He looked at his phone.

Hana’s contact was still near the top of his messages.

Her name.

Her profile picture.

The last ’Goodbye’ she had sent him sitting underneath it.

A small system notification had appeared below the chat.

Delete inactive contact?

Kaito stared at it for a few seconds.

The train rocked gently beneath him.

Someone farther down the carriage coughed into their sleeve. A station announcement played overhead, distorted slightly through old speakers.

His thumb hovered over the screen.

He thought about deleting it.

Not because he wanted to.

Because some part of him felt like he was supposed to now.

Contacts sitting in your phone waiting for replies that would never come.

His chest tightened slightly.

Small.

Dull.

He pressed cancel.

The notification disappeared immediately.

Her name remained there.

Kaito locked the phone and slid it back into his pocket.

Then he leaned his head back against the metro seat and looked up at the ceiling while the carriage swayed softly around him.

He exhaled slowly.

Long enough that some of the pressure in his chest eased with it.

For now, it was enough.

.

.

The professor had forgotten his prescription glasses at the university.

He realized it at nine in the evening when he opened the case on his desk at home and found it empty.

He stood there for a moment staring at it, mildly annoyed at himself, then put his coat back on and drove to campus.

The university was empty by then.

The buildings had settled into nighttime quiet, long corridors lit by pale overhead lights, vending machines humming softly in distant corners.

His footsteps echoed faintly as he walked through the faculty wing toward his office.

The old man drifted beside him.

He always did when his son returned to the university late.

The professor unlocked his office, stepped inside, and immediately spotted the glasses sitting exactly where he had left them earlier that afternoon, folded neatly beside a stack of boobs.

"There you are," he muttered.

He picked them up, locked the office again, and started back toward the exit.

The old man followed.

Father and son moved together through the corridor, one alive, one dead.

The Sociology classroom sat along the route to the stairs.

The professor passed it without looking inside.

The old man glanced through the narrow window in the door.

Then stopped moving.

His son kept walking.

The old man remained where he was.

The classroom was dark.

Empty.

Rows of desks sat motionless beneath the faint spill of corridor light coming through the glass.

But someone was sitting in the third row.

The old man stared.

He had seen the figure before.

Briefly.

In the psychology classroom.

The last time, he had looked away too quickly.

He did not look away now.

The figure sat perfectly still in one of the student chairs, facing the front of the room.

Tall.

Even seated, the head and shoulders rose too high above the chair back.

Long black hair fell past the shoulders without shifting at all.

Darkness gathered around the figure in dense layers, thicker than the ordinary dark filling the classroom, enough that parts of the body disappeared into it.

But the shape underneath remained visible.

A woman.

Tall and full figured.

The curve of her shoulders and the weight of her frame visible even through the dark that clung to her.

Long fingers resting flat on the desk.

Kaito’s seat.

The old man’s expression changed slightly.

He drifted closer to the classroom door without realizing he had moved.

What are you?

The thought formed slowly.

You got anything to do with that boy?

The figure moved.

Its head turned toward him.

Slowly.

The movement did not stop until it was looking directly at him through the glass.

The old man could not clearly see the face.

The darkness around it was too dense.

But he felt the attention settle onto him completely.

Ancient.

Focused.

Heavy.

Every instinct he had carried into death screamed at once.

For years he had existed without heartbeat, without breath, without hunger, without pain.

Fear had faded from him over time until he had almost forgotten the shape of it.

Now it returned all at once.

Sharp enough to hollow him out.

The thing in the classroom kept looking at him.

Still.

Unmoving.

Waiting.

The old man vanished.

One moment he stood outside the classroom door.

The next he was gone completely, removing himself from the corridor with a speed so absolute it left the air around the doorway faintly disturbed for half a second afterward.

Outside, he materialized on the passenger seat of his son’s car.

He stayed there.

Still.

Watching the goosebumps on his spiritual body.

Thinking about the boy who sat in that seat and had absolutely no idea what was watching him back.

Or Maybe he had.

.

.

Kaito had a free period after the class reassignment and nothing to do with it.

He had been at the university for weeks now and had seen almost none of it beyond the same repeated routes.

The front gate.

His classrooms. The cafeteria.

The same corridors outside.

So he walked.

No destination in mind.

Just turning whenever a hallway looked unfamiliar, letting the older sections of the campus pull him deeper into the west building where fewer students went.

The architecture changed gradually the farther he got from the main halls.

Narrower corridors. Older lights. Classroom doors with small dusted glass panels instead of wide windows.

The building grew quieter.

Kaito’s footsteps echoed softly as he moved through another corridor lined with unused classrooms.

Paper notices had been taped onto several doors.

STORAGE.

MAINTENANCE.

NOT IN USE THIS SEMESTER.

Dust had gathered lightly near some of the handles.

Near the end of the hallway, one of the rooms had its lights off.

There was movement behind the dusted glass.

Kaito slowed.

The shape behind the door shifted again.

Large.

Tall enough that the outline rose high across the glass panel.

Slow movement. Something lifting its arms.

His spiritual energy reacted before his thoughts fully did.

A cold pulse moved through him instinctively.

Kaito stepped toward the door carefully, keeping his footsteps quiet as he approached the dusty panel.

The figure moved again.

His heartbeat picked up slightly.

He reached the door.

Looked through the glass.

His brain stopped.

For one completely useless second it stopped functioning altogether.

The first thing he registered was pale skin.

The second was the complete absence of a top.

The classroom was dim, bathed in the weak, golden haze of late afternoon light filtering through the far windows.

It was just enough to perfectly highlight the girl standing near the teacher’s desk.

She had both arms raised behind her back, chest thrust forward as she struggled with the clasp of her bra.

With a soft click, she finally unhooked it.

A small, relieved sigh escaped her dark lips as she pulled the straps down her shoulders.

She slid the bra off completely, letting it drop onto the desk.

Her breasts were utterly exposed.

Perky, round and heavy for her slender frame.

Pale, soft flesh that jiggled gently with every frustrated move.

Her dark, pierced nipples were stiff from the cool air, the silver bars glinting obscenely as they caught the light.

Kaito knew he should back away.

He told his feet to move.

His body refused.

Then she turned.

For one full second they looked directly at each other through the narrow glass panel in the door.

Short black hair.

Dark, glossy lipstick.

Three silver piercings climbing her left ear.

And those perfect, perky breasts pointed straight at him.

His heart slammed against his ribs.

His face burned crimson from the neck up.

The girl’s eyes went wide.

They flicked from his face, down to her own naked chest, then back to him again.

Her dark lips parted in shock.

One second of dead, throbbing silence.

"YOU—"

"YOU AGAIN!!!" she shrieked, voice cracking with embarrassment.

Kaito was already moving.

" YOU FLITHY PERVERT!"

He turned and bolted down the corridor at full speed.

"HEY. HEY. YOU ABSOLUTE PERVERT—"

His shoes slammed against the floor as he ran.

"I KNOW YOUR FACE!"

He hit the stairwell door hard enough for it to bounce off the stopper.

"I KNOW YOU STUDY HERE!"

He took the stairs two at a time.

"I WILL FIND YOU—"

He nearly slipped turning the landing.

"WHY IS IT ALWAYS YOU?!"

Her voice echoed through the stairwell after him.

"WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME?!"

The stairwell door closed behind him.

Her voice became muffled.

The main gate swallowed the rest of it as he pushed through and out onto the street and kept walking for two full blocks before he stopped.

He stood on the pavement with his hands on his knees.

He looked at the sky.

His face was still burning.

"Why," he said quietly.

The city offered no answer.

A bicycle rolled past him.

Somewhere nearby, a door opened and shut again.

Farther away, a metro passed underground with a low distant rumble.

He put his hands in his pockets and walked.