Aira sat on the ledge overlooking the campus, legs swinging idly over the edge as early evening settled in. The sky was already beginning to bruise into shades of violet and indigo, the kind of dusk that made everything feel quieter than it really was. She hummed under her breath as she waited, more restless than she let on—partly because she hated being early, and partly because her head was buzzing with too many thoughts, most of them vigilante related.

  A moment later, movement caught her attention. Hyakki vaulted up onto the ledge beside her with practiced ease, landing lightly before settling into a seat at her side.

  “How are you feeling?” Aira asked, glancing over.

  “Better than a few days ago,” Hyakki replied. “That’s for sure.”

  Aira snorted. “You couldn’t have picked a worse day to get food poisoning.”

  “My bad,” he said dryly. “I’ll make sure not to eat sushi the next time I’m supposed to meet your brother.”

  She grinned, nudging him with her shoulder. “You better. If you flake again, I’ll personally track you down and end you.”

  Hyakki tilted his head slightly. “I’m not sure who’s scarier. You, or him.”

  “Oh, me. Easily,” Aira said without missing a beat. “The only scary thing about Akio is that he genuinely thinks writing sixty page essays is fun.”

  The thought made her shake her head, but her expression brightened almost immediately, energy bubbling back up.

  “Speaking of terrifying,” she continued, perking up, “did you see what happened at the most recent Dawn Hound sighting?”

  Hyakki shook his head. “I’m not too caught up on vigilante news. You’ll have to fill me in.”

  “So,” Aira said, gesturing animatedly, “you know how the Dawn Hound can recreate blueprints and parse data just by touching stuff, right? Now imagine that—but scaled up to an entire facility. Like, the whole building. He mapped everything. Structural weak points, movement patterns, all of it. Witnesses said it was like he already knew where everything was going to break.”

  Hyakki listened closely, eyes focused as she spoke. When she finished, he exhaled quietly. “Damn. I had no idea he could do that. That’s… a really strong ability.”

  “Right?” Aira said, nodding eagerly. “I have so many questions about it. I haven’t even finished writing my piece on the Hollow reappearing, which—by the way—is also completely insane.”

  At that, Hyakki’s expression went unreadable.

  “Ah. Right,” he said. “That… happened too.”

  Aira leaned back on her hands and tipped her head up toward the darkening sky. “Yeah. It’s really back this time. No fakes, no maybes. Last reported sighting had it fighting the Twin Hounds.”

  Her fingers tightened slightly against the stone ledge beneath her palms.

  “I’ll get closure this time,” she said, more to herself than to him. “I’ll unmask it. I’ll find out the truth before it disappears again.”

  Hyakki was quiet for a long moment. Then, carefully, he asked, “That’s why you started your blog… right?”

  Aira nodded, gaze still distant. “Yeah. Mostly. I started it for myself at first—I didn’t expect The Skylight Scoop to blow up the way it did. Turns out people really like my coverage.”

  She smiled faintly. “Guess I was kind of born to be a journalist. Somewhere along the way it stopped being a hobby and turned into real passion.”

  She shrugged. “Now I spend basically all my time on it. Not because I have to. Because I want to.”

  Hyakki glanced at her. “Do you do anything else in your free time?”

  Aira paused. Thought about it. Then laughed under her breath when she realized she didn’t really have an answer.

  “Not really,” she admitted. “Journalism—and chasing vigilantes—is kind of a full time commitment.”

  Hyakki laughed quietly at that, the sound brief but genuine. “Fair enough. Things are always happening, and if you want the scoop, you have to be the first one there.”

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  Aira tilted her head, curiosity sparking again. “What about you? What do you do in your free time? You still collect pocket knives?”

  “Sometimes, if I see one that’s interesting.” He hesitated, then added, almost like it surprised him too, “I’ve… kind of gotten into cooking lately.”

  “COOKING?” Aira lit up instantly, disbelief and delight crashing together. “No way. What do you even make?”

  Hyakki answered deadpan, without missing a beat. “I look at the pictures and follow the recipes.”

  Aira burst out laughing. “You? Following instructions?? I thought that was impossible given your slight dyslexia!”

  Hyakki shrugged. “It’s gotten better now. I can actually read without everything feeling scrambled all the time.”

  “Well, then you have to let me try your cooking,” she said, still smiling.

  “All right,” he replied dryly. “But don’t blame me if you get sick.”

  Aira snorted, then suddenly turned to him again, eyes lighting up with a memory. “Oh my god—wait. Do you remember the time we baked that cake for the professor we hated, and it literally exploded when he tried to cut it?”

  Hyakki smirked. “Of course I remember. That came after the time we were caught painting mustaches over an old mural.”

  They both laughed, the sound easy and unguarded, slipping into a rhythm that felt painfully familiar. They talked about old pranks, late nights, shared classes, all the small stupid things they’d done together back then.

  By the time the laughter finally died down, Aira’s face actually hurt. She leaned back on her hands, exhaling.

  “Wow,” she said softly. “We really did do a lot together, huh. We were… really close. So close that people thought we were dating.”

  The thought lingered just long enough for her to consider it. Then she sat up straighter and waved it off. “But yeah. It was never anything like that. We were just close friends.”

  She glanced over at Hyakki.

  He hadn’t responded right away. One arm rested loosely over his knee as he looked down toward the path beneath the ledge, long hair slipping over one shoulder. He looked thoughtful—like he was weighing something, turning it over in his mind, deciding whether or not to let it surface.

  Then he looked back at her and smiled. It was faint, a little amused, but unmistakably sincere.

  “Actually,” he said, “I did have a bit of a crush on you back then.”

  Aira blinked.

  “Wait, what? You did?”

  Hyakki nodded, still calm. “Not anymore. I mean… can you blame me? You were kind of the only person who talked to me.”

  She stared at him, then let out a breathy laugh. “Okay, but that’s because you glared at everyone else like a feral cat.”

  “I did,” he admitted. “And it usually worked. For some reason, you were completely unaffected.”

  He hesitated, then continued, voice quieter. “It was annoying at first. But over time… it kind of grew on me. Maybe a little too much.”

  Aira looked down at her lap, fingers curling slightly against the fabric of her clothes, still trying to process it.

  “Huh,” she murmured. “Wow. I genuinely had no idea.”

  Hyakki nodded and turned his gaze toward the distant horizon.

  “I never planned on telling you,” he said after a moment. “I felt… guilty about it. About having a crush at all.”

  He paused, fingers tightening slightly against his knee. “And honestly? It was part of why I disappeared for so long.”

  The words settled between them, quiet and heavy, carrying far more weight than the laughter that had come before.

  Aira stared at him for a moment longer than she meant to, then let her gaze drift back toward the horizon, where the sun was sinking low and bleeding orange into the sky. The warmth of it pressed gently against her face, but her thoughts were elsewhere.

  “What do you mean by that?” she asked quietly.

  Hyakki tilted his head, the movement small, almost hesitant. His eyes softened, unfocused as if he were looking at something far away instead of the view in front of them.

  “There were… a lot of reasons,” he said after a beat. “Why I felt like I needed distance.”

  He shifted slightly, his expression distant. “I think, honestly, I just needed space. Time to sort it out on my own. I didn’t want to risk ruining what we had. Or put you in a weird position.”

  He exhaled. “Ghosting probably wasn’t the best way to handle that. But… it’s what I did. I was scared. Of what you’d think. Of messing things up.”

  Aira looked down at her lap, fingers curling slightly into the fabric of her clothes as she processed his words. Her mind drifted back to when she’d first met him. Hyakki had always been like that: a loner, quiet, a little intimidating because you could never quite tell what he was thinking. Most people had kept their distance.

  She hadn’t.

  For reasons she still couldn’t fully explain, she’d always just… talked to him. Teased him. Dragged him into things. And somehow, it had never crossed her mind that he might have felt something more. Not once.

  There was a strange knot in her chest now, tight and unfamiliar. She couldn’t tell if it was regret, confusion, or something else entirely. She wondered how she might have reacted if she’d known back then. Whether anything would’ve been different.

  She lifted her head, about to ask another question. “Do you—”

  The words died in her throat.

  Hyakki was gone.

  Aira blinked and looked around, startled, before spotting him down on the path below the ledge, already walking away with his hands tucked into his pockets. She hadn’t even felt him move.

  “Hey—wait up!” she called, sliding off the ledge and hurrying after him.

  She caught up quickly. Hyakki glanced over his shoulder, faint amusement flickering across his face.

  “Did you really mean that?” Aira asked, breathless more from emotion than exertion. “Everything you said?”

  He nodded casually. “Yeah. More or less.”

  She pouted, cheeks faintly flushed as she worked through it all, then frowned at him. “Okay, but—why didn’t you at least try? You could’ve told me, you know!”

  Hyakki shrugged, easy and unbothered. “Eh. Not really my style.”

  He glanced ahead again. “And let’s be honest. It probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway.”

  Aira smacked his arm without thinking.

  “Ugh—you’re the worst,” she snapped, glaring at him. “Don’t think I’m letting you walk away from this so easily.”

  She grabbed his sleeve before he could react. “We’re talking this out over dinner. Right now.”

  Before he could protest, she was already tugging him along, her irritation dissolving into familiar banter as they disappeared down the path together.

  And even as she laughed and complained and pulled him closer, Aira knew one thing for certain: she wasn’t ready to let him slip away again.

  ─ ? NEXT CHAPTER POV ? ─

  Damien