2:34 a.m.

Miyako Fukanora hadn’t moved in twenty minutes.

She lay flat on her back, arms stiff at her sides like a chalk outline, eyes wide open, staring at her popcorn ceiling like it had all the answers in its lumpy little bumps.

The room was quiet. Too quiet. No breeze from the cracked window. No hum from her phone. Just her heartbeat — loud and echoing in her own ears.

"What the actual fuck was that?" she muttered into the darkness.

Her voice sounded weird in the stillness. Thin. Small. Like she was afraid to say anything louder.

Because saying it louder might make it real.

She shifted onto her side, then back again, restless, her blanket twisted around her legs like a straitjacket.

That dream — or whatever it was — felt like it had weight. Like it had volume. She could still smell the city in her nose, taste smoke in the back of her throat, feel the wind.

Not dream-wind.
Real wind.

And those guys… the way they talked to her — him? — like they knew him. Trusted him. Looked to him.

"Kaito..."

She said the name slowly, testing it like it might explode in her mouth.

"Kai...to."

It didn’t ring any bells. No one from school. Not from social media. Not even a name she’d heard on TV or in a drama.

She groaned and threw one arm over her face.

"I’m losing it."

She stayed like that for a long time. Breathing. Thinking. Not thinking.

Her body still felt weird. Not tired exactly. Just… like she’d been somewhere. Like she’d done something. Like her muscles were telling her a different story than her brain was.

She sat up finally, swinging her legs over the side of her bed, feet hitting the cold floor with a soft thud.

"Okay."

Deep breath.

"Dreams get weird sometimes. That’s all this was. My brain just pulled some random crap together from, I dunno— old manga, crime show reruns, that one gritty YouTube video about gangs in Tokyo. Yeah. Easy."

She rubbed her face with both hands.

"God, it felt so fucking real, though."

The silence after that was heavier than before. She stayed sitting there in the dark, not moving, just listening to her own breathing.

Then — with zero ceremony — she flopped backward onto the bed like a corpse and sighed loud enough to shake her posters.

"Whatever. Screw it. I’m too tired to overthink."

But she didn’t close her eyes right away.

She kept looking at the ceiling. Like maybe, just maybe, it would do something strange again. Or spit out an answer.

It didn’t.