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The house always smelled like dust and damp wood after rain.
Not mildew—nothing unpleasant. Just oldness. Like the structure remembered storms from before I was born. My shoes left a faint trail on the entrance mat as I stepped inside and toed them off. The hallway was narrow, the floorboards uneven, and the ceiling light hummed with an audible buzz you couldn't unhear once you noticed it.
I stood in the hallway for a moment, letting the rain settle in my hair.
Then: a voice from above.
"You forgot your umbrella again, didn't you?"
I looked up.
Aoyama Kei leaned over the second-floor railing, hair damp, no makeup, wearing a white tank top and a navy cardigan that slid halfway off one shoulder. Her bare leg was propped on the stair, toes painted light beige. She looked like she belonged to a late-night cigarette commercial.
"I didn't forget," I said. "I chose not to bring one."
"Ah. The stoic high school boy defense." She smiled. "Wanna borrow my dryer?"
"I don't think it's rated for psychological use."
She laughed. "Then take a hot shower before you start brooding again."
"I wasn't going to brood."
"You always brood after tea."
I blinked. "How did you know I had tea?"
She rested her chin on her hand. "Your collar smells like jasmine."
I didn't respond. There wasn't a safe response to that.
She disappeared from the railing, footsteps creaking along the upper hallway.
I started toward my unit—Room 103.
The boarding house used to be a multi-family unit. Now it was carved into four small rooms, each rented to a student or a young single. My room was the farthest back. The key stuck sometimes. I had to jiggle it.
Inside, everything was where I left it: books stacked beside the bed, tea mugs in the sink, uniform blazer over the chair. The window was open a crack. The rain smell had followed me home.
I dropped my bag, peeled off my damp socks, and set the kettle to boil out of habit. My hands still smelled faintly like metal from the matchbook.
Then came the knock.
I knew the pattern.
Not urgent. Not casual. Just... expectant.
I opened the door.
Kei stood barefoot, hair wrapped now in a towel, one hand holding a plastic basket of folded clothes. Still in the same cardigan. No bra, now that I was paying attention—which I wasn't supposed to be.
"Laundry machine's dead," she said, lifting the basket slightly. "Can I borrow your spin cycle?"
"You could've just asked."
"I am asking."
"You didn't knock like someone asking."
She smiled. "You're very particular for someone who forgot to lock his door."
I stepped aside.
She walked in, as if she'd done it a hundred times before.
Which, admittedly, she had. Just never this late.
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While the washer spun, she leaned against the counter and opened one of my tea tins.
"You like this one," she said.
"Do I?"
"You always drink it when it rains."
"That's becoming a theme today."
She looked over her shoulder at me. Her eyes were dark brown, almost black in this light.
"Bad day?"
"Not sure."
"Didn't you say you were part of a club now?"
"I didn't say that."
"Well, you've been going somewhere after school. That's new."
I stared at the teapot. "It's not a club."
"No?"
"It's more like a room that notices things."
"That's the most suspicious thing I've ever heard."
She turned, facing me, back to the counter.
There was a moment where the silence wasn't awkward. It was aware.
She reached up to adjust the towel on her head, and for half a second, her shirt lifted just slightly too high. She noticed me noticing.
"You keep doing that," she said.
"I'm not doing anything."
"Exactly." She gave a small smile. "That's what makes it interesting."
The washer beeped softly behind her.
She didn't move.
Then, after a beat, she said, "Do you ever think you're being watched?"
I blinked.
"Lately?" she added.
"Yes," I said without thinking.
She watched me.
Then, softly: "By someone you know, or someone you don't?"
I opened my mouth.
Then closed it.
She nodded to herself.
Took the laundry basket.
Then, at the door, she turned and said:
"If you hear knocking after midnight, don't open the door unless I say your name."
"Why not?"
She smiled faintly.
"Because if I don't say it, it's not me."
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