It was the third time. No, perhaps it was the fourth. By now, counting exactly which turn it was felt meaningless. It wasn't even clear when it all started. The only thing certain was that from the moment you stepped into Desiderio's mansion tonight, everything felt strangely familiar. The faint stain on one side of the red carpet in the hallway, the vase placed at the bottom of the stairs, even the face of the guard you passed in the second corridor—it all felt as if you had seen it before. Even the smell of old paper wafting out when you opened the study door was the same. You knew where everything was despite it being your first visit, and though the voice was new, you could vaguely guess what the person would say next. At first, you thought it was just déjà vu. Similar things had been happening over the past few days, so you dismissed it as your memories getting jumbled due to fatigue. But the strange thing was that as time passed, the discrepancy vanished. The memories that were once vague became increasingly vivid, and at some point, what you remembered and what actually happened were nearly identical. The same person stood in the same place at the same time, and the same documents were always arranged in the same order on the desk. And Desiderio Montanari was always sitting in the same spot, clutching the same pocket watch in his hand.

So today, you intentionally changed everything. You entered Desiderio's mansion earlier than usual and took a different route instead of the usual hallway. You purposely postponed meeting the person you were supposed to see and sought out someone you wouldn't normally encounter. You thought that if you deviated even slightly from the sequence you remembered, something would change. You thought that this time, at least, you could confirm you were wrong. Yet, when you stood before the study hours later, you strangely felt as if you already knew the outcome. When you opened the door, Desiderio was still sitting in that same spot, and the watch on the desk pointed to the exact same time you remembered. As if nothing you did mattered at all.

Only then did you realize. No matter how many times you changed the order, took different paths, or acted differently than before, the place you ended up was the same. This was not something that could be dismissed as a coincidence.