Mio no longer asked anyone about Rei.
After confirming that 'denial' was systematic behaviour, she swiftly learned to remain silent — not because she had accepted it, but because asking further questions would only make her seem superfluous.
She began to observe.
Rather than deliberately seeking out clues, she paid attention to details in daily life that would usually be overlooked.
The first anomaly was the classroom.
One afternoon, Mio entered the classroom slightly later than usual. Although most students were already seated, the room felt more crowded than usual.
Her gaze halted at the back row.
In the corner by the window, there was an extra chair.
It wasn't a temporary folding chair; it was identical to the others with its metal legs and light-coloured wooden seat showing signs of wear.
No one was sitting on it.
Mio stood rooted to the spot for several seconds.
She was sure that this seat had been empty the day before, yet none of her classmates seemed to have noticed. No one found the extra chair the slightest bit peculiar.
It simply remained there, silent and unremarked upon, as if its presence had been tacitly accepted.
Mio averted her gaze and did not take the seat.
The second anomaly appeared in the locker area.
She had merely been passing through, yet her feet halted unconsciously.
The lockers were numbered in perfect order, from top to bottom and from left to right, with no gaps in the sequence.
At least, that was how it appeared.
Mio stared at one particular row, her gaze slowly freezing on it.
23, 24, 26.
25 was missing.
It wasn't smudged or worn away; it was a single, perfectly clean gap. The cabinet door was absent, as though it had never been fitted, yet the space remained.
Mio's heart skipped a beat.
She reached out and touched the empty space.
The wall was smooth, showing no signs of repair.
She took a step back and looked at the row of cabinets again.
The numbers flowed smoothly downwards. No one paused in confusion. Students passing by stuffed books into the lockers, closed the doors and walked away — everything seemed perfectly natural.
Only the gap stood out, its silence jarringly out of place.
The third anomaly was more subtle.
That evening, Mio was organising her phone recordings.
She recalled a conversation with Li in the corridor after school. Though spoken softly, it had left a deep impression.
She was certain she'd pressed record.
Yet that recording had vanished from the file list.
The files before and after it were present, but the segment in the middle was missing.
It was as if that segment had been precisely excised.
Mio stared at the screen, repeatedly verifying the file sequence — she hadn't deleted or moved it.
The recording itself refused to be preserved.
In that moment, she finally understood.
These traces weren't evidence.
They couldn't be saved or identified, nor could they be shown to anyone.
They existed only in the instant they were seen.
And they were seen only by a certain kind of person.
Standing by the corridor window, Mio watched the night slowly descend.
She realised something:
It wasn't that no one could see the traces Li had left behind.
Rather—
Only those who still believed Li existed would notice these cracks.
And as she realised this, she knew for certain—
— that she was no longer an outsider.
The world would not stop her.
But it didn't intend to let her turn back easily, either.
The white crow appeared when Mio was at her most vulnerable.
At dusk, as twilight fell, half of the lights in the school corridor were off, leaving the area shrouded in a hazy grey. Mio stood by the window, checking that the extra chair was still in its place.
A faint footstep sounded behind her.
"You've been watching too much lately."
The voice was not loud, but clear enough that she did not need to turn around to confirm this.
Mio turned around.
Bai Ya was standing a few paces away. Her uniform was immaculate and her expression serene, as if she had been waiting there all along. Yet her gaze did not rest on Mio; instead, it swept the classroom, confirming that no one else was present.
Only then did it return to Mio.
'I'm not here to chat.'
Her tone was icy, as if she was setting boundaries in advance.
Mio offered no reply, merely watching her in silence.
Bai Ya's gaze lingered on Mio's face for several seconds, as if she were assessing something. Though devoid of emotion, that stare made her feel uneasy.
'You're verifying Li's presence,' Bai Ya stated. 'And doing so far too conspicuously.'
The air seemed to freeze the moment the words left her lips.
Mio's expression remained unchanged.
Bai Ya continued, her pace steady and uninterruptible.
'I shall say this but once. Whether you heed it is your choice.'
She extended a hand and lightly tapped the window frame of the corridor with her fingertip, producing a barely audible sound.
'First, stop trying to verify her presence.
Second, do not respond to her in your dreams.
'Thirdly, do not alter events that have already transpired.'
Each statement seemed premeditated.
Not advice,
but a warning.
As White Crow spoke, Mio noticed that his gaze remained intensely alert, though not directed at her. Instead, it was fixed on some 'potential trigger'.
"The fissures you see now," White Crow paused, "are not rewards, but warnings."
The corridor lights flickered on, casting a white glow that stretched the shadows of the two figures.
White Crow withdrew her hands, her tone still measured, though slightly deeper than before.
"The world dislikes entities that demand repeated validation.
Especially those already deemed anomalous."
She turned to leave.
After a few steps, White Crow stopped, not looking back.
"One more thing."
The light at the end of the corridor flickered across her shoulder.
"The more you try to grasp her, the faster she vanishes," White Crow stated.
With that, she resumed walking.
Her footsteps grew fainter and were eventually swallowed by the echoes within the academic building.
Mio remained rooted to the spot, neither pursuing her nor calling after her.
She simply stood there, quietly processing everything she had just heard.
For the first time, someone had explicitly told her:
'There are factions here.
There are rules here.'
And she had already crossed the line.