"Kumo!"

The baku snapped out of his trance soon enough to see Suna break from her bottle. She shielded him from the boys' piercing gazes with her body. "We're getting out of here."

Once she bubbled him inside, they escaped the boy's mind and entered his room. Kumo stepped out, more dazed than normal. He swayed in the dreamer's room while keeping his eyes on the carpet.

"What was that, Suna? Why did they look like me?" he asked, cupping his forehead with a trembling hand. "It doesn't make sense. I've never met him be..."

Kumo stopped in his tracks when he caught sight of the resting human. Instead of the boy from the dream, it was an adult drenched in sweat. He shared the same features as the child from the park, with a mop of fluffy blonde hair and pale skin.

Maybe they're siblings. Kumo tilted his head in thought as the man wrestled beneath his comforter. But why would he dream of his younger brother? One so vivid at that? He turned to Suna, about to ask for her opinion but paused before any words came out. That's right―I never told her about what happened! But she would scold me, so I guess I'll keep it to myself.

"What is it?" His sandman closed in on him. She couldn't have Kumo getting cold feet.

He flinched, averting his eyes. "Eh? Nothing. I'm just so confused. Suna, you must know why, right? There's no way he would know who I am."

"It's a trick of the eye. Japanese tend to look alike, after all. That was someone else."

He shuffled his feet and bit his lip. "Yeah, but still... they knew what I was."

"You're hearing things!" Suna snapped before wrapping around his feet. "If you aren't going to eat then we have no business here. Let's go somewhere else."

It was no use; Kumo wasn't listening. He continued to prattle on, letting his curiosity and ignorance get the best of him. "What about Ren and Astro? Where did they go? I know they're gone, but to where?"

"That's enough, Kumo," she mumbled while picking him up.

He shook his head as they floated. "They crashed into us, right? I... I fell off. So why am I still―"

"That's enough, I said."

Endless needles pricked up Kumo's skin at the tone of her voice. It was sharp and cold, like a glass fragment. He could tell that asking anymore questions would anger her further, so he stopped talking. Once they left, a tense silence wedged between them. Kumo looked up, noting the abundance of real stars he saw compared to Tokyo's empty night sky. "Sorry," he uttered after returning his gaze to Suna.

She only responded with a short hum.

The rest of the night was spent chasing after illusionary fears children succumbed to in their slumber. By the time they finished, the sun peeked from the forest and Kumo was stuffed. His body warmed beneath the sunrise as they laid in a grass field.

"Suna," the baku called when a wind blew in his face, "I want to see Lady Tsuki."

She breathed a low, dismissive sigh. "...No. She doesn't have time for your games."

"It's not, I swear!" Kumo bolted up with his hand on his chest, shaking his head. "I just want to ask her a few things."

Before he could blink, Suna closed the distance between them. If she had a human body, Kumo was sure he would feel her piercing glare. Specs of sand flew in his eyes, making him squint. However, Suna remained in front of him. "Listen to me. The Lady is someone on a completely different level than you. She won't spare time for a little baku."

He imagined her crossing her arms the second she glided back. "Questions? What questions? You shouldn't have any. Your only purpose is taking the burden of nightmares off humans! Be grateful you're―"

Kumo stepped back. He kept his eyes glued to the ground while clenching his jaw. "Sorry for not being the puppet you wanted."

"That's... You know I didn't mean it like that."

A grimace possessed his features. "There're a lot of things I don't know. My fault for expecting you to teach me them." He turned to the town and chuckled. "Don't wait up for me; sandmen need their rest unlike us 'little baku'."

With those last words, he sauntered off to the park while Suna stayed behind. When he followed the familiar path, he couldn't help glancing around for the six children. That boy... I hope he's not too injured. At the memory of the others attacking him, Kumo shivered.

Still, why didn't he fight back? The question swam in his thoughts until it was all he could think of. He rubbed his chin while looking down. Why did everyone else pretend not to see them? And why did that boy come out of me?

A relieved huff escaped his lips once spotting the scarce park. Not a child in sight; only an elderly couple feeding birds. Good, Kumo thought, flopping in a free swing, I need to be alone.

While he swung with his head leant back, the baku freed himself from worries for a moment. He took deep breaths to calm his racing heart. His white-speckled hair resembled a star-filled night everytime it swayed in the wind. Something as simple as swinging subsided the excited tingles trickling down his body.

I've gotta apologize to Suna. She was probably just trying to help. "But, it still hurt," he grumbled, pouting his lip out.

"What did?" A bright face appeared in front of him.

"Whoa," Kumo exclaimed before letting go of the chains only to fall on his back. The baku scrambled away from the human. It was a black haired girl wearing a pink dress. He tilted his head with furrowed eyebrows. "Are you talking to me?"

She giggled, then nodded. "Yeah, you're the elephant swinger from yesterday!"

Despite the innocence of her words, heat rushed to Kumo's cheeks at the other 'elephant' he was thinking of. He trailed his fingers through his hair, looked around, then squatted to her eye level.

"Make sure you don't call me that in front of others, okay?" Suna would kill him if she heard he was going around swinging the junk in his trunks to unsuspecting children.

The girl frowned. "Why not? Aren't you an elephant?"

Kumo stared into her eyes long enough to see his reflection―or rather, what she saw him as: a monochrome beast. I must've touched her by accident. Damn. He offered a smile, unsure how pleasant that would appear to her. "No, dear; I'm a tapir."

"Ta... Ta-pear? That's a funny name!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. In any case," the baku stood to look around after patting her head, "where are your parents? They must be awefully worried." He remembered the terrified expression on her mother's face yesterday and chuckled. Seeing an empty swing moving about when there wasn't any breeze would startle anyone.

"They're over there," she said, pointing to a takoyaki stand a few feet away. Two humans described what they wanted to the scruffy cook, unaware of their daughter's disappearance.

He watched them hold hands as smiles stretched across their faces. Then turnt to the girl and plucked her forehead. "Don't make them worry like that. It's bad manners. Someone could've gobbled you up in an instant."

She rubbed the red spot, whining, "B-But, no one did because you're with me, right?"

When Kumo saw tears glisten in her eyes, he sighed in defeat. "Yeah. I guess I'm something like your starry knight."