A boy lay sprawled upon the wooden floor, naked, as though discarded by the world. The planks beneath him were cold, pressing their silence into his bare skin. Around him stretched the house. Vast, suffocating, sealed so tightly that no fragment of sunlight trespassed through. The air reeked faintly of dust and stagnant wood, and in that twilight gloom the boy's features emerged. Thick, dark hair matted against his forehead, eyes sharp even in their closed rest, a face sculpted with the quiet arrogance of youth.
Then his chest seized.
With a ragged gasp he woke, body arching as if dragged from drowning. His throat rasped like parched stone, and his breath clawed for air. Hot, unbidden tears rimmed his eyes, clinging to his lashes before sliding down against his will. He pressed a trembling hand to his chest, as though his heartbeat might rupture through his ribs, and only when he steadied himself did the silence of the house flood back in.
Slowly, shakily, he rose to his feet. His joints groaned in protest, and the wooden floor moaned beneath his weight. In the far corner, half swallowed by shadow, stood a mirror. Tall, dust specked, its surface dulled to a gray shimmer. Something in it called to him.
Step by step, he approached.
The reflection surfaced from the gloom. His own face, pale, eyes sunken yet sharp, lips trembling with something he couldn't name. He wiped at the tears staining his cheek, though the image staring back at him seemed slower to mimic the gesture, almost reluctant. Confusion deepened in the furrows of his brow. His breath misted faintly against the glass.
His hand rose, fingers quivering as though pulled by a string. The tip of his middle finger pressed to the mirror's surface, a faint chill biting back at his touch. The reflection met him eye to eye, and for a moment the boy had the sense that he was not looking at himself at all, but at something wearing his shape.
"What… the fuck is going on?" he whispered, the words breaking against the silence.
And then…
CREAKK!!!!
The wooden door behind him groaned on its hinges. The sound tore through the house's stillness like a blade.
The door cracked open wider, its edges spilling gold across the gloom like a wound torn in the world. Sunlight slashed through the air, scattering the dust into frantic swarms. The boy flinched, his arm snapping up to shield his face, every nerve burning as though the light itself had teeth. His skin, pale and bare, glowed under the intrusion, every rib, every contour made uncomfortably visible, as if he were an unfinished sketch revealed too early.
A shadow stepped into the brightness. Boots thudded against the wooden floorboards with the weight of someone who did not belong here, someone who carried the outside world into this sealed tomb.
He was tall, draped in a long, black coat that shifted faintly as though it remembered the winds it had brushed through. Beneath it, a white shirt clung with faint creases of wear, tucked into black trousers that bore the dust of travel. His hair, dark and uneven, curtained his sharp face, framing a pair of tired eyes that looked like they had seen too much, or maybe nothing at all.
Those eyes, heavy-lidded and strangely unreadable, settled on the boy.
"Araki?" The voice was low, unhurried, as if even the act of speaking was a burden.
The boy lowered his hand just enough to glimpse him, blinking against the stubborn afterimage of light. His lips pulled into something between irritation and exhaustion.
"Close the door, Elian…" his voice cracked, raw, "…I'm all naked."
For a moment the words seemed to hang absurdly in the silence, a strange counterpoint to the oppressive weight of the house.
Elian stood still for a beat, his silhouette framed by the brightness outside, then with a slight tilt of his head he pulled the door shut. The hinges moaned again, and the invading sunbeam folded in on itself, leaving only a muted outline around the frame.
The house seemed to exhale. Shadows drew back into their corners. From the beams above, two lanterns shuddered awake, flames blooming in their glass wombs, spilling gold that crawled along the walls and softened the jagged dark.
Elian's boots pressed the floor with slow, deliberate weight as he stepped deeper into the room. He studied Araki, not with open concern but with a kind of muted scrutiny, like a man taking inventory of something broken and half assembled.
"…What happened to you?" His voice carried a trace of gravel, as though it had worn itself thin from saying little. "Why the hell are you standing here… like this?"
Araki's bare shoulders rose and fell. He didn't answer at once. Instead, he turned away, his feet making a faint drag on the boards as he moved toward the wooden wall where a crooked hanger leaned. He plucked from it a plain gray shirt, its fabric smooth, and a pair of black trousers, creased from hanging too long.
As he pulled the shirt over his head, his voice drifted out. Unsteady, quiet, yet oddly detached.
"Even I dunno," he muttered, words catching as though they were pulled reluctantly from his throat. The cloth fell over his ribs, softening the stark outlines the light had carved a moment ago.
He lingered there for a moment, smoothing the fabric as if the motion itself grounded him, then tilted his head back toward Elian.
"By the way…" His eyes narrowed faintly, carrying a tired sharpness, "where were you last night?"
The question didn't quite accuse. It hung in the lantern glow, stretching its shadow longer than it should have.
Elian let out a slow breath, the kind that seemed to hollow out his chest. His hand found the back of a chair at the dining table, and he dragged it across the floorboards with a scrape that felt louder than it should. He sat down, elbows resting on his knees, his gaze lingering somewhere between the floor and Araki.
"…Was working on a case," he said at last. The words came out flat, worn, like he'd rehearsed them to sound less important than they were.
Araki slid one leg into the black trousers, tugging them up with a careless hand. His voice reached across the space, low, almost teasing but edged with something heavier.
"You're going famous already."
Elian tilted his head back, eyes tracing the wooden ceiling as though the beams held an answer. A faint smile that wasn't quite a smile brushed his lips.
"Just rookie cases," he murmured, like he didn't want the words to settle too firmly in the air.
By the time his eyes lowered again, Araki had finished dressing, the fabric hugging him in stark folds that cut against the lamplight. He smoothed down the shirt absently, a gesture that looked more habitual than necessary.
"As a detective," he said quietly, not so much a statement as a reminder.
Elian's gaze caught him then, held him. Something sharper, almost intrusive, flickered there.
"You got the headache again, didn't you?" His tone was careful, but not soft. "That's why you were standing there… naked, looking uncanny."
For a moment, silence pressed down. Araki's jaw tightened, his eyes shadowed. He didn't answer immediately, and that hesitation said more than his words ever could.
At last, he exhaled through his nose, almost a sigh. "Yeah… always these visions."
The lanterns hissed faintly in their glass cages, and the shadows seemed to lean in closer, listening.
Elian rubbed at his temple, fingers brushing through the strands of his hair like he was weighing whether to speak at all. The chair creaked under him as he leaned back, his voice finally breaking the pause, low and uneven.
"The royal guards came to me last night." His eyes flicked toward the window. "Said King Harald wants to meet me."
Araki, stilled for a moment. The motion hung there, unfinished, before his hand dropped away. His brows pulled together faintly, not out of shock, but out of the quiet calculation of a man who had already expected something.
"...King Harald?" His voice was calm, but it carried that distant timbre, the kind that asked more than the words themselves. "What for?"
Elian gave a short, almost careless shrug, though the tension in his shoulders betrayed him. His lips twisted into that half-smile he wore whenever the truth wasn't entirely in his grip.
"Didn't say. Likely a case. That's what everyone thinks I'm good for, isn't it?" His tone tried for lightness, but it clung too tightly to the walls of the room.
Araki let out a low hum, the kind that could have meant agreement or doubt. His fingers smoothed along the hem of his sleeve, a habitual movement that looked more like grounding than tidying. Then, with the faintest curve tugging at his mouth, he said
"Oh? A king's case. You'll be the empire's prized hound before long."
The words might have been teasing, but his eyes didn't soften. They lingered on Elian, shadowed and searching, as though he were waiting for something more to slip out.
Elian tilted his head, studying him with that same steady sharpness he always carried, then broke eye contact, as if retreating. "We'll see."
The lantern flame wavered, throwing their silhouettes long across the walls. Outside, the wind stirred faintly against the shutters, and for an instant, the silence between them seemed heavier than the mention of any king.
Elian's gaze flicked toward the closed window, as though the shadows outside might lean in to listen. Then he said, quieter than before, "By the way… come with me. To the royal palace."
Araki blinked, the faint crease between his brows deepening. A breath escaped him, something close to a laugh but too subdued to be called one. "Me? To the palace?
No. I—" he waved his hand vaguely, as if trying to brush the thought away. "I left a book at the university yesterday. Need to fetch it."
Elian's lips tugged sideways, the expression not quite a smile, not quite a grimace. "A book?" He leaned forward slightly. "You're really going to toss away a summons from King Harald over a lost page of ink?"
Araki's reply was slow, almost mumbled. "Not just ink. Notes. Scribbles you don't understand unless you're me."
For a moment, Elian only studied him, his eyes catching the lantern-light like cold glass. Then, he said, with a strange softness,
"C'mon. You've been the one who pulled me out of knots even I couldn't untangle. Codes, Ancient languages… even you solved those cases alone that i could never" His gaze sharpened. "And you fight better than you pretend not to."
Araki starts moving towards the mirror. "Doesn't matter. University first."
"University's closed today," Elian cut in, almost too quickly.
Araki stopped mid way. The tired sharpness in them wavered into something more alert. "Closed? Why?"
"You're really losing it," Elian said, half dry, half amused. He leaned back. "Today's a holiday."
Araki's hand came up to his temple, rubbing lightly as if the skin there had grown sore with thoughts pressing too long against bone. His voice carried the faint rasp of someone speaking through weariness.
"...Yeah," he muttered, the syllables stretching, almost disbelieving. "A holiday."
He resumed his slow steps toward the mirror, the lantern's glow bending faintly around his figure. His reflection looked paler than he imagined. Eyes shadowed, skin marked with the fatigue of nights that seemed longer than days.
He reached for the comb lying at the wooden ledge. Dragging it through his thick black hair, he coaxed the strands into some semblance of order. The sound was soft but grating, like thin wood against silk. For a moment, his motions were careful, deliberate, almost out of place for someone who usually treated himself as though appearance were an afterthought.
Behind him, Elian's voice broke the hush, calm but edged with that same insistence as before.
"So. You're coming?"
The question hung in the air, steadier than the wavering lantern flame.
Araki stilled, the comb pausing halfway through. His gaze in the mirror lingered, not on his hair, but on the faint exhaustion etched beneath his own eyes. A corner of his mouth lifted, not in amusement but in something harder to name.
He set the comb down with a muted clack, fingers spreading loosely as if the weight of the object had suddenly grown too heavy. Then, lifting both hands, he pushed through his hair with nothing but his palms, mussing it into a rougher, lived-in shape. It looked less orderly, but truer. An untidy crown that suited him better.
"...Uhh," he exhaled, a sound between hesitation and surrender. His gaze drifted from the mirror to Elian's reflection behind him. "Fine. Okay."
The word landed softly, but the edges of it carried a tension, like a thread drawn taut but not yet snapped.
At the same time.
Outside, the street waited in silence.
A narrow run of cobblestones stretched past crooked houses, their roofs leaning as though tired of holding against years of weather. The air carried a stillness, not the peace of morning, but the kind that felt like something had stepped aside, leaving a hollow behind.
By the outer wall of Araki's home, weathered wood darkened with time, a figure stood. His back pressed lazily against the planks, coat long enough reach his knee. A hat sat low, brim tilting forward, hiding his eyes in shadow. His face was there, but not obscured, as if the sun itself refused to reach it.
A cigarette rested on his lips. Dry. Lifeless. The sharp light of noon pressed down hard, but the thin roll of paper gave off no smoke, no ember. His hands stayed buried deep in his coat pockets, unmoving, almost careless.
For a moment, nothing. The stillness held, the street offering only the sound of faint wind sliding over uneven stone.
Then, without spark, without match, the cigarette at his mouth burned alive. A soft hiss, paper curling in sudden flame. Smoke unfurled upward in pale ribbons, bending oddly in the sun, as though it was lighter than it should have been, thinner, too quick to vanish.
The man didn't flinch. His lips tightened around the cigarette as though this was not fire but breath, as though it had been waiting all along.
The wall behind him creaked once under his weight. Just once. Then stilled again.