It all began a year ago.

That afternoon, the air was unbearably hot, the kind of heat that seeps beneath the skin and into the bones, dulling every thought. For Nara, it was the sort of day that felt too wasted for classrooms and lectures, too heavy for logic.

He was never the kind of student teachers bragged about. In fact, Nara held an unofficial record for the most absences in the university’s history. When he did show up, he often spent the lecture half-asleep, his head resting on folded ...