"Did you just touch me?" Yuki blurted out.
I looked down at my hand. I expected it to be freezing cold—frostbitten, numb, blue, anything.
But my hand was fine. Touching Yuki had been just like touching another person for a fraction of a second – real. Tangible.
Now she was a faded photograph again. The same comforting cold emanating from her like the chill from a winter's day.
But everything was different now.
"Yeah," I said. "We just touched."
Her mouth dropped open. "Oh," she said, like we'd just finished a casual breakfast. "That's never happened before."
I shook my head, trying to figure everything out. "You mean that's never happened?"
Yuki shrugged. "I'm not sure… but I know I can knock things over sometimes. Maybe this was like that? Just for a second."
She looked at me with her glowing blue eyes, suddenly full of hope.
"Maybe we can do it again," she whispered more to herself than to me.
I looked at my hand once more.
Normal. Nothing. Then I looked back at Yuki.
"Did you want to try?"
She nodded and reached out slowly.
I reached out, feeling colder the closer we got.
And we went to touch – and slipped straight through one another.
She flinched, her head falling forward as if she'd just somehow failed.
She spent the rest of the night pretending that it didn't bother her.
"Don't worry about it, Ryu," she said, floating away. "It's not your fault. It was just a fluke. That's all it was, really. I shouldn't have expected anything more."
She drifted to the other side of the room, beside my guitar. I heard her sigh from where I sat.
I felt exhausted, but more than that, I felt guilty. Guilty for getting her hopes up. Guilty for being relieved that I hadn't changed more. Guilty for how much I wanted to make it happen again.
Shion's bite was doing something to me, but this feeling—this worry for Yuki—had nothing to do with that. This was all me.
I looked at the pile of books beside me and suddenly my homework felt so small. Insignificant. Like it belonged to someone else entirely.
I had more important things to do.
My meditation mat felt amazing as I sat down beside the futon. I crossed my legs, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. Just like Yuki taught me.
"In through your nose… out through your mouth," I whispered.
Don't worry about 'clearing your mind'. Just be here now.
But I kept returning to Yuki.
Not just her disappointment but the fragile look in her eyes. She'd put so much hope into that single touch, and I didn't want her to feel alone anymore.
I felt a chill beside me. Quietly, I cracked an eye open, peeking sideways.
Yuki was floating beside me, trying to meditate too. Her pale hair drifting as though underwater.
Something deep hit my chest.
I always noticed how pretty she was.
Even before I could see her like a photograph. I knew.
Shion's bite had nothing to do with that.
Then, I saw Yuki crack one eye open—peeking at me.
And she saw me.
Then she blushed as I burst out laughing.
Later, I tried to sleep.
I closed my eyes, and as tired as I was, it didn't take long. The room slowly faded as I drifted.
When I opened my eyes, I stood in the Meadowbrook Mall. I half expected to hear distorted, synthetic music and see flashing neon lights. But this time the mall was a shadow of itself.
It was dark. Empty.
Nothing moved.
I could hear my own heartbeat.
The air was thick, heavy, damp—like the steam-filled halls of Shin'yume-sou.
The mall's crumbling cracked brick wall stretched out before me. Rows of empty stores, yawning black chasms.
And then a soft golden glow ahead.
Lights, throwing dancing shadows on the ground.
Brass-mounted lights lined the hallway walls, casting flickering—uneven shapes.
Steam rolled down the hallway, carrying the faint smell of incense.
Warm, gooey water clung to my skin, making me feel clammy.
I wasn't in the mall anymore. I was back in the onsen.
Barefoot, I walked forward, the warm humidity clinging to my skin. Sweat beaded along my forehead, my nightshirt sticking to my chest.
Ahead, someone moved.
A girl.
I could tell by the way she moved, her hips swaying back and forth.
She was not just a girl.
She was something more.
A tail swayed lazily behind her.
No. Two tails.
Then —they shifted, growing together like a mutated balloon.
The two tails became wide and fluffy in the hall's shifting lights.
Her raccoon tail bounced playfully ahead as she skipped down the onsen's hallway.
"You'd better catch up, Andrew-sama, otherwise, you'll be chasing a ghost!" she teased.
Azuki's playful voice. Natsumi's feline whine.
The onsen's shifting, swirling mist all around me.
Then—a flash of fire. Fur. Red.
I realized I had walked out of the onsen entirely.
I was outside, walking on the forest path with Yuki. I could see her, and we were walking together.
Her warm presence at my side felt comforting.
But not as comforting as feeling her hand in mine.
"Oh," she whispered suddenly, her smile fading. "I'm so sorry, Andrew. But you knew I wasn't supposed to be here anyway…"
I looked down and saw her hand slipping through mine.
I looked up in time to see her blue eyes fading.
I reached for her—she was already gone.
Suddenly, I was standing inside Crescent Moon Academy. I knew these hallways, but that didn't mean they felt comforting.
I watched as the passing classrooms became dorms.
One was up ahead, its door ajar.
No.
I wanted to stop, but I had to look inside—though I already knew what I would find.
Beyond the doorframe, I could see Shion hunched over Inego on the floor. His hand lying still beside him where it was once reaching out for me.
My heart sank.
"Shion?" I asked, stepping closer.
She was crying, her sleek, black hair trembling as it fell over her face. Her whole body shook as she tried to force tears that would never come.
My heart stopped. "Shion?"
She wouldn't look up.
"I killed him, Andy," she said through clenched teeth.
My real name hit like ice water through my veins. I took another step, trembling, unsure what to say or do.
She wasn't holding Inego.
It was me. My body.
My 44-year-old body lay sprawled out before her. Dead. My eyes just as flat and waterless as Shion's.
Then Shion finally lifted her head—and I saw that her hair wasn't black at all. It was red. Orange.
The color of fire.
Lana looked up at me, her face smiling and eyes full of mirth.
And she was laughing.
Her laughter filled the room, echoing endlessly. "How do you like your youkai girls?"
NO!
Shion. Yuki. Hibana. Natsumi. Azuki.
All of them. Broken.
—and woke up gasping for air, clutching at my chest. The dark ceiling above me swirled, the echoes of Shion's laughter still ringing in my ears. My heart thundered painfully as the last fragments of the dream faded away.
"Ryu? What's wrong?" Yuki hovered anxiously beside me, her eyes wide and worried.
I swallowed hard, shaking my head as I tried to banish the image of Shion/Lana holding my own limp body.
"Nothing. Just a bad dream," I whispered.
I hoped.
Our room was already a soft blue. I looked at the clock on my desk.
It was close enough to morning, and I doubted I'd be going back to sleep after that nightmare anyway.
For a second, I wondered if it had been Lana's doing. It would have been so easy to tell myself 'That damn fox' and leave it at that.
But… If I blamed her, then it meant I wasn't responsible for anything I was doing.
I looked across the room at Yuki, floating happily by my desk. Glad that I was awake, and she had someone to talk to.
I was glad too. But I was also responsible for her.
I owned that decision.
Maybe that nightmare was my own doing too.
I started getting dressed and looked outside at the onsen below.
And saw Hibana, already up, dressed, and getting ready for her morning jog before breakfast. I'd need her help to even stand a chance against Ken.
Remembering the way she slammed the door in my face the last time we'd spoken, there was no guarantee that she'd even hear me out.