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A tall boy was riding the train. This boy had black hair almost entirely slicked back, except for one strand that popped up like an antenna. He also had eyes as blue as sapphires, a mole under his left eye, and a vibrant yellow scarf. His odd manner of dress - wearing the undershirt for the uniform of a school he didn't even go to yet, not to mention the scarf - turned a couple heads, but his gentle smile warded them off just as much as the strangely unsettling feeling around him did. This boy's name was Ryoji Mochizuki, and he was riding the train to Iwatodai, the town that killed his mother. In actuality, it was the car crash that killed his mother, but it was in this city's limits and so it was responsible for her demise. Ryoji had not lived here in ten years; instead, he had been thrust from one foster home to the next until he was old enough to live on his own, each new foster parent dying in more brutal and suspicious ways than the last. The courts could never pin him to their deaths, though, so all he got off with was another black mark on his file and another dead person pinned to his reputation.
Ryoji looked down at the brochure crumpled in his hand, eyeing the map, where he'd drawn a line on the streets from the train station where he would soon be arriving, all the way to the dorm he was going to call home for the next two years. The thought of what his new dormmates could possibly be like only widened his smile, and soon, the train arrived at its destination: Iwatodai Station. Ryoji stepped off the train and spotted the clock on the station wall, staring back at him with its hands shamelessly hugging between the 11 and 12. He started heading towards his new goal, the building circled in pen that his map through the streets led right to. The clock's chime never rings when it strikes midnight, the world flashing green and lifeless in the same way it has for the last ten years of his life. "I'm glad the train made it in time," he said to no one, though he could've been talking to the coffin that replaced the passerby to his right just a moment ago. Continuing towards the dorm, he saw the looming building illuminated by the nearly full moon, and paused a moment to properly appreciate its beauty.
For an unknown reason, he'd been obsessed with the moon his entire life, a passion that trickled through his lifestyle until he himself was stuck in a nocturnal lifestyle. Not that he really minded, of course. However, an oddity with the building itself caught his eye; the lights in the first floor windows were on. In all the green midnights he experienced, not once did any light, phone, or car keep working until the world returned to normal. Lost in thought, he began walking again, until he hears an odd squelching under his foot. Looking down, he saw a puddle of black sludge that reached out with fledgling hands. Unintimidated, not even remotely frightened, Ryoji removed his foot and gently knelt down to the creature, picking up its semi-solid form like one would cup any other creature of goop or slime. "Are you okay, little buddy? I didn't mean to step on you," Ryoji cooed, bringing the creature - for the past ten years, he had always referred to them as "goops" - closer to his face so he could make sure it wasn't injured from his stepping on it. The "goop" responds with a small gurgle, which he interprets as a yes. Smiling lightly, Ryoji strokes the area between its small red eyes with a thumb, having no fear of such a small and harmless goop. Not after the past ten years of confrontations with hulking beasts that tried to eat him, anyway. Now, he knew which ones would and wouldn't attack him, and he somewhat managed to figure out what certain small ones liked and disliked. For example, the small, simple ones were similar to stray dogs; they only attacked if they felt threatened or wanted food.
Ryoji looked back towards his destination, and began walking towards it, still holding the goop in front of him with both hands. When he reached the door, he was forced to take it into one arm as he pried the heavy doors open, but once he slipped inside, the green of the midnight hour mingled surprisingly well with the stained wood interior. He was just about to take a step towards the stairs when a boy in striped pajamas appeared in front of him, and he blinked, thinking he was just seeing things. Afterwards, though, the boy remained, so Ryoji looked at him intently, taking in his appearance. Dark blue hair that covered one eye, low-set grey eyes that gave him an appearance of always being tired, and a pale face with the puffy cheeks of a child. Ryoji didn't recognize the boy in front of him at all, none of those features aligned with anyone that Ryoji had known in his life - but somehow, he still felt as if he had known this boy his whole life, as if they shared some sort of unbreakable bond.
Ryoji's thoughts were interrupted when the boy reached out towards the counter, gesturing towards what appeared to be a check-in book at first glance. However, reading it over revealed that it was a contract, one with a signature line at the bottom. Ryoji read through it quickly, reading it and memorizing its words without truly absorbing their meaning. He signed his name quickly, in the fancy signature that reminded him of his mother, and remembered too late that he still had the goop in his hand. Without thinking, he had hugged his other arm close to his chest, forgetting the source of the weight on his arm. Now, the goop was clinging to his suspender, and while it was a bit uncomfortable at first, it was moreso endearing. Ryoji quickly smiled before remembering the situation, and looked back to the boy in the striped pajamas, who was holding the contract.
Wait a minute. Ryoji's hand was still on the contract, so where-? Ryoji looked back down at his hands, sees the counter his hand is now on, and concluded that the contract had been finessed by the magic fingers of the boy in the striped pajamas. Sighing, he looked back to the boy once more, who smiled gleefully at him in a way that lifted his tired eyes.
"No one can escape time. It delivers us all to the same end," the boy spoke for the first time since Ryoji arrived, his voice lilted with childlike whimsy.
Ryoji opened his mouth to ask the million questions in his mind, mostly who are you and why are you here, but nothing came out; his questions all died when the boy continued to speak.
"You can't plug your ears or cover your eyes."
Ryoji's many questions all tried to come out at once, surfacing as an exclamation of "Wh-!?" as the boy stepped back, stretching out a hand towards him as the darkness crept closer all around them. He tried again to speak, but couldn't force a sound to come out, as the darkness enveloped the boy, and he clenched his eyes shut in fear of the darkness that was surely about to envelop him as well. After nothing happened, he opened his eyes again, expecting something terrible to have happened.
He saw the dorm, still illuminated by the green of the midnight hour. It was still and quiet, and the only noise came from the goop in his arm, clutching his shirt while babbling quietly and staring up at him with its red eyes angled in a way that conveyed concern. Most of the time, the goops didn't feel anything towards him but pain and anger, but he didn't address the concern he'd never seen before, due to the very thing making the goop so concerned about him; at first, it was his light trembling, but then it became the footsteps and the figure coming down the stairs. It was unmistakably human, which both perplexed and concerned Ryoji, but he had no time to act as the figure stopped at the turn of the stairs, and they were revealed to each other.
A girl with short brown hair in a pink sweater, shaking hand reaching towards the holster on her leg where a shining silver gun was tucked securely. Ryoji, startled into action by the glint of the gun, held out his free hand submissively and tried to ask the girl the first question that came to his mind. At the same time, the girl swallowed her ear and asked for the first thing that came to hers.
"Who are you!?" "Why are you moving!?"
Both were startled by the other speaking, and their confrontation turned into a wide-eyed staring contest that felt both like eternity and like milliseconds.
It was interrupted by a weight on the stairs from the second figure, one that turns out to be Ryoji's saving grace. "What are you doing, Takeba? This is the new student we were expecting. Though, you arrived at an unlikely time, Mochizuki-kun."
Ryoji blinked twice; once at the appearance of a senior with an intimidating, frigid gaze, and a second time at the unfamiliar form of address. Since he was always so casual with everyone he knew, he almost immediately was exclusively referred to by first name. "I didn't know anyone else could move during the green time."
Mitsuru's gaze softened slightly, as if his obvious nervousness was only now showing, and her empathy was responding in kind. "That is why you specifically placed in this dorm. We suspected you were able to enter as well, but this confirms it. If you would, what are you holding?"
Ryoji blinked, and held up the small goop in both hands, to the pink girl's shocked gasp and the cold girl's widened eyes.
"That, along with the other creatures in this time, is known as a Shadow. For now, I won't question why it was acting so friendly towards you. For now, I ask that you place it outside before you come any further into the building."
Ryoji frowned, but ultimately decided to listen to the cold girl. After setting it down outside the door, he turned back to both girls.
"I am Kirijo Mitsuru, and this is Takeba Yukari." The cold girl - Mitsuru - introduced herself as such, and then enlightened Ryoji as to the identity of the pink girl - Yukari. "She'll show you to your room. You should rest as much as you can for the school day." With that, she turned on her heel and paced up the stairs. Yukari stood around awkwardly, her hands clasped behind her. "So... I'll show you where your room is, I guess. I'm sure you've got a lot of questions, but we can go over all that tomorrow, okay? Um, and don't tell anyone about what happened on the way here."
Feeling struck by a sudden tiredness, Ryoji could only nod and begin to follow her; up the stairs, down the hallway, into the door she opened for him. He didn't even take the time to do anything but take his shoes off before all but throwing himself under the covers. Sleep wrapped around him like a soft embrace from his mother that only lived on in his dreams.