The Transfer Student and the Stopped Watch

"All right, everyone, please take your seats. I have a new friend to introduce to you today."

During Tuesday morning homeroom, Ms. Mori's gentle, leisurely voice rippled across classroom 5-2, setting off a wave of excited whispers.

The front door slid open with a rattle, and a boy stepped inside.

In an instant, the entire classroom fell dead silent.

He had silky, silver hair that fell smoothly across his forehead. His slate-blue eyes were as cold and still as a mountain lake in the depths of winter. Over a long navy-blue jacket, he wore a deep blue muffler wound neatly around his neck.

"Whoa, he's so cool..."

"He looks just like a model...!"

The girls in the front row exchanged glances and whispered behind their hands.

The boy walked up to the blackboard and picked up a piece of chalk. Without a moment's hesitation, he wrote in clean, sharp strokes: Kanata Yomi.

"I'm Yomi."

That was all he said.

Ten seconds ticked by, then twenty, but not another word followed.

"Er, well, Yomi has moved here from quite a distant town. I hope you'll all make him feel welcome. Your seat will be... ah, the empty desk next to Miss Hoshikawa. Second from the back, right by the window."

"Yes, ma'am."

With a terse reply, Yomi strode over on long legs.

He set his bag down on the desk directly beside Koharu's and settled into his chair, immediately gazing out the window at the morning sky.

(...I knew it!)

Koharu caught her breath.

It was him—the silver-haired boy she had seen standing on the roof of the Lost-and-Found Hall yesterday evening. The chill in his profile and the cool air that seemed to swirl around him were unmistakable.

"U-Um... hi! I'm Koharu Hoshikawa! It's great to meet you, Yomi!"

Mustering her courage, she gave him her brightest smile.

Yomi turned his gaze slowly toward her. But his eyes were utterly devoid of emotion.

"...Whatever."

"Huh?"

"There's no need to be nice. Just leave me alone."

With that curt dismissal, he turned his face right back toward the clouds outside.

"H-Hey! What's with that guy?! Where are his manners?!"

Taiga leaned over aggressively from the desk in front of them.

"Listen here, transfer student! Koharu went out of her way to say hello, so what's with the attitude?! In case you didn't know, you're looking at Taiga Inukai, captain of Class 5-2!"

"...Shut up. Stop barking like a noisy mutt."

"A-A MUTT?! I'm a tiger, you jerk! Come on, let's take this outside—YEOWCH?!"

The instant Taiga leapt up from his desk, he slammed his pinky toe straight into the metal table leg, collapsing onto the floor in an agonizing heap.

"O-Ow-ow-ow... My toe... The pinky on my golden right shooting foot is DOOMED!"

"Oh, honestly, Taiga, what are you doing?!"

The classroom erupted in roars of laughter. Yet through it all, Yomi's expression didn't flicker by a millimeter.

Right then, a tiny, muffled voice squeaked from the backpack hanging on the hook beside Koharu's desk.

Koharu...!

Peeking out from the narrow gap under the backpack flap was a fuzzy red pom-pom. It was Pocke.

Before she had left the house that morning, Pocke had insisted, "I'm coming too-pock! I smell melon bread-pock!" and burrowed straight inside.

Koharu... whenever I get close to that guy, my yarn starts tingling like crazy-pock...!

"Tingling...? Like static electricity?"

No-pock! It's like my threads are getting pricked and tugged by invisible needles... That guy is no ordinary human-pock...!

Pocke narrowed its beady black eyes warily, staring intently at Yomi's back.

---

Second period was music.

When the class filed into the music room, Ms. Mori was standing by the grand piano looking unusually flustered, repeatedly sliding the sheet music cabinet open and shut.

Her usually serene, gentle brow was furrowed with distress.

"Is something the matter, Teacher?"

Ayame Kujo raised a graceful hand from the front of the room.

"Oh, Miss Kujo... The truth is, a piece of sheet music I've cherished my whole life seems to have gone missing."

"Sheet music...?"

"Yes. When I was a little girl, my beloved piano teacher, Mr. Tachibana, handwrote it especially for me. It's the only copy in the entire world. It's the piece that made me fall in love with playing the piano in the first place... I was hoping to play it for all of you in today's class."

Ms. Mori stroked the ivory piano keys with a sorrowful expression.

Koharu felt a sharp squeeze in her chest.

It was just like Grandma Chiyo's hairpin yesterday. Having a precious keepsake filled with memories vanish into thin air was the loneliest feeling in the world.

Koharu slipped her left hand into her coat pocket, where the Star Glass rested safely.

"Ms. Mori, I'll help look for it after school!"

"My, thank you, Miss Hoshikawa. But please don't overwork yourself."

After school, as the evening wind began to bite with an autumn chill, Koharu, Taiga, and Ayame—who had flipped open her notebook announcing, "I sense the faint whiff of an incident"—arrived at the entrance of the shopping arcade.

There, in the center of the arcade, a crowd of townspeople had gathered before the community bulletin board.

"What's that? Look at all those people!"

Taiga broke into a jog.

Pinned right in the middle of the wooden board, among the local flyers and neighborhood watch notices, was a card none of them had ever seen before.

It was a jet-black card like a playing card, adorned with elegant, sweeping silver script.

"Look at this," Ayame said, her sharp eyes scanning the surface as she read it aloud.

"Tonight, I shall take your most precious memory. — Phantom Thief Midnight"

"Phantom Thief... Midnight?!"

Koharu and Taiga exchanged wide-eyed looks.

"W-What is this, a comic book?! As if our little town would have some fancy phantom thief!"

"For a prank, it is remarkably sophisticated," Ayame murmured, her fountain pen scratching across her leather notebook. "The card stock is custom-made, imported heavy paper. And the silver ink carries the faint, misty scent of night air. This is hardly the work of an ordinary child."

Phantom Thief Midnight.

A thief who steals... memories?

The moment those words were spoken, Koharu felt the Star Glass inside her pocket pulse with a faint, warm throb.

---

Dong, dong, dong...

The five o'clock sunset chime rolled gently over the hillside town.

The sky blazed from vermilion into deep violet, and streetlamps began to blink awake.

"Oh, it's five! Ms. Mori said she was staying after school to look for that sheet music!"

"I'm gonna go check on her!" Taiga declared. "If this phantom thief shows his face, I'll blast him with my super strike!"

"Wait, Inukai! Going off alone is reckless!"

Ayame and Taiga sprinted off toward the school gates.

Koharu was about to follow when—

...So chilly... It's dark... I can't hear the piano...

Deep in her ears, a faint, rustling whisper like dry paper brushing together reached her mind.

"The sheet music's voice...?!"

Pocke popped its head out of her pocket.

Koharu! There's an icy wind blowing straight out of the school music room-pock!

"Let's hurry, Pocke!"

The school building in the dusk felt eerily quiet, like a sleeping beast.

Koharu took the stairs two at a time and pulled open the heavy wooden door to the second-floor music room.

Creak...

The room was sliced in two by fiery sunset light and deep, pooling shadows.

Sitting motionless before the grand piano was Ms. Mori.

And standing right in front of her—

Was a figure in a black silk top hat and a stark white mask.

A midnight-black cape swirled around him like a cloak of living fog.

"W-Who are you...?!"

At Koharu's cry, the masked figure turned slowly around.

Glittering behind the slits of the mask were slate-blue eyes, cold and still. And wrapped around his neck was that unmistakable deep blue muffler.

(Yomi...?! It can't be... can it?!)

Without a word, the phantom thief raised a white-gloved hand toward Ms. Mori's chest.

Whirrrr...!

From Ms. Mori's heart, pale, shimmering particles of light were drawn out into the air.

The light coalesced inside the thief's palm, condensing into a jet-black glass marble that seemed to hold an abyss of endless darkness—a forget-marble.

"Huh...? Where...?"

The light faded from Ms. Mori's eyes, and she stared blankly at the piano keys.

"Why... am I sitting here...? Why on earth was I playing the piano...?"

"Ms. Mori!"

Koharu dashed forward, throwing herself in front of the piano.

"What did you do to her?! Give back Ms. Mori's memories!"

Behind his mask, Phantom Thief Midnight narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Tonight's memory has been claimed."

His voice was cool, clear, and carried a theatrical, polite edge.

"If you wish to restore it—you must find the keepsake that holds it."

"What...?"

Leaving those cryptic words behind, the phantom thief casually set the black forget-marble onto the piano's sheet music stand with a soft clack.

Then, with a dramatic sweep of his midnight cape, black mist billowed around him, and he melted effortlessly into the shadows of the open window, vanishing into the twilight.

---

"He disappeared...! W-What in the world was that guy-pock?!"

Pocke sat on Koharu's shoulder, eyes wide with astonishment.

Resting on the music stand was a single, murky black marble.

Touching it sent a wave of sorrowful, biting cold rushing through Koharu's fingertips.

"This is Ms. Mori's memory... We have to find her sheet music and fix this right away!"

Ms. Mori leaned back in her chair, gazing into space as if lost in a daze.

Koharu thrust her left hand forward.

"Leave that lost thing to me — I'll bring it home!"

"Leave it to me-pock!"

Pocke dove onto Koharu's left hand, snapping snugly over her fingers. Pocke's warm, smiling face appeared on the back of the mitten.

"Star Glass, open!"

Chime—!

Golden light blazed from the Star Glass, showering Koharu in radiant sparkles.

Her sunset-orange detective cape snapped into place, complete with the golden star button and her matching beret.

Lifting the Star Glass, Koharu surveyed the dim music room.

...Right here... It's so dark... I want to be near the piano...

Looking through the star-shaped lens, Koharu spotted a slender crimson thread of light drifting out from beneath the door of the music storage closet.

"Over there!"

She threw open the closet door.

Inside stood rows of dusty snare drums and an old, retired foot-pump reed organ.

The glowing red thread was disappearing into a narrow gap, barely an inch wide, behind the wooden organ.

"It's behind the organ! Pocke, help me pull!"

"You got it-pock!"

Together, grunting with effort, they hauled the heavy organ forward just enough.

Koharu slipped her hand into the gap until her fingers brushed against the rough texture of aged paper.

Carefully, she drew out a sheaf of music manuscript pages, neatly bound together with sturdy thread.

Across the cover, written in warm, flowing ink, was an inscription:

On the Sunset Hillside — To my dear Mori-chan, from Tachibana.

"We found it...!"

The moment the music rested in her hands, Pocke shouted:

"Koharu, hurry back to Ms. Mori-pock! Twilight time is almost over-pock!"

Koharu raced back to the grand piano.

Gently, she placed the handwritten sheet music into Ms. Mori's chilly hands.

Then, taking the black forget-marble from the stand, she brought it close to the manuscript.

"Found you. — Welcome home, lost thing!"

Koharu held up the Star Glass, calling out with all the warmth in her heart.

"Ms. Mori, remember...! Remember your precious love for the piano!"

Glow...!

The instant the music touched the dark marble, a miracle occurred.

Deep within the murky glass, a tiny ember of warm light flickered to life.

The pitch-black shadow dissolved like ink in clear water, turning the marble as crystal-pure as a drop of morning dew.

With a delicate ting, the marble shattered into countless specks of golden light that flowed gently into Ms. Mori's chest.

"Ah..."

A tender warmth returned to Ms. Mori's eyes.

Looking down at the pages in her hands, tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks.

"Mr. Tachibana's... sheet music... I remember now...! I fell in love with this melody when he played it for me, and that's why I started playing the piano...!"

With trembling fingers, Ms. Mori rested her hands on the keys.

Plink...

A single pure note echoed through the quiet room.

Then, a gentle, deeply nostalgic melody began to unfurl beneath her touch.

Listening to the song, Koharu and Pocke turned to look at each other in amazement.

"This song...!"

"It's the melody from the sunset chime-pock...!"

Yes—it was the very same music-box tune that played across the town every day at five o'clock.

Ms. Mori's teacher, Mr. Tachibana, had composed it as a gift for Tsukimizaka all those years ago.

The fading light of dusk filled the music room with rich, comforting harmony.

Seeing Ms. Mori's radiant smile made Koharu's heart swell with joy.

(...But why did Phantom Thief Midnight leave the forget-marble behind?)

He claimed he stole memories, yet it felt as if he had deliberately left it there for Koharu to find.

By the time she left the school building, night had fully settled over the hill.

The streetlamps cast warm yellow pools of light along the cobblestone slope.

Suddenly, Koharu caught sight of a silhouette deep in a narrow alleyway.

Pausing, she peeked quietly around the corner.

Under the glow of a streetlamp, Yomi was crouching on the cold ground, his navy muffler wrapped snugly around his neck.

"...Here, Miiko. It's bread crusts. Go on, eat."

Curled at his feet was a tiny calico cat.

The cat—Miiko—purred with delight, eagerly gobbling up the scraps from Yomi's outstretched hand.

Yomi's fingers gently stroked Miiko behind the ears.

It was a face completely unlike his icy scowl at school—peaceful, gentle, and carrying a quiet loneliness that looked ready to break into tears.

And in his left hand—

Gleaming under the pale moonlight was an antique silver pocket watch.

Its hands remained frozen at five o'clock, utterly motionless.

(Yomi... who are you, really...?)

Click.

In the silence of the night air, the tiny metallic chime of the watch lid shutting echoed softly down the slope.