Red.

Blood red.

Glowing.

Two points of light in the darkness that found her face immediately.

What looked out from behind them was not human. Did not pretend.

Hana’s voice stopped in her throat.

Her lungs stopped.

Her body still denied to move.

The silhouette came toward her.

It grew as it moved. Taller. The shoulders widened.

The head tilted at an angle that necks didn’t reach.

The darkness thickened around its edges and pressed the walls back.

The red eyes stayed fixed on her face.

They did not blink.

They bled light down the cheeks below them, two thin trails of red in the black.

Hana tried to step back.

Her legs did not work.

She tried to make a sound.

Nothing came.

Her heart was a drum she could feel in her fingertips, in her teeth, in the back of her eyes.

Her skin had gone cold and dry.

Her chest pulled in air that didn’t reach her lungs.

The thing was still coming, still growing, filling the hallway, the red eyes bleeding and the darkness breathing and Finally—

Her legs gave out.

She hit the floor.

Her eyes stayed open for one second, fixed on the ceiling.

Then they closed.

She was unconscious before her cheek touched the ground.

The silhouette shrank.

The wrong proportions corrected.

The red light faded to two still points and then to ordinary red eyes, and Shizuka stood in the hallway in her crop top and jacket and skirt, looking down at Hana’s unconscious body on the floor, arms loose at her sides.

She looked at her for a moment.

"Bitch," she spat and stepped over her.

She went to the window at the end of the hallway and opened it.

The night air came in cold.

She looked to the side, to the wall of the adjacent building, to the shadow pressed flat against it.

The ghost looked back at her.

It was male.

It had been watching from outside.

Waiting.

Now it pressed itself flat against the wall, eyes fixed on her, not daring to move.

Shizuka watched it for a moment.

"It’s your turn now," she said.

She placed one hand on the window frame, stepped out, and dropped into the darkness below.

Then she was gone.

The ghost did not move.

It stayed there for a long moment.

It had felt what she was.

Not human.

Not a ghost.

Something older. Something dangerous. Far beyond him.

And yet, there was no hostility in it. No threat directed at him. Instead, there was a strange sense of alignment, as if they stood on the same side.

It did not understand why.

But it was grateful.

She had made this easy.

Inside the apartment, the girl lay alone.

Unprotected.

Unconscious.

Her spiritual presence had collapsed to almost nothing. What little remained leaked out in thin traces, faintly tainted, close enough to his own nature to feel familiar.

The ghost moved to the window.

It passed through the glass without resistance, drifted down the hallway, and came to a stop above her.

Hana lay on the floor, hair spread around her, face slack and unguarded.

It had waited a long time for this.

It lowered itself closer.

It smiled.

.

The platform was quiet.

A few people stood spaced along it, the late crowd, all of them too tired to look at anyone else.

Kaito stood near the edge with his hands in his pockets, staring at the tracks, thinking about the kiss.

Her lips.

Her fingers curled into his shirt. The faint color in her cheeks when she pulled back and looked at him.

He had been trying not to smile for the past ten minutes.

It was not working.

ROMANCE...

He had seen it in movies.

The way people talk about it. The way they acted after.

This was the first time he had actually felt it.

That strange, light feeling in his chest.

The flutter in his stomach that kept coming back no matter how much he tried to ignore it. It was hard to put into words.

It was... good.

Warm. Exciting.

He wanted more of it.

He pulled out his phone.

Her name was right there in his contacts.

He stared at it for a moment, then slipped the phone back into his pocket.

A second later, he took it out again.

What are we.

That was the problem.

She had kissed him.

He had kissed her back.

She had said goodnight with that quiet smile and gone inside.

He had walked all the way to the station grinning at the ground like an idiot.

And now he was here, standing on the platform, with that question sitting heavy in his chest, refusing to go anywhere.

It had to mean something.

It did mean something.

He just wanted to hear her say it.

He finally called her.

The phone rang.

Once. Twice. Three times. He watched the track and waited.

She didn’t pick up.

He tried again.

The ringing went on and on, and he stood there listening to it until it stopped.

He lowered the phone.

Why isn’t she picking my call?

She could be in the bathroom.

She could be asleep already.

She could have left her phone in her bag.

There were a dozen ordinary explanations. He ran through them quickly, one after another, each one reasonable, each one harmless.

Somewhere in the middle of that list, something shifted.

The explanations stopped feeling ordinary.

Shizuka’s voice surfaced at the back of his mind.

Casual. Final.

Spoken over the last bite of her sandwich.

That girl is going to die soon. She’s being haunted by a ghost.

Ghost.

He had almost forgotten.

He had been with her all day. Her spiritual energy had looked clean, only a little dull.

It was too early.

He went still on the platform.

The metro arrived.

The doors slid open.

People stepped past him and got on.

The chime sounded.

He looked at the open doors.

The people inside stared at him. Confused.

Then he turned away.

Through the turnstile. Up the stairs. Out into the night air.

And then he was running.