看板郎 — 七海 釉璃

♢An Ordinary Afternoon...?♢

This afternoon was no different from any other. As usual, Yuri and Yusei spended time in the manga clubroom after school—reading comics, snacking on sweets, chatting about trivial matters, letting the hours drift by in the sugary aroma of teatime.

At least, that's how it should have been.

As Yusei tidied the club's bookshelf like always, a faint incongruity caught his attention from the shadows of the metal rack. His fingers brushed against a book he'd never seen before. Unlike the other manga club collections marked with catalog numbers, this one bore no author's name, only two gilded characters embossed at the center of its cover:

—《HIKARI》

"Mitsuki-kun, do you know what this book is?"

"The manga club actually has a book even Yusei doesn't know about?"

Puzzled, Yuri took the mysterious book from Yusei's hands and flipped through it rapidly. "Wait... why are all the pages blank?"

Just as the two high schoolers stared skeptically at the empty pages, the book suddenly fluttered on its own. A blinding white light erupted from the paper—and when their vision cleared, the familiar clubroom had vanished. In its place stood rows of red-brick buildings stretching into the distance.