Naoya didn't sleep.
Not really.
His eyes closed. His body stayed still. But something behind his eyelids kept flickering—lines of text, faint grids, blinking icons. Whenever he drifted too far, the system would shift.
[Vitals: Stable]
[REM Attempt: Interrupted]
[Sleep Quality: 37%]
[User Status: Light Sync]
He turned his head on the pillow.
The faint glow of the system window hovered in the upper corner of his vision, no matter how he blinked or moved. It adjusted automatically, like it was always there and always had been.
At 05:32 AM, the alarm clock buzzed once.
Not the usual sound—a different tone. Short. Flat.
He sat up slowly. The moment he did, the clock display changed again.
[Observer Activity Detected]
[System Layer: Active]
[New Environment: HOME UNIT 12F-A]
Naoya rubbed his face. "I'm not awake enough for this."
The system blinked once.
[Acknowledged]
He showered.
The water temperature display—normally analog—now showed:
[Temp: 39.6°C / Flow Pressure: 72% / Boiler Sync: OK]
He brushed his teeth.
[Toothbrush Mode: Sensitive]
[Battery Level: 81%]
Nothing had changed. But everything had changed.
By 6:45, Naoya was walking toward the station. Same route. Same vending machine. Same cracked tile by the curb. He paused at the usual corner convenience store to grab a melon bread and canned coffee.
As he stepped in, a new window flicked to life:
[Retail Node: Shop-α9-341]
[Status: Open / Inventory Scan: Active / Temp: 22.8°C]
The floor made a familiar creak near the freezer aisle. The shop clerk, bleary-eyed and half-asleep, gave him a nod.
Naoya blinked.
And stepped in.
As soon as his shoes hit the floor, the world unfolded again—lines of floating data bleeding from every corner of the car. Only now, it wasn't vending machines or crosswalks.
It was phones.
Dozens of them.
They whispered status logs, private details, unspoken things. Not to him—but in front of him. Visible. Alive.
He tightened his grip on the rail.
[Device: Pixel 6]
[App Active: Gallery → Favorites]
[Viewing: Video Clip – 00:08:12]
[Filename: "nov25hotelbath.mp4"]
[Headphone Connection: Yes | Volume: Low]
[User Emotion Detected: Aroused]
His eyes shifted automatically, trying not to match the person to the data.
Too late.
It was the man beside the rear door. Completely still. Earbuds in. Face blank. Watching something no one else should ever know about.
Naoya's stomach pulled tight.
This wasn't curiosity.
This was intrusion by default.
Another phone pinged:
Naoya turned his head. Not to look. Just to breathe.
And there it was again.
A teenage boy, maybe a year older, was half-hunched over his screen. Data shimmered above it like heat off asphalt:
[Video Playing: Stream Site | Category: Real Amateur / Solo]
[Watch Progress: 71%]
[VPN: Active | IP Masked]
[Brightness: 12%]
[Mode: Hidden Tab]
Naoya swallowed hard.
He wasn't looking for this.
He couldn't not see it.
All around him: the soft glow of indecency. Not from people being awful—but from the sheer fact that no one thought their phones were being watched. That their shadows could be read.
He shifted his weight, pressed back against the cool metal pole behind him. Tried to focus on the window, the passing blur of gray buildings and posters with unreadable kanji.
But the data followed. It always did.
Some were watching porn or sending explicit messages in groups and some some stalking other people
Naoya's fingers curled slightly.
The train jolted. People swayed. No one noticed him.
No one ever did.
But he noticed them. Or at least, what their screens carried. Their fears. Their obsessions. Their shame.
And none of them knew.
He stared at the floor.
"I didn't ask for this."
The system didn't care.
[You are currently: THE OBSERVER]
[Passive Scan: Enabled]
[Privacy Filters: Not Supported]
The car rolled past another station.
He could've gotten off. But his school stop hadn't come yet. He had to wait.
He had to endure.
The last straw was a cute girl who near the door—chat window open.
[Group Name: "ALT🤫 DUMPS"]
[Shared Media: 3 New / NSFW Flagged / Auto-Blurred]
[Message Opened: "i look so fkn good here lol"]
[Forward History: 6 accounts]
Naoya saw some blurry picture
And squeezed his eyes shut.
When the train finally reached his stop, he stepped out without urgency. No sprint. No escape. Just… stillness.
The doors shut behind him.
The world was quiet again.
And yet, the residue clung to him like secondhand smoke. Like he had inhaled other people's secrets and couldn't exhale them out.
As he walked up the stairs toward street level, he thought:
"Never again."
Not this train.
Not any train.
He didn't want to be in the middle of other people's unfiltered lives.
Whatever this ability was—it had rules now.
At school, it was quiet in a different way.
It was a bit better
The morning bell rang at 08:25, exactly on time. Shoes squeaked on the polished linoleum as students rushed past the lockers. The overhead PA system buzzed, announcing the usual half-hearted updates: club activities, forgotten umbrellas, some issue about a teacher being late.
Naoya sat in his seat.
And nothing happened.
No flickering data.
No status logs floating above heads.
No invasive bursts of information from the screens in their pockets.
Because no one had their phones out.
It was school. Strict. Predictable. Rule-bound.
He leaned back slowly. Just to test it.
Nothing flickered. Nothing triggered.
Even the desk in front of him—though the system gave its usual metrics—felt strangely neutral now.
[Desk Unit: 2B-17]
[Occupant: Kirigami, Naoya]
[Posture Analysis: Relaxed]
[User Load: 6.2kg / Pulse: Normal]
It was quiet.
He wasn't seeing what people weren't showing.
They were just... students. Talking. Laughing.
Living their lives without broadcasting it into the air around him.
Naoya folded his arms on the desk and rested his head.
His body didn't feel normal. But it didn't feel wrong, either.
It felt like someone had turned the volume down on the world.
Break time came.
The system windows around him remained mostly still—just environmental data, vending machine readouts, classroom node status. Passive, ambient, quiet.
The train had been the opposite.
He thought of the man watching something in silence, face blank.
The boy with trembling fingers on low brightness.
The girl near the door, forwarding things she probably shouldn't even have saved.
All of it had entered him.
He hadn't wanted it, but now it sat under his skin. Like background radiation. Unshakable.
During lunch, Naoya walked past the home economics room.
The hallway was empty except for a single rice cooker humming quietly outside the door.
The system window above it shimmered to life:
[Internal Temp: 74.2°C]
[Lid Seal: Secure]
[Sensor Lag: +0.03s]
He stared at it, stillness creeping over his limbs.
And then whispered, "Are you watching me?"
The cooker didn't move.
But the system replied, subtle and unfeeling:
[Query Logged]
[Behavioral Analysis In Progress]
He stepped away quickly, pulse skipping.
After school, he didn't walk home right away.
Instead, he sat alone in the music room. No one used it after hours. It was quiet. Dusty.
He opened the old upright piano. One key was chipped. C-sharp.
When he pressed it, the system responded:
[Instrument: Unit#PIA-32-A]
[Key Depressed: C#4 / Pressure: Light / Duration: 1.28s]
Naoya stared at his own hand.
He pressed a second key.
Another line of data.
Everything. Every input. Measured. Stored. Counted.
He whispered, "What are you tracking me for?"
No answer.
Only the lingering text:
[User Status: OBSERVING and being OBSERVED]
When he left the room, he passed the third-floor windows. Something flickered in the reflection.
He turned.
Nothing.
Just his own face—and behind him, for half a second—
Another system window.
Smaller. Gray. Not his.
Then gone.