Chapter 1： The Childhood Friend’s Prologue
Alyssa pulled a coverless volume from the furthest, most forgotten corner of the library shelves.
She initially mistook it for a misplaced notebook—cloth-bound, hardcover, and notably absent of a call number on its spine. It looked like a personal item someone had absentmindedly tucked away. She intended to hand it over to the librarian, but her fingers had already brushed open the first page.
The title of Chapter One was centered in bold: “The Childhood Friend’s Prologue.”
She froze.
The very first line read: “The first time Alyssa met Joshua was in the summer when she was six.”
Of course she remembered that summer.
A new family had moved in next door. Leaning over her second-floor windowsill, she had watched a scrawny young boy hop out of a car clutching a cardboard box. He looked up, saw her, and after a two-second daze, flashed her a gap-toothed grin.
Downstairs, her mother called for her to go greet the new neighbors. She ran down and heard the boy say in a clear, bright voice, “My name is Joshua.”
"Alyssa,” she had replied, a bit stiffly, clutching the hem of her dress.
“A—lys—sa.” He repeated her name earnestly, then tilted his head as he thought it over. “Can I call you Aly from now on? And you can call me Josh.”
Back then, she didn’t know that when one person says another’s name in a specific way for eleven years, it becomes an invisible tether. One end is tied to the tip of her tongue, the other fastened to his heart. Usually, you don’t feel its weight, but the moment someone tries to untie it, it hurts.
She flipped forward a few pages. The book detailed their elementary school years—the time she missed class with a fever and he visited her to deliver notes; the PE class where she scraped her knee and he carried her to the infirmary, only to trip and fall himself along the way; her birthday, when he spent a month’s worth of savings to buy her a hamster because he remembered her saying, “I wish I had a pet.”
Every single detail was true.
The more she read, the more unsettled she became, her fingers turning the pages with increasing franticness. Middle school, high school... every major milestone of their lives was documented in this thick volume. Their first time holding hands, their first fight, the way he looked at her while they took shelter from the rain in an alleyway—the author had even spent half a page describing that look, saying she “saw a deep blue tectonic shift within his pupils.”
She didn’t know whether to be terrified or moved. But as she reached a certain chapter, her hand suddenly stopped.
That chapter took place on a day during their junior year of high school.
The book stated that Joshua encountered Tiffany in the hallway. “His gaze lingered for a moment; for some reason, he found the sight of her walking away strangely preoccupying.”
Alyssa’s heart skipped a heavy beat.
Tiffany was real—a new transfer student, long-haired, quiet, with a gentle smile. But Joshua had never mentioned a single thing about her.
But the book had recorded it.
And the book didn’t just record that glance; it recorded Joshua’s internal monologue at that moment. It was written in small print, like a footnote appended to the paragraph:
“He felt that the girl’s silhouette reminded him of a song he hadn’t yet named.”
Alyssa stared at that line for a long time.
Joshua did love writing songs. He had an old guitar and would sit beside her on weekends strumming aimlessly. Most of the melodies were amateurish, but she always told him they were beautiful. Lately, he had been working on a new song. He said he hadn’t thought of a title yet.
—Who was he writing it for?
She slammed the book shut, her hands trembling.
Maybe it was just a strange novel. Maybe it was fan fiction written by some bored person who happened to use their real names. Maybe it was all a coincidence.
However, there aren’t that many coincidences in this world. There are only clues, evidence, and truths that are too heavy to bear.
She had to know what happened next.
