.
“Of course you are.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He glanced between Rosalie and me, then gave me a knowing smile.
“Are you really just still friends?”
Rosalie immediately looked away, her cheeks turning slightly pink.
I sighed.
“Niel…”
“What?” He raised both hands innocently.
“I’m just asking.”
“You’re annoying.”
“I’ve been told.”
Rosalie tried to hide her smile as she looked down at the pavement.
I shook my head, but I couldn’t stop myself from smiling either.
Niel finally turned around and continued toward his house while Rosalie and I started walking in the opposite direction.
We had already become used to walking home together.
There was nothing particularly unusual about it anymore.
Sometimes we talked about different kind of things, sometimes she told me about something that happened in class, and sometimes we simply walked beside each other without needing to fill the silence.
Today, though, my attention kept drifting toward the road behind us.
That was when I noticed the motorcycle.
It came from behind us, its engine growing louder before it passed on our left.
It was an older dark-colored model with a single rider wearing a dark helmet.
Nothing about it immediately stood out, and motorcycles were common enough that I would normally have forgotten it seconds after seeing it.
I didn’t think much of it.
Not until several minutes later.
Rosalie and I turned onto a narrower road, and I heard an engine approaching from behind us.
The sound was faint at first, then became clearer as the motorcycle appeared at the end of the street.
I looked at it more carefully.
Same dark body.
Same helmet.
Same rider.
It passed us again without slowing down.
I kept my expression neutral, but something about the situation bothered me.
The motorcycle had already passed us before we turned onto this street.
If it had simply been traveling in the same direction, it should have continued ahead of us.
Instead, it had somehow appeared behind us again.
That didn’t prove anything.
There were side streets everywhere.
The rider could have stopped somewhere, turned around, taken a shortcut, or simply had a destination near ours.
There were plenty of ordinary explanations, and I didn’t have enough information to decide which one was correct.
I almost dismissed it as coincidence.
Then I remembered the route.
The first time the motorcycle passed us, we’d been on the main road.
Afterward, we turned into a smaller street that connected to another road leading toward Rosalie’s neighborhood.
The motorcycle shouldn’t have been able to reach us that quickly unless the rider had taken one of the side streets.
Possible.
But not certain.
I glanced at Rosalie.
She was still walking beside me, unaware of the small calculation taking place in my head.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“You’re looking around again.”
“I know.”
She smiled faintly.
“You really do that a lot now.”
“I guess I do.”
I looked ahead.
The motorcycle was gone.
Rather than continue along our usual route, I suggested we take another street.
Rosalie didn’t question it.
We turned onto a different road, one that would eventually reconnect with the route toward her house.
I didn’t look behind us.
Instead, I listened.
That was easier for me than it was for most people.
My HEMS didn’t just preserve images.
It allowed me to separate sounds that other people might instinctively treat as background noise.
I could hear several motorcycles in the distance, a tricycle passing somewhere nearby, a jeepney changing gears, footsteps behind us, and the hum of electrical equipment from a small shop.
Most of those sounds meant nothing.
Then I heard one I recognized.
The same uneven engine note.
The same slight vibration in the exhaust.
My pace slowed almost imperceptibly.
The motorcycle didn’t appear.
The sound faded into the distance.
I waited several seconds before continuing.
Maybe I’d imagined the similarity.
Maybe I was becoming too suspicious because of Dante’s questions and everything that had happened with Niel.
HEMS could tell me exactly what I had heard, but it couldn’t tell me what that sound meant.
That distinction was becoming increasingly important.
We continued walking.
At the next intersection, I caught a glimpse of the motorcycle again.
This time, it wasn’t moving.
It was parked on the opposite side of the road.
The rider was still wearing the helmet and appeared to be checking something near the motorcycle. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
He wasn’t looking directly at us, at least not that I could tell.
I didn’t stare.
Instead, I watched him through the reflection of a glass window as we passed.
Ten seconds passed.
Then twenty.
Then thirty.
The motorcycle remained there.
Finally, the rider started the engine.
My attention sharpened.
He didn’t follow us.
He turned in the opposite direction and disappeared down another street.
I kept walking with Rosalie as if I hadn’t noticed anything.
Only after the sound faded completely did I allow myself to think about what had happened.
If this was surveillance, whoever was doing it wasn’t being particularly aggressive.
There had been no attempt to approach us, no attempt to block our path, and no obvious effort to intimidate me.
If it was coincidence, however, it was becoming an unusually persistent one.
I still couldn’t decide which explanation was correct.
And that bothered me more than the motorcycle itself.
In my first life, uncertainty usually meant danger.
During the war, hesitation could get people killed.
If you saw an enemy unit moving toward your position, you didn’t sit there wondering whether they had a perfectly innocent reason for being there.
But this wasn’t war.
This was a neighborhood.
I was fourteen years old.
And the person on that motorcycle might simply have been another ordinary person going about his day.
I couldn’t allow memories of war to turn every unknown person into an enemy.
So I chose the only reasonable response.
I watched.
We eventually reached Rosalie’s street.
She stopped near her house and turned toward me.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.”
She hesitated before smiling.
“Be careful, okay?”
“I will.”
She turned toward her house, then looked back.
“And don’t think too much.”
I almost laughed.
“I’ll try.”
“You always say that.”
“Because it’s true.”
She shook her head with a smile before going inside.
I waited until she disappeared through the doorway before turning around.
The street looked completely ordinary.
Children were playing farther away, a tricycle passed through the intersection, someone was washing a motorcycle near a house, and a radio played softly from somewhere nearby.
There was no sign of the rider.
I decided not to take my usual route home.
Instead, I made a small detour through several streets before eventually reaching our neighborhood.
Nothing followed me.
No motorcycle.
No familiar engine.
No rider waiting at an intersection.
That should have made me feel better.
Instead, it gave me another question.
If the rider had simply been traveling through the neighborhood, changing my route meant nothing.
If he had been following me, changing my route should have disrupted the pattern.
Unless he had already gotten what he wanted.
I stopped that thought before it could go any further.
That was speculation.
I had no evidence that the rider had been following me at all.
By the time I reached home, I had already decided what I was going to do.
I went to my room, opened my notebook, and wrote down everything I remembered.
Dante — asking Niel about my movements.
Dante — asking about my family.
Older student — recurring contact.
Motorcycle — observed multiple times on route home.
I paused before adding another line.
Possible surveillance.
Then I stared at it for a few seconds before writing underneath it:
Unconfirmed.
I underlined that word twice.
That was the important part.
I didn’t know who the rider was.
I didn’t know whether he had noticed me.
I didn’t know whether Dante had anything to do with him.
I didn’t even know whether the motorcycle had been following me.
What I did know was that it had appeared too many times for me to completely ignore.
I closed the notebook and opened my laptop.
I opened my future archive and looked through the categories I’d created: Confirmed Memory, Observed Memory, Secondhand Information, Uncertain Memory, and Unknown.
Then I added another section.
External Threats.
Under it, I wrote:
Dante — monitoring.
Older student — possible connection.
Unknown motorcycle — possible surveillance.
I stared at the list for a long time.
None of them were conclusions.
They were variables, and variables could change.
That was becoming the most important lesson of my second life.
I had spent my first life believing that information gave me control.
If I remembered enough, I could prepare for anything.
If I knew what was coming, I could stop it.
But I was beginning to understand how flawed that thinking was.
Knowing that something happened didn’t mean I knew why it happened.
Remembering an event perfectly didn’t mean I remembered everything surrounding it.
And knowing what happened in one timeline didn’t guarantee it would happen again in another.
My actions had already changed things.
So had the actions of other people.
Dante was one of those people.
The older student might become another.
And whoever was riding that motorcycle might have nothing to do with either of them.
I couldn’t afford to connect dots simply because I wanted them to form a picture.
I leaned back in my chair and thought about Rosalie’s words.
Don’t think too much.
Maybe she was right.
Not about thinking itself.
Thinking had saved my life more times than I could count.
But there was a difference between thinking carefully and trying to control every unknown.
I couldn’t do the latter.
There would always be things I didn’t know.
People would make decisions I couldn’t predict.
Events would happen that I didn’t remember.
Sometimes, someone might simply ride a motorcycle down the same road as me.
The difficult part was knowing when something was merely coincidence and when it was the beginning of a problem.
I looked at my notes again.
Dante.
The older student.
The motorcycle.
Three separate observations.
Maybe they were connected.
Maybe they weren’t.