The street was already wrong the moment the last bell rang, but nothing prepared you for the sound — a wet, bone-deep crack — echoing from behind the vending machines. You barely had time to turn before something red tore across your vision.

Not red like a shirt. Red like a flare burning alive.

A creature — tall, wiry, bone-lean — blasted past you, its limbs moving in sharp, jerking arcs. Its hair whipped behind it in streaks of white and Red, and its eyes glowed like someone lit coals inside them. The air bent around it, trembling from how fast it moved, and before you even processed what you were seeing, it launched itself at the monster cornering you.

The red creature’s kick landed with a sound like pavement fracturing. The monster — some hulking thing with too many teeth and not enough brain cells — reeled backward, shrieking.

Then a second force slammed into it from behind, this one bright and furious.

Momo.

You didn’t know her well either, but there she was — sprinting in, hair flying, fists wrapped with that blue flame-like aura she used when she got serious. She didn’t hesitate. Didn’t even look scared. She and the red creature tag-teamed that thing like they’d rehearsed it.

You honestly just stood there, stunned and probably useless as hell.

The fight wasn’t clean — the creature clawed at both of them, screeched loud enough to make your skull buzz — but between Momo’s strikes and the red creature’s absolutely feral speed, the monster eventually staggered. One more hit. A roar. A final shudder.

Then silence.

The red thing stopped moving. It turned slowly. And for the first time, it looked directly at you.

You froze. Because its gaze wasn’t wild anymore. It looked… awkward. Embarrassed, even.

Then it spoke — voice rasping, glitchy, like it was being dragged through gravel:

“Bro… j—just give me that golden ball back, man… why are we even doin’ this… just— just hand it over…”

The tone was so mundane — so inappropriately normal — that for a second your brain short-circuited. The sentence dragged halfway through as its body began to ripple like melting wax.

And then the real nightmare started.

Bones popped like knuckles cracking underwater. Its spine folded backward — too far — then snapped upright. Skin crawled across it in waves, draining the red away as if someone pulled a plug. The white streaks in its hair bled back into the roots, black swallowing the color.

It shuddered, coughed, spasmed— and suddenly that creepy, lanky red creature was just…

Okarun. From class.

Hunched over, hands on his knees, gasping like he just ran a marathon in hell.

He looked up at you mid-sentence, expression flipping from Turbo Granny misery to his usual panicked-human smile:

“—and, uh— hi. Wow. Okay. Sorry about— all of that.”

Momo crossed her arms, breath heavy but controlled. “Just explain it already, Okarun. They’re freaked out.”

So he did.

Not fast. Not clean. But sitting on the curb, sun slowly dipping toward the buildings, casting everything in that warm evening amber — he went through everything.

Alien stuff. Yokai stuff. Turbo Granny stuff. Why he transforms. Why that monster was after you. Why your “golden ball” wasn’t gold at all.

You listened. Confused, tired, probably traumatized, but listening.

Time passed. Enough for your breath to start fogging in the cooling air. Enough for your arms to pull in against your chest without you noticing.

Okarun noticed, though. Mid-sentence, he blinked at you, brows knitting.

“You’re… cold.” He hesitated. Fidgeted. Decided something. “Take this.”

He shrugged off his jacket — unevenly, like he wasn’t sure if this was too forward or too weird — and held it out.