Prologue: An Ordinary Day
"Ah… fuck."
The curse tore out of me the instant I saw the bloodstained underwear.
It had already been a month since I'd been inexplicably dropped into a woman's body. And now the period I'd been fretting over all that time had finally hit.
A strange, stabbing ache pulsed low in my belly, and it was doing nothing for my mood. The pain didn't even have the decency to come and go — it just sat there, accompanied by that unpleasant discharge.
Do I need to buy pads…? Laundry first, though. I scowled and pushed myself up off the bed.
I changed into clean underwear, scooped up the bloodied pair, and stepped out of my room, heading for the dormitory laundry.
"…Infirmary teacher?"
The moment I rounded the corner, a familiar face came into view.
Yohan, the Infirmary teacher. Unremarkable features, almost no presence to speak of — but I'd heard he possessed an exceptional healing ability, which was how he'd been selected as faculty at the Academy.
Still, what reason did someone like him have to be at the dorms at this hour? He ought to have been on his way to the Infirmary.
A strange feeling prickled at me. I slipped back behind the corner and watched him in secret.
Yohan didn't seem to sense me at all. He glanced around, then knocked lightly on one of the girls' doors.
"Ah, Teacher!"
A girl burst out as if she'd been waiting for him, greeting him with open delight.
Yohan put a finger to his lips — shh — then followed her inside.
…What was that? Some kind of secret rendezvous?
A teacher and a student?
"Hmm…"
It wasn't really any of my business.
But seeing something straight out of a romance novel play out in real life made it hard not to care, just a little.
I moved carefully, keeping my footsteps silent, and stopped in front of the door Yohan had just entered. Pressing my ear flat against it, I strained to catch whatever was happening inside.
…Nothing. Not a sound.
I had no idea how good the soundproofing was, but I couldn't hear conversation — not even a low murmur.
I could have given up and walked away right then… but curiosity and stubbornness got the better of me. I pressed my ear even closer.
The door flew open.
The surface I'd been leaning on vanished without warning, and my body lurched, balance gone. I nearly went sprawling. But that wasn't the real problem.
"…You are?"
He murmured it with a distinctly startled look, his eyes fixed on me.
I stared blankly up at him. Up close, Yohan was taller than I'd expected.
I'm screwed.
That single thought took over my head.
Anyone looking at this would see a girl caught eavesdropping outside someone else's room. There was no version of this that ended with kind words.
Yohan visiting a female student's room at this hour was plenty suspicious on its own — but that was a separate issue. It didn't make what I'd done any more justifiable…!
I was spinning the millstone of my brain at full speed, hunting for an excuse, when Yohan opened his mouth with a distinctly serious expression.
"…What's your name?"
"E-Eileen."
The answer came out on reflex.
Eileen. He rolled the name around in his mouth a few times, then continued.
"I see. Eileen. Did you overhear everything we said in there?"
"Huh? Ah — no."
I shook my head hard, denying it.
"You didn't hear anything? Is that true?"
"Yes… I was just — I was only passing by. By coincidence."
"Is that so? Well, if you weren't eavesdropping, that's a relief, but…"
His hands closed on my shoulders, and he brought his face in close.
"Hik—!"
I startled so badly a girlish little shriek slipped out before I could stop it.
Yohan's eyes locked onto mine, and he spoke as if pressing me for an answer.
"Eileen. Anyone can say the words. How am I supposed to believe you?"
"W-What?"
The atmosphere shifted all at once.
The calm, intellectual Infirmary teacher was gone. In his place, a man with a coercive presence bore down on me.
He didn't feel like the same person at all. The complete reversal of his demeanor sent a slow, crawling dread up through my chest.
I flicked my eyes past him, toward the room beyond his shoulder.
Aside from a few decorations, the layout was identical to my own dorm. A girl sat on the bed in the corner — her gaze dull and unfocused, as if she weren't fully conscious. Her clothes were strangely disheveled compared to moments before.
Something was wrong here.
My brain was sounding an alarm. A bizarre sense of wrongness hammered at my heart.
In the month I'd spent living in this girl's body, I'd learned one thing: this body had an extraordinarily sharp Intuition. Especially when it came to danger — it was right nearly every single time.
"I-I, um. I have somewhere to be. It's — hard to explain, but it's really urgent. C-Can I go now?"
I scrambled for excuses, trying to pry his hands off my shoulders.
"Nngh—!"
But the strength in Yohan's grip was far greater than I'd expected. I put real force into it, even let out a strained sound, and his hands didn't budge an inch.
He brought his face still closer and spoke.
"Well, Eileen. As it happens, I have an excellent way for you to prove your innocence. Would you mind looking at this for a moment?"
"W-What…"
Yohan rummaged inside his jacket and drew something from the breast pocket of his shirt.
He held it up in front of my eyes. My gaze went to it on reflex.
…No. Looking closer, his hand was empty. He'd only pretended to take something from his pocket. In the instant my attention locked onto that empty space, Yohan snapped his fingers hard.
Snap.
"…Ah."
And just like that, I—
"…?"
I came to, staring blankly. The world around me was silent. I looked left and right. The dormitory hallway was quiet, and I was standing right in the middle of it.
"Why am I… here…"
I muttered it in a daze, then suddenly understood.
Ah, right. I'd been on my way to do laundry.
I had no idea why I'd been standing here spacing out.
I tilted my head once, then started walking toward the laundry room again.
"…It's weirdly quiet today."
The hallway was strangely empty of any human presence.
The laundry room wasn't much different.
In a dorm this full of people, you could usually count on running into at least one or two others when you came to wash clothes — but today, there was truly no one. It was unnatural.
I loaded the machine, sat down, and turned the sense of wrongness over in my mind.
I couldn't put my finger on why, but it kept feeling like some critical piece of the puzzle was missing.
My Intuition kept ringing its alarm.
This body had an exceptionally sharp Intuition, after all… Whenever this uneasy feeling settled in, something always ended up happening.
I fretted over it for a long while — then finally huffed out a little laugh.
"Why am I worrying over nothing?"
Obviously [today is just an ordinary day where nothing strange has happened].
There was a faint sense of dissonance, sure, but that was probably [just my imagination].
Ah — come to think of it. After classes today I needed to stop by the Infirmary for [career counseling]. I was a little fuzzy on when that appointment had been set, but I remembered clearly that the session was [a very important part of the school curriculum].
The Infirmary teacher's name was Yohan, wasn't it? I was fairly sure I'd heard the name a few times. Since he was [someone I've never met before], a mix of nerves and worry came first.
If I was going to sit through counseling, I just hoped he wouldn't be a scary person.