Kaizer's POV
For a moment, I simply stared at her.
The question itself wasn't strange.
If anything, it was probably the most normal thing she had said all evening.
Yet somehow, hearing those words from her felt wrong.
Not because of what she asked.
Because of how she asked it.
There was no hesitation.
No hidden meaning.
No trace of recognition.
Just simple curiosity.
The kind that came from genuinely not knowing.
"Did your mom know my grandma before?"
The late evening sunlight filtered through the living room window, stretching across the floor between us in long golden strips.
Dust drifted lazily through the light.
Outside, the distant sound of traffic blended with the occasional call of a street vendor somewhere down the road.
Everything felt normal.
Too normal.
Iris looked at me expectantly.
Waiting for an answer.
Waiting for something that should have been simple.
My fingers tightened slightly around the coffee mug.
Did Mom know her grandmother?
Of course she did.
Mom knew her grandmother.
Mom knew her parents.
Mom knew their old house.
Mom knew...
Her.
The realization settled heavily in my chest.
Because Iris truly didn't know.
Not even a little.
For a second, I found myself staring at her longer than necessary.
Searching.
For what, I wasn't sure.
A flicker of recognition.
A forgotten memory.
Anything.
But there was nothing.
Just Iris.
Waiting patiently for an answer.
I looked away first.
"Maybe."
The answer left my mouth before I could think about it.
Iris accepted it immediately.
"Oh."
That was all.
No follow-up question.
No realization.
No suspicion.
Just an ordinary response.
And somehow that made everything worse.
Because she wasn't pretending.
She genuinely had no idea.
My gaze lowered toward the coffee in my hands.
The warmth had already begun to fade.
And before I realized it,
a memory surfaced.
One I hadn't thought about in a long time.
Almost two years ago.
The first day of high school.
The campus had been chaos.
Students wandered through corridors searching for classrooms while teachers attempted, and mostly failed, to maintain order.
Voices filled every corner.
Footsteps echoed constantly.
Someone was already lost.
Someone else was already late.
It felt like everyone was moving at once.
I remembered standing near one of the corridors, reading a classroom notice pinned to the wall.
Then suddenly,
something bumped into me.
Not hard.
Just enough to make me look up.
"Sorry!"
The apology came immediately.
Quick.
Distracted.
The girl barely stopped moving.
She glanced at me for half a second before turning away again, looking around as if she had misplaced something important.
At the time, she looked like any other student.
Nothing unusual.
Nothing familiar.
Just another face in a crowd.
Then someone called out.
"Iris!"
My head turned automatically.
An elderly woman was walking toward her.
And for a second,
everything inside me stopped.
The grandmother.
The name.
The face.
The memories.
All of it connected at once.
Slowly, I looked back at the girl.
Properly this time.
Not as a stranger.
Not as a random student.
Properly.
The way you look at someone when your mind is desperately trying to connect the present to the past.
She was taller now.
Older.
Different.
Yet there was something painfully familiar about her.
Something I couldn't ignore.
Then it clicked.
And suddenly my heartbeat stumbled.
Because it was her.
The little girl who never stopped talking.
The little girl who somehow turned every ordinary day into an adventure.
The little girl who used to grab my wrist and drag me somewhere before I even knew where we were going.
The little girl I hadn't seen in years.
I remembered standing there completely still.
Unable to move.
Unable to look away.
A hundred questions appeared all at once.
Does she remember me?
Should I talk to her?
What would I even say?
Would she be happy to see me?
Before I could decide,
Mom called my name.
I looked away.
Only for a moment.
Just one moment.
But when I looked back again,
Iris was already gone.
Lost somewhere within the crowd.
That evening, I told Mom.
I still remembered the way her expression changed.
Not dramatically.
Not enough for anyone else to notice.
Just enough for me.
The silence that followed had felt strange.
Heavy.
As if she had been expecting something she hoped would never happen.
"You shouldn't go to Iris."
I frowned immediately.
"Why?"
She didn't answer right away.
Instead, she looked toward the window.
Toward something far beyond it.
Something only she could see.
"You shouldn't go to her."
The response made even less sense.
"What happened?"
No answer.
"What did I do?"
Still nothing.
The silence stretched longer.
Then finally,
"You two don't talk anymore."
That was all.
No explanation.
No reason.
No answers.
Just a wall placed between us without warning.
Even now, years later, I still didn't understand.
Why?
Why keep us apart?
What happened that made everyone decide this was better?
The memory faded slowly.
And when I looked up again,
Iris was gone.
Her room door had already closed.
The television continued playing quietly.
The reporter's voice still echoed through the living room.
Nothing had changed.
Yet somehow the room felt different now.
Quieter.
Emptier.
Lonelier.
I didn't understand why.
---
Iris's POV
Something was wrong.
The moment I closed the bedroom door behind me, I knew it.
The headache started as a faint pressure behind my eyes.
Small.
Manageable.
Familiar.
I stood still for a moment, waiting for it to pass.
It didn't.
The pressure remained.
Slowly growing.
I placed my bag on the chair beside the desk and sat down on the edge of the bed.
Maybe I was just tired.
The hospital.
The café.
Grandma's treatment.
School.
Lately everything seemed exhausting.
Maybe I simply needed sleep.
I closed my eyes.
A sharp pain exploded through my head.
My breath caught immediately.
The room spun.
For a second, I genuinely thought I might fall.
My hand shot toward the mattress, gripping it tightly.
The pain wasn't like before.
This felt deeper.
Sharper.
As if something inside my skull had suddenly tightened.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Not again.
Please not again.
The pressure behind my eyes continued growing.
Each heartbeat seemed to make it worse.
I tried standing.
The moment my feet touched the floor, my knees nearly gave out.
I grabbed the edge of the desk before I could collapse.
The room blurred.
The walls seemed farther away than they should have been.
My breathing became uneven.
Slow.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
It didn't help.
The dizziness remained.
Then suddenly,
something warm touched my lips.
I froze.
For a second, I couldn't move.
Slowly, I raised a hand toward my face.
My fingertips came away red.
Blood.
A single drop fell onto the floor.
Then another.
And another.
I quickly reached for the tissues on my desk.
The headache refused to ease.
My hands trembled slightly as I pressed the tissue against my nose.
Why was this happening more often?
The headaches.
The dizziness.
The nosebleeds.
Every week seemed worse than the last.
Eventually exhaustion won.
The room felt too heavy.
My body felt too tired.
I barely managed to lie down before sleep dragged me under completely.
---
Kaizer's POV
The house grew quiet after that.
Not completely silent.
Just quiet enough.
Quiet enough to hear the occasional sound of traffic outside.
Quiet enough to hear the refrigerator humming softly in the kitchen.
Quiet enough to think.
Which was exactly the problem.
I sat beside my bedroom window with one arm resting against my knee.
The curtains had been pushed aside slightly.
From here, part of the neighborhood was visible.
Including a familiar balcony.
A balcony that belonged to a house no one lived in anymore.
My gaze lingered there.
Then lowered.
Another question surfaced.
Why didn't Mom want me to meet her?
The thought had followed me for years.
Every time it returned, it brought more confusion than answers.
A sudden pressure formed behind my eyes.
I frowned.
Then froze.
The neighborhood became louder.
Much louder.
At first, I thought someone nearby was talking.
Then another voice appeared.
And another.
And another.
Fragments.
Thoughts.
Emotions.
Pieces of countless lives crashing into my head all at once.
A woman worried about unpaid bills.
A student panicking about an exam.
Someone grieving.
Someone angry.
Someone lonely.
Someone crying.
The thoughts kept coming.
Faster.
Louder.
Without pause.
Without order.
My breathing immediately became uneven.
I grabbed the side of my head.
"Not now..."
The pressure intensified.
The voices refused to stop.
For one terrifying moment, it felt as though the entire neighborhood had started speaking at once.
My vision blurred.
The room tilted.
Darkness swallowed everything.
---
The next thing I knew, sunlight was shining through my window.
I opened my eyes slowly.
My head felt unusually heavy.
For several seconds, I simply stared at the ceiling.
Trying to understand what had happened.
Then the memory returned.
The voices.
The emotions.
The overwhelming noise.
My phone vibrated beside me.
Lux.
I answered reluctantly.
"Hello?"
"Where are you?"
I rubbed my forehead.
"Not jogging today."
A brief pause.
Then,
"You sound dead."
"I'm alive."
"Barely."
I ended the call.
The house remained quiet.
I headed toward the kitchen.
Coffee seemed necessary.
Three cups were prepared automatically.
One for me.
One for Lux.
And the third,
My eyes drifted toward the hallway.
Toward a certain room.
The door remained closed.
I looked away first.
A few minutes later, I sat at my desk trying to study.
Trying being the important word.
The book remained open.
The words remained unread.
Every few minutes my thoughts returned to last night.
The voices.
The blackout.
The strange feeling.
Nothing made sense.
Eventually I gave up and headed toward the bathroom.
After showering, I reached for a towel.
My gaze paused.
A rubber band rested around my wrist.
I stared at it for a second.
Then quietly sighed.
By the time I stepped out, Lux was already sitting in the living room.
Drinking coffee.
Without permission.
As usual.
"Good morning."
I ignored him.
My gaze shifted toward the hallway.
The door remained closed.
A slight crease formed between my brows.
She should have been awake by now.
The uneasy feeling inside my chest returned.
Stronger this time.
I hated it.
Because I couldn't explain it.
Soon we left for school.
But even while walking, I found myself glancing back.
Again.
And again.
The feeling refused to disappear.
Then my phone rang.
Anya.
The moment I answered, her voice rushed through the speaker.
"Is Iris with you?"
I stopped walking.
"No."
"She isn't answering."
My heartbeat skipped.
"What?"
"I've called her seven times."
The uneasiness inside my chest immediately became something real.
Cold.
Sharp.
Immediate.
"I'm going back."
I had already turned around before ending the call.
Then I ran.
The distance home suddenly felt much longer than usual.
My lungs burned.
My heartbeat refused to slow.
By the time I reached the house, I was slightly out of breath.
I stopped outside her room.
Took a breath.
Then knocked.
No response.
I knocked again.
Still nothing.
A minute later, Lux arrived behind me.
For once, he wasn't smiling.
"Sister Iris?"
Silence.
Then Anya arrived.
Paler than usual.
Trying very hard not to imagine the worst.
The spare key trembled slightly in her hand as she unlocked the door.
The lock clicked.
The door opened.
For one second,
nobody moved.
Then Anya rushed forward.
"Iris!"
I followed immediately.
The first thing I saw was a figure curled beneath the blanket.
Asleep.
Completely asleep.
Anya reached her first.
Then suddenly froze.
Her expression changed.
She looked back at us.
"She has a fever."
Lux immediately moved closer.
His hand touched her forehead.
The joking expression he always carried disappeared.
"That's definitely fever."
Anya gently shook her shoulder.
"Iris."
No response.
"Wake up."
Still nothing.
The room grew quiet.
Not calm.
Just tense.
My gaze moved across the room.
A glass of water.
A packet of medicine.
Several crumpled tissues near the bed.
Something dark stained one of them.
My chest tightened.
I stepped closer.
The uneasy feeling hadn't disappeared.
If anything, it had only grown stronger.
I reached toward her hand.
Then lightly tapped it.
"Senior Iris."
For a second, nothing happened.
Then her fingers moved.
Anya immediately leaned forward.
Lux visibly relaxed.
And slowly...
very slowly...
Iris opened her eyes.
Confused.
Sleepy.
Staring at the three of us gathered around her bed.
Silence stretched.
Then her brows furrowed slightly.
"...Why are all of you in my room?"