We passed each other in the hallway. She knocked my shoulder and her fingers brushed the back of my hand. For that moment, I was paralysed.

I didn't know her name.

I could barely remember her face.

Yet I knew that in three days' time, at seven minutes past midnight, she was going to be stabbed to death by a man with blond hair and blue eyes wearing a black leather jacket.

One touch, that's all it takes. A single second of skin contact and I can tell you when and how your life will end.

My mother used to tell me it was a gift – that God had chosen me for something special. But if this is supposed to be a gift, then I don't want to know what constitutes a curse. Becoming an unseen, incorporeal extra in someone else's death scene doesn't exactly scream ‘blessed’ to me, especially when you’re standing close enough to have the victim's blood and guts fly through you as they're being eviscerated.

I’ll count myself lucky that the culprit in this vision wasn't some kind of slash-happy psycho. One clean, quick stab and that was it; she gurgled and convulsed with Death’s hand over her mouth, choking on her last few breaths. It was almost merciful – if not for the fact that it was murder.

The vision ended. Time resumed its pace and I was brought back to reality by the delayed sensation of her shoulder smashing into mine. Needless to say, it hurt.

She gasped and turned towards me, bowing her head and stammering an apology through her veil of dyed-red hair. I just stood there like an idiot – stood there and gawped. What I should have done was grab her – warn her, but by the time my wits were gathered, she'd already disappeared into the human river of students on their way to their first class.

Death was a man in a black jacket...

‘Hey, Evelyn.’

A hand tapped my shoulder.

I let out a shriek.

Every eye in the corridor turned towards me, expressions changing instantly when their owners recognised my face. Fear. Hatred. Resentment. Nothing unfamiliar. Nothing I couldn't deal with. I pretended not to notice, but from the burning in my cheeks, I could tell that my face was bright red.

Sometimes I really hate Ryo.

The culprit grinned as I shot him a look. ‘Sorry,’ he said, in a tone that suggested he was anything but. ‘Didn't think you'd be standing there daydreaming.’

‘You know I don't daydream.’ I have waking nightmares.

‘Now now, Evelyn; don't lie. You've always got your head in the clouds. I bet it was about a bo-oy.’ He drew the last word out in a sing-song, like your mother or older sister would when prying into your love life.

Ryo, obviously, is neither my mother nor my sister. He's my neighbour and something of a childhood friend. When we were seven, his family moved in next-door, and – like good neighbours – our parents told us to get along. They made us shake hands and the first thing I did was blurt out when and how he was going to die. With Ryo's understanding of English being more or less non-existent at the time, he just smiled blankly and said, ‘Hajimemashite’. Nice to meet you.

It was the nicest response to a prediction of impending doom that I've ever received.

After ten years of lounging on my couch to escape his mother's wrath, Ryo knew that I had no love life, which meant that the only reason he was teasing me was because he wanted something. One look at him and I knew what it was too.

His hair, perpetually bleached orange, was a bird's nest – the ends sticking up every which way, as if he'd just rolled out of bed. In reality, it takes twenty minutes and a smattering of too-much product for him to sculpt it like that each morning. Put your hand on his head and it'll come back sticky – I learned that the hard way.

His shirt and slacks were, as usual, immaculately pressed – not because Ryo actually cares, but because his mother washes and irons them for him. He rebels against her attempts to make him look seemly by leaving the shirt untucked and only half-buttoned and refusing to wear the jumper (or sweater, as my dad calls it), blazer and tie. Apparently, it works too. Ask anyone in school and they'd tell you that Ryo Oshiro is a delinquent; he hangs out with the 'cool' crowd, blows off class, and spends every other day getting into fights.

If only they knew that he studies more than I do, gets better grades, and the ridiculously large number of detentions he racks up every year are mostly due to "inappropriate school attire" rather than misbehaving or getting into fights. Why? Because Ryo Oshiro is not a delinquent. He’s just a lazy teenage boy who could never be bothered learning how to do up his own necktie.

‘Let me guess…’ I gestured to the offending garment, which was draped across his shoulders like an old lady's shawl. ‘You got called out at the gates again?’

‘I swear Hickman waits until after the bell just so he can catch me.’ He showed me his detention slip and then offered me the tie with a flourish. ‘If you'd do the honours, Miss White.’

I sighed and took it from him. Ryo stepped in closer and I looped the material over his head. When he opened his mouth to thank me, the smell of tobacco hit me in the face.

Well, I think he was going to thank me. The only sound that came out when I yanked him down for a headbutt was the clack of his teeth snapping together, followed by, ‘Ow!’

I would have liked to say the same thing (because he has a hard head), but that would have completely undermined the lecture I was about to give.

I glared at him. ‘You've been smoking again.’

Ryo gasped. ‘Me, smoke?’ He blew directly into my face, rustling my fringe with a second cigarette-scented breath. Smart move considering that I was in a great position to make a noose and strangle him with it. Heck, it’d probably save him some suffering if I did.

‘It’s going to kill you, Ryo.’

The cigarettes, I meant, not the tie – and in very literal terms too. In eleven years, four months, and eight days, Ryo Oshiro was going to drop dead after a long and terrible struggle with lung cancer.

I only see the death scene so I had no idea if the cancer would result from his smoking or not, but I wasn't going to hedge my bets on it not being a contributing factor.

He brushed off my warning with his usual roll of the eyes. ‘Come on, Evelyn, you tell me that every day. You’re starting to sound like my mother when she’s talking to my dad. “Don't drink that beer, Hiroyuki, it'll kill you.” “Don't butter your bacon, Hiroyuki, it'll kill you.” “You should stop stressing, Hiroyuki, it'll kill you.”’

It must’ve taken ages to perfect that impression.

As much as I don't like his mother (a feeling that I assure you is mutual), she probably had a point with the bacon and maybe even the beer. The stress, on the other hand, was probably something she was contributing to.

Still…

‘Your dad sounds like he's at risk of a heart attack.’

‘Don't you start. Even Midori's been nagging me lately: “Oniichan, your breath smells gross. Chew some gum.” Where did she pick up oniichan from anyway? She only ever calls me Ryo-nii if the old hag is the room, otherwise it's “Ryo this”, or “Ryo that”.’

‘Maybe she's been reading the manga you have stashed. Isn't there always a little sister character who calls the main character that in those harems or whatever?’

‘If she has, then it better not be anything from the pile under my bed.’

‘That’s gross, Ryo.’

‘You mean healthy. But back on point.’ He gave me a cynical look. ‘How many people get lung cancer from smokes? Seriously, the chances are like one in a hundred.’

And here I’d thought his best subject was maths. ‘Considering that there’s about seven billion people in the word, those aren’t exactly good odds, and it’s more like one in four.’ For men who smoked more than five cigarettes a day anyway, and I knew he went through more than that. I fixed him with my sternest look. ‘If you value your life, quit.’

He sighed and patted the top of my head, an action he knew I hated. ‘If it bothers you that much, then starting tomorrow, I'll stop. Satisfied, Rin-chan?’

No, I wasn't, and calling me that stupid nickname wasn't helping things along.

“Rin-chan” was what Ryo called me when we were kids because Evelyn was too hard for him to pronounce. Given that my choices were that or Eburin, it had definitely seemed like the lesser of two evils.

Now that he can say my name properly, it only ever comes into use when he's teasing or being a troll. I often struggle to distinguish which. On very rare occasions, it's also used as a term of endearment. But these occasions typically coincide with him wanting me to do something – like pass a note to a girl because he's too awkward to talk to them directly. Not always, but usually.

Regardless, I’ve learned to prepare myself for ridicule or extortion when that name comes into play.

It also doesn’t help that the ‘Rin-chan’ back then was a pale, scrawny runt with eyes so wide that she looked eternally petrified, and an atrocious bowl-cut of brown hair as stiff and wavy as corrugated iron. That girl thought that there was no harm in telling everyone she met about the visions she saw.

Seven-year-old me was not very clever.

While my hair is still short – a bob, not a bowl – and continues to look like waves of warped, brown wire, I’m not quite as wide-eyed and naïve as I was back then. You don’t tell people the truth; you tell them what they want to hear. Most of the time, that’s nothing. Now, I’m smart enough to realise that Ryo was doing the same thing, but if he’d thought about it a little more, he might have realised that – like me with my visions – the better option would have been to keep his mouth shut.

My voice was deadpan. ‘It's Evelyn, not Rin-chan.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘You sure are grouchy today. That time of the month?’

My cheeks started burning again. ‘No, of course not!’

‘I should start keeping track.’

‘Ryo!’

He grinned.

This was one of those days where I couldn't tell if he was teasing or being a troll. Either way, I wasn't putting up with it. Pulling a face at him, I pushed him aside and walked past.

I couldn’t even get a full step between us before he grabbed my arm and pulled me back. ‘Waitwaitwaitwaitwait – I need to ask you something.”

‘That tends to work better when you’re being nice,’ I grumbled as he spun me around to face him.

‘I'm always nice. You're just grouchy.’

‘I'm not grouchy. You’re just a jerk.’

‘Yes you are. This wrinkle here—’ He poked me in the centre of the forehead. ‘—only appears when you're being a grouch. Anyway, you know Ai Miyakawa, right?’

Who? ‘No.’

‘You know... the new transfer student. About yay tall, petite, sort of reddish-brown hair. Asian – well, Japanese actually. Kinda cute. You were talking to her earlier.’

Oh, he meant the girl I’d bumped into.

The one who was going to die in three days.

Ai.

Snapshots of the vision flashed in my mind's eye. A shiver went down my spine.

Ryo frowned. ‘You okay? You were looking a bit white when you first turned around. Thought it was just because I scared you, but you're still pretty pale. Got a fever?’

I smacked his hand away as he moved to press it against my forehead. White was better than green, which was the colour I usually turned after watching a gory death scene.

‘I’m not sick, Ryo. What do you want with this Ai girl?’

‘Apparently her English is so bad that Ellery wants me to help her around school for the first few days. Something about common background or whatever. What matters is that she'll wipe a few detentions I've yet to serve from my record. So anyway, I uh...’ His eyes wandered up to the ceiling as he twiddled his thumbs. ‘I was... um... wondering if you could introduce us since you're friends with her and all.’

I cleared my throat to hide a laugh. To think that the great, charismatic Ryo had been reduced to a blushing, thumb-twiddling teenager at the thought of talking to a girl.

That, and he thought that she and I were friends.

Please. He of all people should have known that I had no friends. Reflexively blurting out how each and every one of my classmates was going to die when we were forced to shake hands on orientation day didn't exactly leave them with a great first impression and that impression hasn’t changed much since then. If anything, I’m sure it’s gotten worse.

‘We're not friends, Ryo. I didn't even know her name until you mentioned it.’ I’ll admit she may have mumbled it while I was standing there slack-jawed, but if she did, I didn’t hear it.

He frowned, unconvinced. ‘You were talking to her.’

‘No, she was talking to me. Polite people tend to apologise when they walk into someone.’

‘Ah. So that's why she was the only one doing the talking—’

I stepped on his foot. ‘You're perfectly capable of introducing yourself. Just open your mouth and say, “Konnichiwa! Atashi no Ryo desu ka.”’

He stared at me like I'd just told him that he was a big, hairy monkey with a flamboyant red butt. Given that I'd never learnt the word for baboon, I was pretty sure I hadn't.

‘Close?’

‘Not even.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘Forget it, I'll talk to her myself. Who knows what kind of butchered atrocity will come out of your mouth if you do it. To think that you studied the language for three years… You should be ashamed.’

‘You know me. I'm not good with languages.’

‘I offered to practise with you, but you always said no.’

‘Too much effort.’

‘You mean laziness. Now, which way did she go?’

‘Not sure.’ I gestured vaguely behind me. ‘You'll have to ask around.’

‘Cheers,’ said Ryo with a two finger salute. He spun on his heel. ‘Catch you at lunch, Rin-chan.’

‘It’s Evelyn.’

He laughed and walked away.