CHAPTER 49: LIFE CHANGER

The club room was quiet. I mean, dead quiet, just like Yuna wanted. She was at the far end of the table, lost in some thick book. Nina was sitting next from me, reading a manga I’d loaned her.

She had this little frown on her face like she was really focused. It was nice.

I pulled out my phone and put in my earbuds, opening up TokTok to kill some time. I was just scrolling, my brain on autopilot, watching some cringe anime and fan service stuff, the usual.

Then this anime clip showed up on my feed. It was one of those isekai edits. Some dude was standing on a street corner, then a magic circle glowed under his feet and whoosh, he was getting sucked into another world to be a hero or whatever. The same pattern crap.

But it made me think.

My own trip to the afterlife wasn’t that flashy. No glowing circles. Just a really weird sky that looked like a Lisa Frank folder and a goddess who looked like she’d just accidentally deleted the entire internet.

The thought just hit me right there, sitting in that quiet room. Nina should be dead.

If I hadn’t done anything that day, she’d be gone. A car would have hit her, and that would have been it. End of story. And my life would have just kept going. Same boring shit, every single day.

Wake up, go to school, eat lunch alone, go home, play games, sleep. Nothing would have changed. I’d still be that quiet kid who thought he was so deep for thinking life was meaningless.

My old life sucked. I didn’t really see it then, but looking back now, it was just gray and empty.

Getting hit by a car was the worst pain I’ve ever felt. My whole body was just one big screaming mess for days. But it was the thing that changed everything. It felt messed up to think about it, but a part of me was thankful for the whole thing. The accident, the dying, the goddess screwing up. It all led to this.

I looked up from my phone. Nina was still reading, completely focused, her finger tracing the panel she was on. She was here. Alive. And I was her friend.

It was so weird. The only reason my life didn’t suck anymore was because I almost died saving hers.

I just watched her for a second, this weird, tight feeling in my chest. It wasn’t a bad feeling. It was just... a lot. The whole situation was completely insane.

I put my phone face down on the table, the sound of the generic anime music still faintly playing in my earbuds. It didn’t seem so stupid anymore.

The bell rang, a sharp sound that cut through the quiet. Club time was over.

Yuna closed her book with a soft snap and pulled a single sheet of paper out of her bag. She slid it across the table toward us.

"Fill this out. I have to turn it in tomorrow."

I picked it up. It was a standard club registration form. Name, grade, student ID. My eyes scanned the top where she’d already written her own information. Underneath her name, there were three other names already written in, all with their student IDs filled out.

"Hey," I said, looking up at her. "Who are these other people?"

Nina leaned over to look at the paper. "Yeah, I thought you were the only member."

Yuna was already packing her bag, shoving her thick book inside. She didn’t look at us. "They’re members," she said. "They just don’t come."

I waited for her to say more, but that was it. She zipped her bag shut, stood up, and slung it over her shoulder.

"Don’t lose that form," she said. Then she walked out of the room without another word, her headphones already back over her ears.

We were left sitting at the table in the empty room.

"Well," Nina said, breaking the silence. "She’s friendly."

"She’s something, alright," I said, looking at the form again. three other members, and we were the only ones who showed up. That was weird.

"Come on," Nina said, standing up and grabbing her own bag. "Let’s get out of here before she comes back and assigns us a pop quiz on her favorite tragic hero."

I laughed and stood up, putting the form in my bag.

We walked out into the mostly empty hallway, the sound of the club room door clicking shut behind us.

"Well," She said, breaking the silence. "She’s... intense."

"You think?" I said. "I thought the death threat was pretty welcoming."

She snorted, a laugh escaping her. "Yeah, I guess for a final boss, she’s surprisingly reasonable. What was all that about a manga, anyway? How did you know that would work?"

"I saw a light novel on her shelf," I said with a shrug. "Figured she wasn’t just into old, dead authors. It was a lucky guess."

"A lucky guess that got us into the quietest, most exclusive club in school," she said, bumping her shoulder against mine. "My hero."

My face felt a little warm. "Shut up."

We were laughing about something stupid when we got to the school’s main entrance. The afternoon sun was spilling across the floor, and for a second, everything felt completely normal.

Then I saw him.

Tyler.

He was standing right by the doors, clearly waiting for someone.

Nina went stiff next to me, I followed her eyes down the hall. Her whole posture changed, like she was trying to shrink and I didn’t want to see that. My threat to him was still ringing in my ears.

He was not going to ruin this.

I reached out, took her hand and started walking toward the other exit.

She looked at me, surprised, but didn’t pull away. Her fingers just curled around mine. She just walked with me.

I was holding her hand, just like that.

I kept my eyes forward, I didn’t want to even look in his direction. But I felt his eyes on us. I risked a glance over my shoulder.

He saw us. His eyes locked on mine for a second, a flash of anger, then just... fear. He looked down at the floor, breaking eye contact completely.

Good.

I felt Nina’s hand tighten on mine. I looked over, she was staring at Tyler’s back as he walked away, then she looked at our hands, then back at my face. The look in her eyes wasn’t scared anymore.

It was confused and curious.

’He looked afraid of you.’ I could see the question right there on her face.