The first day passed like fog.
No real light, no real time. Just the four walls of the old staff room, a broken clock ticking with no batteries, and a boy on a couch who didn't breathe like a normal person anymore.
I didn't say much.
Neither did she.
Kiss-shot sat on the floor beside Araragi, cross-legged, unnervingly still. Not like she was meditating. More like a statue waiting for the wind to carve it into something useful again. Her golden hair spilled over her shoulders, catching the light that crept through the broken blinds.
She didn't eat. Didn't sleep. Just watched.
"I thought vampires were supposed to rest in coffins," I said at one point.
She didn't look at me.
"I'm not a storybook vampire," she said.
"Then what are you?"
Her eyes slid toward mine, slow and deliberate.
"A mistake," she said. "Long-lived and overdue."
I didn't ask what that meant.
By the second day, the silence had started to feel less like emptiness and more like... pressure.
Not tension exactly. Just the weight of something big and ancient sitting in the same room as you, not moving, not talking, just existing with intensity. Like a lion that hasn't decided if it's full yet.
I needed air.
"I'm going for a walk," I said.
Kiss-shot didn't object. Didn't ask where. Just said:
"If you die, don't bleed too loudly."
Comforting.
The city hadn't changed much.
It was still low-key and washed in gray, like a memory half-forgotten. I wandered without aim. Past shuttered shops and alleyways that felt familiar even though I'd never walked them before.
In the real world, this place was fiction.
But now I could feel its weight under my shoes.
I stopped at a vending machine with a busted screen and found a half-full juice bottle on top. Still cold. Someone had been here recently. Or something.
I didn't drink it.
Didn't trust this world to be that kind.
I came back at dusk. Orange light filtered in through the cracked windows of the cram school, setting everything on fire without heat.
Kiss-shot hadn't moved.
But her eyes were closed now. Not asleep. Just... inward.
I sat near the wall, not too close.
She opened one eye after a while.
"You returned."
"Obviously."
"You don't seem like the type."
"What type is that?"
"The type that returns."
I didn't have a response.
She didn't seem to need one.
"You're quiet," I said eventually.
"You fill the air enough for both of us."
"Do you want me to shut up?"
"Not yet."
I raised an eyebrow. "That's... surprisingly honest."
She tilted her head slightly. "You assume I am dishonest?"
"I assume you're dangerous."
"Good," she said. "That means you're paying attention."
The night came in full. Araragi didn't stir.
I watched him for a moment—pale, unmoving, alien. Still mostly himself. But only mostly.
"You could've let him die," I said. "You were that close."
"I was," she admitted.
"So why didn't you?"
Her eyes flicked to me again. "Do you ask questions to understand others or to delay understanding yourself?"
I blinked.
She didn't elaborate.
We sat in the dark.
Not talking.
Not waiting.
Just... being.
And in that silence, I realized something small but undeniable:
Even if I left now—even if I walked out and never came back—something inside me would always be curled up in this room, sitting across from her.
And she knew it, too.
She didn't smile.
But she didn't look away.
On the third day, the walls felt thinner.
Not physically—metaphorically. Like time was starting to pull on the seams of the moment, stretching the silence too far. Something was going to snap soon.
Araragi still hadn't moved.
But Kiss-shot had.
She no longer sat stiffly beside him. She had shifted to the other side of the room, curled up on a couch like a small cat with a crown. She hadn't spoken that morning. Just opened one eye to confirm I was still there, then closed it again with disinterest.
"I'm going out again," I said.
She didn't reply.
I took the long road this time. Past a school I'd seen in the background of too many scenes. It was quiet—spring break, I guessed. The building loomed like a memory I didn't own.
That's when I saw her.
A girl.
Standing beside the school gate with a book tucked under her arm and a face too composed for her age. Glasses. Black hair tied neatly. Uniform ironed. She looked like the kind of person who kept everything in alphabetical order—including her thoughts.
Tsubasa Hanekawa.
I stopped walking. She noticed.
We stared at each other for a beat too long.
Then, she bowed slightly.
"Good morning," she said.
"Morning."
Another pause. Her eyes lingered on me like she was cataloging details for later analysis.
"You're not a student here, are you?"
"No."
"I didn't think so."
She smiled politely, but there was something in her voice that made me feel like a fish being held just above the water.
"I'm Hanekawa Tsubasa," she said. "Class representative of Class 2-1."
"Do you always introduce yourself like that?"
"Only when I'm talking to suspicious strangers near school property," she replied without missing a beat.
Fair enough.
"I'm... just passing through," I said. "Visiting, sort of."
"Sort of?"
"It's complicated."
"Most interesting things are."
Another pause.
Then she said, "You look like you haven't slept."
I blinked. "Thanks?"
"I didn't mean it as an insult. Just an observation."
"Okay. You're very... sharp."
"That's what people say right before they stop answering my questions."
I chuckled.
"You're different from most people around here," she added, more to herself now.
"Yeah, I've heard that one before."
She tilted her head. "Do you know Araragi Koyomi?"
I froze.
Just for a second.
"Why do you ask?"
She adjusted her glasses, eyes narrowing slightly.
"No reason," she said. "I just... had a feeling."
A beat passed.
Then she smiled again.
"Take care, stranger."
And just like that, she walked past me—like we hadn't just brushed against fate.
I returned to the cram school before sunset. My head was loud.
Kiss-shot hadn't moved.
But when I stepped through the door, her eyes were already on me.
"You met someone," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"Yeah."
"Did you lie to her?"
"No."
"Then you were clever."
I sat down near the window, feeling more drained than I expected.
"She asked if I knew Araragi."
"And do you?"
"I know who he's supposed to be."
She seemed to think about that for a moment.
Then said, "The girl?"
"Tsubasa Hanekawa."
"She will be important later," Kiss-shot said, almost bored. "But not yet."
"Do you know that, or are you just guessing?"
She looked at me long and hard.
Then said something I wasn't expecting.
"I'm starting to understand you."
I raised an eyebrow.
"I still don't trust you," she added. "But I see now—you don't fear me."
I thought about that.
"I do," I said. "But not the kind of fear that makes you run. The kind that makes you stay awake at night."
Her expression didn't change.
But she didn't look away either.