Jake remained rooted to the spot, the rhythmic thwack-thwack of their bare feet against the linoleum echoing into the distance like a fading drumbeat of pure, unadulterated absurdity.
The hallway still carried a faint, lingering scent of warmth and the distinct, dizzying aroma of a situation that had bypassed ‘logical’ and gone straight to ‘the fever dream of a caffeinated deity.’ His nervous system was vibrating with the frequency of a tuning fork struck by a sledgehammer.
He stared at the potted plant Rino had so thoughtfully—or perhaps mockingly—nudged over the evidence.
It sat there, a silent, ceramic testament to the fact that he had just, in the middle of a school day, performed an act of public indecency in front of three of the most formidable social pillars of the academy.
And they hadn’t just watched; they had provided commentary.
They had called it ‘honest language,’ which Jake suspected was just a very high-level way of saying ‘we find your incompetence profoundly entertaining.’
His knees gave a treacherous wobble, a physical reaction to the sheer, crushing weight of the phrase Mayuko wants to ride my cobra.
His face went from ‘mildly flushed’ to ‘a literal atmospheric reentry hazard.’ He pressed his hands to his temples, attempting to physically compress his brain back into a shape capable of processing linear time, but the thoughts just kept leaking out the sides.
Did I hallucinate this?
he wondered.
Is this a mass psychosis?
Maybe the ventilation system is pumping out something that causes collective insanity, and I’m just the first casualty?
There is no version of this universe where a woman with Mayuko’s…
specific endowments… expresses interest in someone like me unless the alternative is the heat death of the universe.
Right?
But then, his mind insisted on playing the highlight reel.
The way Yui had smiled—not with the jagged edges of mockery, but with the softness of someone observing a particularly clumsy puppy.
The way Rino had hidden his crime scene with the efficiency of an experienced criminal.
They hadn’t been cruel.
They had been… kind.
Which, in many ways, was far more terrifying.
“Oh, this is absolute nonsense,” Jake whispered to the empty, quiet hallway.
He ran shaky, sweaty fingers through his hair, trying to stabilize his heartbeat, which currently sounded like a techno track being played inside a cathedral.
Then, his phone, tucked into the backpack still slung over his shoulder, issued a soft ping.
It was a small, polite sound, the kind of sound a phone makes when it is about to completely ruin the rest of your life.
He extracted it with the trembling fingers of a man handling a live grenade.
The screen lit up with a notification from an ‘Unknown Number’—though the sheer, radiant confidence of the text left no doubt as to the sender:
“You looked cute while you came : ) Meet me after first period by the Garden Fountain for our date <3”
Jake stared at the screen, his pulse thumping in his ears like a bass drum.
His thumb hovered over the ‘reply’ button, a mixture of mounting hysteria and genuine, unbridled excitement warring for control of his remaining brain cells.
Then, the realization hit him with the subtlety of a falling anvil.
He was standing in the middle of a hallway, stark naked, with a backpack slung over one shoulder.
He blinked, his eyes darting from his hands to the bag, and then back to his own skin.
He frowned, a sudden, cold wave of confusion washing over him.
He was definitely naked—the cool, judgmental breeze of the academy’s air conditioning was making that abundantly clear.
He had checked, double-checked, and triple-checked that he was absolutely, terrifyingly devoid of any textile coverage.
So, he looked down at the phone in his palm.
Wait a minute, he thought, the gears in his head grinding to a halt.
If I am completely, utterly, and embarrassingly naked… where exactly did I just pull this phone from?
He patted his bare chest.
Nothing.
He checked his hip.
Nothing.
He spun around, trying to inspect his own anatomy with the panicked gaze of a man who has suddenly realized his phone had been materialized out of thin air—or somewhere significantly more intimate.
The air in the hallway seemed to drop ten degrees.
He stared at his own reflection in the polished glass of a nearby display case, seeing only his own terrified expression and the swaying reality of his current state.
He gingerly felt behind his back, his breath hitching as he checked the only other place a phone could possibly have been hidden, his face turning a shade of purple that would have made a sunset jealous.
Oh, god, he thought, his stomach performing a sickening somersault.
I’m naked.
I’m completely bare.
I was just holding my backpack.
Did I… did I just keep this phone in my ass?
Did I just store a piece of high-end electronics in the one place that definitely should not be used as a pocket?
He dropped the phone as if it had suddenly begun to scald his fingers, watching it clatter onto the floor, his heart racing with a newfound, mortifying brand of terror.
Where did you think you were storing that phone, and are you absolutely certain it didn’t just come from somewhere you’d rather not talk about?
Jake stared at the phone lying on the linoleum, his mind desperately trying to invent a reality where he hadn’t just performed a feat of magical concealment.
He snatched it up, his thumbs flying across the screen with the coordination of a panicked squirrel.
“Okay!!!
i will be there.
i am very excited to see your cobra and also you.
i am not a pervert even though i just came.
see u soon,” he typed, the send button feeling like a trigger on a death trap.
He stared at the text, his soul withering away in the silence of the corridor.
It was arguably the most cringeworthy thing ever transmitted over a wireless network.
He needed to be rid of it, he needed to be hands-free, he needed to return to his hunched-over, crab-like state of defense.
Without a single coherent thought passing through his frontal lobe—because his brain had clearly vacated the premises—he shoved the device upward, tucking it firmly into the soft, warm hollow beneath his balls.
It was a perfect fit.
It felt secure.
It was, in his current state of delirium, the most logical place for a sentient-level crisis.
He stood up, adjusted his posture to a slightly more hunched, ‘nothing-to-see-here’ waddle, and began to pace toward the library.
He felt the cold, hard glass against his skin.
It was comforting.
It was a secret.
It was…
wait.
He stopped dead in the middle of the hall.
He reached into his non-existent pockets.
He patted his empty hands.
He squinted at the empty air around him.
“Where…
where did it go?” he whispered, his eyes wide and panicked.
He began to frantically pat his body down.
He checked the floor.
He checked the palm tree.
He even lifted his own feet, convinced it had somehow achieved escape velocity.
The phone was gone.
He had just received the most important text message of his life, responded with social suicide, and now his lifeline had vanished into the ether.
“Is this magic?” he muttered, looking around the hallway as if the walls might be hiding his stolen tech.
“Did the campus eat it?
Am I a wizard now?
Why is everything here so weird?”
He began to spin in circles, his face a mask of profound confusion, oblivious to the fact that every time he shifted his weight, the device shifted with him, a vibrating, digital stowaway that he had completely forgotten existed.