The swing hangs in its lonely circle of light, chains whispering whenever I breathe. Past the edge of that pale ring, the dark is absolute—like the world forgot to load.
Here he was again
Chelsea steps into the glow like she was always there. Black cat, green eyes, patient tail.
"Your body said it for you," she tells me, almost kind. "You couldn't keep it down."
"It was days ago," I say. As if that makes it smaller.
"Your stomach doesn't keep a calendar." She sits under my knees, tail curling into a question mark. "You keep putting on 'fine' like a mask. It fits your face. It doesn't fit your pulse."
"I'm functional," I try.
"You're hollow," she says, no judgment, just diagnosis. "Like a house with the lights off and someone still walking around inside."
I watch the circle of light, wishing it would widen or wink out. "It's over I'm fine I won't collapse in front of her again ."
"The moment is over," she says. "The reasons aren't. And she doesn't have time for you to pretend otherwise."
"I know." It comes out too fast.
"You act like you don't. Or like you can buy extra days on credit." She stretches, long and silent. "Every hour you waste is an hour she never gets back."
"I'm not wasting hours...." Even here, it sounds thin.
"Then why are you walking into Maihou again?"
The chain creaks when I nudge the swing a thumb's width. "Because she asked."
"You could say have said no."
"Not to her," I admit. The truth is small and heavy.
"Then say the truth plainly," Chelsea says. "You're doing it for her. Not for you."
"I owe her," I say, knuckles whitening around the chain. "If you saw the hallway—"
"I'm telling you not to confuse being her hope with being alive," she says. "You've been using her a purpose of existence, A reason for you to live. You have your own body to take care of and needs." It looks deeply at me "If you can't take care of yourself how can you Take care of her?"
I try for a laugh and don't get there. "Wise words from a professional cup-knocker." It was right and rational. But he has long foregone rationality
She blinks, unbothered. "Play because she asked. But don't lie about the price. And don't forget the other clock."
"The one over her head," I say.
"The one over both of you." Her ears angle forward. "Time is cruel. If you waste it, you're crueler."
"I just want to save her."
It looks at me and says words that spin my head "Just make sure there is still a person there for her after you saved her."
My vision goes white
The light thins, like a breath leaving. She backs into the dark like it's home. "Wake up, Kousei...." He heard faintly
Suddenly he was jolted awake
Hands clamp my shoulders. "Kousei! Up! Now!"
Tsubaki's face is right there when my eyes open—ponytail tight, jacket zipped, the you'd-better-move look she saves for bad umpires and me.
"What time—"
"Time to go!"She yanks the blanket off me like she's starting a lawn mower. Cold air slaps my arms. I'm still in a pajama shirt that said "No life is enough" in all black.My hair has invented new directions. My eyes feel like the bottom of a coffee cup.
"Five minutes," I bargain.
"You get thirty seconds." She thunks a canvas bag by the door—dress shoes, Dress shirt and pants,the clunk of a comb. "They're waiting."
"They—?"
We're at the door before the question's done. It slides open and morning dumps in: clear blue, bicycle bells, someone's breakfast drifting out of a window. Kaori and Watari are parked at the curb, bouncing on their heels like a relay handoff is late. Watari's pacing, phone in one hand, grin wired to a car battery. Kaori's bow case is slung over her shoulder; her eyes are laser pointers aimed straight at me.
"There he is," Watari crows. "Sleeping Beauty, late edition."
Kaori takes one look—pajama shirt, wrong hair, wrong face—and throws her hands up. "You cannot be serious. Today?"
"I have his stuff," Tsubaki says, hoisting the bag like evidence. "He'll change there."
"He'll change now if he tries to run," Kaori mutters, then plants herself. "Checklist. Shoes? Shirt? Brain?"
"Two of three," I say. "Brain's shipping tomorrow."
"Unacceptable." She glares past me at the sky like it owes us time, then jerks her chin down the street. "We're late."
"Very late," Watari echoes, already jogging in place like it might shave seconds off. "Go!"
Tsubaki shoves a convenience-store rice ball into my hand as we launch. "Eat."
"I—"
"Eat."
I tear the wrapper and chew. We run. The neighborhood blurs—laundry slapping on lines, a scooter whining, buses coughing. Kaori sets a sharp pace, breath steady, steps neat. Tsubaki holds my shoulder line, nudging me back to the sidewalk every time I drift. Watari jogs backward for a few strides just to grin at us, then spins and opens up because of course he can.
"You look like you slept fourteen minutes," Watari pants
"That's a generous estimate ," I get out.
Kaori cuts me a side-eye while keeping tempo. "You always pick the worst days to be a ghost."
"The black cat interrupted my sleep," I say. It slips out before I can choose not to.
Watari barks a laugh. "Excuses by your spiritual advisor!"
"Your dream cat..." Tsubaki mumbles, then, softer, to me: "You okay?"
"I'm moving," I say. It's not an answer. It's everything I have.
Left at the stingy vending machine. Right past the corner where the wind always ambushes you. Streets widen. Glass buildings start pretending they were always here. The sidewalk fills with kids in pressed clothes and parents in polite panic, cases and garment bags knocking lightly like distant applause.
"Is that it?" Tsubaki asks, pointing ahead.
At the end of the avenue a hall rises like a ship moored on land—broad stone steps, glass doors like teeth, banners snapping in the light breeze.
"That's it," Watari whistles. "Huge."
Even from here the building hums. Not sound—expectation. My ribs cinch down a notch. The last time I walked toward stairs like that, the lights boiled the world down to shapes and the melody felt like a wire across a canyon. My hands remember. So does the part of me that found a trash can because a hospital hallway decided to replay itself in public.
"Don't disappear," Tsubaki says, low. She doesn't slow.
"I'm here," I say. The truth and not.
Kaori hears the drop in my voice and bumps me with her fist like we're joking. "Hey."
"Hey."
"You're going to do it," she says, not pep talk, just declaration. "And if you don't, we'll fake it until you do."
"Comforting," I mutter, and feel the corner of my mouth consider moving.
"Eat real food after," Tsubaki adds. "Not rumors."
"Rumors?" Watari asks.
"He thinks egg sandwiches are meals," she says.
I protest on principle"They are, they have pr-"
"No," Kaori and Tsubaki say together instantly cutting me off
A red light halts us at the last big intersection. We bounce in place on the curb like four wind-up toys. Cars glide by, indifferent. My heart writes its own tempo. The dream's residue hasn't burned off; Chelsea's voice keeps threading through other sounds: Do it because she asked. Don't lie about why.
Kaori glances up at me. Her eyes are bright and sharp and worried, all at once. "Wipe that funeral face," she orders. "This is supposed to be exciting."
"I'm full of excitement" I lie.
"Your face disagrees," she says, but her mouth twitches like she wants to forgive me in advance.
The walk signal chirps and we explode off the curb. The hall swells, closer, closer, until it's the only thing ahead. The steps swarm with kids, parents, teachers with clipboards. Banners snap. Somewhere a scale leaks out of a practice room and is swallowed by the crowd. A staffer stands at a folding table rubber-banding programs, losing the fight.
"Shoes?" Kaori asks as we hit the base of the steps and squeeze into the current.
"In the bag," Tsubaki answers for me.
"Shirt?"
"In the bag."
"Comb?"
"Not needed.." I say, raking my fingers through my hair.
"Water," Tsubaki says, lifting a bottle out of the bag and shoving it at my chest mid-stride. "Sip. Small. Now."
I do, because she'll pour it over my head if I don't.
Watari tips his chin toward the banners with last year's winners. "We do the thing, then we go heckle track. Motivation."
"Encouragement," Tsubaki corrects.
"Same thing," he grins.
We stop where the steps start, our momentum stacking in a clumsy line. Up close, the stone feels cooler, the building bigger, the noise taller. The doors breathe people in and out.
Kaori hooks two fingers in the strap of my bag and tugs, small and sure. "Ready?"
No. "Yeah."
"Good." She squares her shoulders, already in coach mode. "We go up. You change. We find your number. We do this."
"Don't trip," Watari adds, entirely unhelpful.
"Not funny," Tsubaki says, but her hand hovers near my back like a guardrail anyway.
I look up at the banners, at the glass, at the stair that's about to turn into a runway. My stomach is stone and fuel at the same time. My hands feel numb. That's something.
"Okay," I say, to the steps, to the day, to the cat that isn't here. "Okay."
We take the first stair together. The city noise thins. The hall waits. We're outside it, close enough to count the doors, close enough to hear the building's quiet hum of rules and pianos and paper and names—and for one breath more, not inside yet.
The steps pull us up and the lobby hits all at once—cool air, banners, parents with tote bags, kids in uniforms, a staffer losing a battle with rubber bands and programs. Sound stacks into a polite roar: shoes on tile, whispered panics, a scale escaping from somewhere and getting swallowed by the room.
Watari snags two programs, flips one to Tsubaki without looking, then cranes toward the wall-sized assignment board. Kaori is already moving, eyes locked on the grid of taped names and numbers like it owes her money.
"Find him," she says.
"On it." Watari goes up on his toes.
I hang back half a step, the bag strap biting into my palm. The building hums. I can feel the piano two floors away like a storm you can't see yet. Kaori glances over her shoulder to make sure I'm still here. I lift the bag—bathroom, then warm-up—and nod.
I turn, meaning to follow the little stick-figure sign. Then I see the other corridor: wide, quiet, a soft slope down, a door that probably says STAFF. No crowds. No clipboards. It looks like oxygen.
I drift.
"Arima." Tsubaki's voice slices across the lobby.
Two more steps.
"HEY!" Kaori this time, not a word so much as a thrown shoe.
I turn just as she barrels in and shoulder-checks me off trajectory. My bag slips;we ping off the wall and stop, both breathing hard.
"Ow..."I say, more surprised than hurt. "What—"
"Wrong way, genius." She jams a paper into my chest. I grab it out of reflex
Watari and Tsubaki slide in behind her, both staring down the corridor I was about to marry. Watari deadpans, "Ah yes, the legendary Hall of Janitors. Very prestigious."
Tsubaki doesn't joke. She just gives me the flat, disappointed look coaches save for kids who forget which base is which.
I look down at the paper. My name. A number.
"Your entry," Kaori says. "We found it."
"Ah," I say, brain catching up. "My number."
Her finger taps the line, businesslike and bright at the same time. "Köchel number 265! Mozart's variations on Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star!"
She looks up, eyes nearly glowing a warm smile. A second beat, separate, softer: "The stars are shining over your head."
Two beats. Two sentences. Her smile is all excitement. My throat tightens anyway.
K. 265. Same piece. Same trap—cheerful on the surface, little knives in the corners. I see lights and a small, shaking version of me that never learned how to breathe under them. For a second the lobby tilts.
My face likely looked like it could be described as just having been to a funeral.
"Kousei...."Kaori says softly, reading it off my face. She was giving me that frown that hurt my heart.
"I see it," I manage. And I do. All of it.
Watari leans in with helpful nonsense. "Crowd pleaser, man. Everybody knows the tune. You can punt it into the sun."
"Focus," Tsubaki says, not to him.
Kaori doesn't look away. "Show some life. This is supposed to be exciting... right..?" She looks at my eyes with a strangely vulnerable look
The room presses at my ears—programs, shoes, names called from somewhere. Chelsea's voice threads through it: Do it because she asked. Don't lie about why.
"Sorry," I say, because it's the only clean word that fits. I make a smile. It feels cracked. "Just tired."
Concern elbows into Kaori's glare. She's still bristly, just with the bristles aimed at the problem and not me.
I lift a hand and cup her cheek because touch helps me land in my own skin and exist in this room. Warm. Real. Alive. Her eyes jump wider, then soften, steel still there.
"I'll get first place for you, blondie," I tell her, half joke, half vow.
She flushes at the contact and scowls through it. "Fine. You better. But it's not for me. It's for you..." A mutter, almost not a sound: "...It shouldn't be for me."
"It's not," I lie, then tack on the part that keeps me moving. "It's because you asked."
Her expression does three things at once—don't be stupid / thank you / I'm still mad. Tsubaki watches like she's ready to tackle me if I try any more detours. Watari looks like he's enjoying premium teen drama.
"Okay," Kaori says, snapping back to coach mode. She folds the entry sheet and tucks it into my hand like a ticket. "Bathroom. Change. Then warm up. Room C, third floor. Don't vanish."
"Copy," I say.
"Stop saying copy," she snaps automatically.
Tsubaki materializes a water bottle from the bag and slaps it into my palm. "Small sips. Now."
I drink, because ignoring her would result in hydration by force. She studies my face for a beat longer than is comfortable. "After you play, you come straight back to us," she says. "No solo brooding."
"Understood."
Watari taps my shoulder twice. The grin dims just enough to show the real person under it. "We're right here, man."
I nod. The floor stops feeling like a moving walkway. "Right. Bathroom, board, warm-up."
"Not board," Kaori says, exasperated. "We already did the board. You just do the things that require your hands."
"Those, yes." I hitch the bag on my shoulder. The strap creaks. "I'll see you after I get first place."
Watari thumbs-ups like an idiot. Tsubaki rolls her eyes like a prayer. Kaori gives me a look that says I'll hold you to that.
This time I take the correct corridor—the one with COMPETITOR in friendly all-caps and arrows even I can't misread. Kaori matches me for two steps and then plants both hands in the middle of my back and shoves.
"Go," she says. One word, all force.
"I'm going," I say, and mean it.
The competitor hallway is cooler, carpeted, a quiet river of kids and parents moving in an orderly trickle. A volunteer points, smiles, crosses off numbers. From behind a door, a few bars of a too-fast run leak out and die. Someone whispers a bar number like a prayer.
I look back at Kaori one last time looking in her eyes. She makes a shooing motion as Tsubaki and Watari gave me a thumbs up.
I smile slightly and turn around entering the hall
Time for the Maihou, again...