This is a story from back when I was in high school.

Exhausted after a baseball scrimmage, I just wanted to get home and rest as fast as possible, pushing my tired body to pedal hard on my bike.

Up ahead, I spotted a girl who looked like a high schooler walking toward me, staring down at what appeared to be a prep book.

"She sure is studious..."

I didn't think much else of it, but as I passed by her,

"Excuse me!"

Surprised by her calling out, I slammed on my brakes and looked back.

"Huh? Me?"

The girl gave a small, bashful nod, looking up at me.

"I definitely don't know her..."

As I was thinking that,

"Do you know how to solve this problem?"

"Wait, a problem? I'm not really that smart..."

I said as she showed me the problem.

Luckily, it was one I actually understood. After I explained how to solve it, the girl said,

"Thank you so much!"

She thanked me politely.

"Well, I'll be going now."

Just as I said that and turned to head home, she asked if I would come over to her house and help her study.

To a total stranger she just met? I thought.

But the situation—being alone with a girl studying—made my teenage heart race.

She said her house was right nearby, so telling her I could only stay a little while, I went with her to her place.

When we arrived, she told me her parents weren't home and invited me up to her room.

There was a small kotatsu in the room, and she suggested we study there.

We sat across from each other and started studying, but in the thick of adolescence as I was, I couldn't absorb any of the material—my heart was just pounding.

After a while, I felt something lightly bump against my leg.

After that, it kept bumping against my leg. Tap, tap.

"Could it be... her?"

My nervousness shot through the roof. Then,

"I'll be right back, going to the restroom."

The girl stood up and walked out of the room.

For a second, the tension relaxed, but as I let my imagination run wild about what might happen next, something kept tapping against my leg. Tap, tap.

Baffled, I watched as a leg—one that wasn't mine—slid out from under the kotatsu.

Terrified, I yelled out, "Whoa!" and scrambled away from the kotatsu.

Before long, the girl came back into the room.

"Th-there's a leg... s-someone's..."

Unable to speak properly, I looked toward her, desperately trying to explain.

But as I turned my eyes to her, goosebumps broke out all over my body.

She had no lower half. Her upper body just floated there in midair.

I bolted out of the room, ran out of the house, went straight home, and holed up in my bedroom.

For a long time after that, I avoided the road where I met her and took a long detour home.

Later on, I found out that over ten years ago, a high school girl had died in an accident nearby.

And the spot where her house stood had been an empty lot all along—there was no house there to begin with.

Who was I teaching, where was I, and what was I even doing?