And no one was screaming.
Yusuke walked the lower district, hands in his pockets, watching.
A woman swept her storefront. Children walked in neat lines. Smiles that never faltered. No vigils. No protests. Just calm. The people moved like characters in a dream, present, functional, untethered from anything real.
NPCs. That's what Yusuke called them. Not with cruelty. With sadness. He'd been watching this his entire life.
The neon sign above the restaurant flickered twice. NARUTO. Underneath: "Ramen Worth Living For."
Mr. Yoshi stood behind the counter, white hair pulled back, stirring a pot the size of a barrel. "Yusuke! My favorite customer who never smiles. The usual?"
Yusuke sat at his stool. Ate in silence for a while. Then, casually.
"How are the kids, Mr. Yoshi?"
Yoshi''s stirring slowed for half a second. Then resumed.
"Yeah, they went missing about three months ago." A beat. "But that's alright. The Empress says we all must stay strong."
Yusuke smiled back. Small. Polite.
Inside, something turned cold.
Three months. His children. Gone. And he's quoting the Empress like it's a weather report.
He finished the ramen, left payment plus extra, and stepped back outside.
The sun was brighter now. More people filled the streets. All of them walking, talking, buying, selling, doing exactly what they were supposed to do.
He watched a woman laugh at something a vendor said. Her son had been reported missing six weeks ago. Yusuke had seen the notice himself.
She was laughing.
Not the laughter of someone in denial. Not the desperate, brittle laughter of someone holding themselves together. Just... laughter. Easy. Unbothered. Like the memory of her son had been folded up and tucked somewhere she couldn't reach.
Sleepwalkers. All of them. Moving through a life someone else designed.
Yusuke kept walking.
The fish stall sat near the edge of the market row, between a spice vendor and a woman selling hand-stitched quilts.
"Catfish," Yusuke said.
The vendor nodded, already reaching for the wrap. He knew the order by now.
Yusuke paid, took the parcel, and turned back toward the main road. The bag was cool against his forearm. He walked without hurry, weaving through the midday crowd with the kind of effortless spatial awareness that came from years of training, or years of watching.
He didn't see her.
She didn't see him.
Shoulder to shoulder. The catfish hit the ground. Paper split. Ice scattered.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Einstera dropped to her knees, hands reaching for the fish. Her silver-white hair fell across her face. Her wolf instincts twitched once.
He froze.
Then she froze.
Wait.
Catfish.
Someone's been leaving catfish at my door for weeks. Wrapped carefully. In a gift bag. No note. No name. Just... catfish. And it's always fresh. Always perfect. I've been eating it every time because it's, it's the best thing I've ever tasted, and I don't even know who's been.
And Yusuke is buying catfish.
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Yusuke. Is buying. Catfish.
Her heart slammed against her ribs so hard she was certain he could hear it. Wolf ears. Wolf heart. Everything louder, everything faster, everything more.
No. Stop. It could be anyone. Lots of people buy catfish. Probably. Maybe. Do they? How many people on this island even eat catfish? Oh gods.
She looked up.
"It's okay," Yusuke said. Calm. No irritation.
"I'll pay you back" her hands shook holding a few dollars in her hand
"Don't worry about it. I'll just buy more." He paused. "Where are you headed?"
"The... market. I'm going to the market too."
"We could walk together."
He said it like he was suggesting the weather might hold.
"Sure. Yeah. That's, yeah."
'Yeah, that's yeah.' Incredible. Truly the poet of the century.
They walked side by side. And said almost nothing.
Four blocks of silence during which Einstera opened her mouth to speak three times and closed it each time because nothing sounded right. Yusuke walked with his hands in his pockets, eyes scanning storefronts the way they always did.
At the market, they drifted through stalls, not quite together, not quite apart. Einstera stopped at the fish display.
"This is so good," she said, almost to herself.
"I'll buy some for you," Yusuke said.
"No, I wouldn't know what to do with it. I can't cook catfish."
"I can."
He can COOK catfish. The mystery person leaves catfish at my door. Yusuke buys catfish. Yusuke cooks catfish. What are the odds on this island?
Einstera bought sky-root greens, black vinegar, dried mushrooms, rice. Yusuke bought catfish. Two portions.
At the market's edge, bags in hand, she almost said it. Almost asked.
"Do you want to." She stopped. Pulled it back. "Never mind."
"Come over and cook it?" Yusuke finished.
"...Yeah."
"Sure."
He said SURE. Like coming to my house to cook fish is just a normal, not-at-all-terrifying thing. Okay. This is happening.
The walk to Einstera's apartment was quieter than the walk to the market, but different. The silence had shifted. It wasn't the rigid, panicked quiet of two people who didn't know what to say. It was softer. Something close to comfortable.
Almost.
They passed the eastern residential blocks, where the buildings stacked tight and the balconies leaned close enough to touch. Laundry lines stretched between windows. A cat watched them from a railing.
Einstera reached for her keys.
And hesitated.
Please, Xiu. Please be normal. Just this once. Just for one hour. Be a normal, functional human being. Please.
She unlocked the door. The first thing Yusuke saw was the socks. Dirty socks and under shirts on chairs, on the counter, dirty panties hanging from a lampshade. Empty bottles lined the windowsill. The apartment smelled faintly of stale alcohol.
"Sorry about the."
"It's fine." He set his bag down and started unpacking the catfish like the apartment wasn't a warzone.
That's when the bedroom door swung open.
Xiu emerged, hair tangled, eyes half-lidded, bottle of beer in hand, grin already spreading. Her eyes found Yusuke. Traveled slowly.
"Oh. Oh, is that Yusuke."
Einstera whispered "Why are your dirty clothes everywhere?"
Xiu "Who cares, real men love a dirty girl."
A low growl rumbled from Einstera's throat. Deep. Primal. Wolf-morpher instinct.
Xiu leaned toward Yusuke and whispered, loud enough for the room: "Maybe the three of us could have some fun."
Einstera moved. Wolf-fast. Grabbed Xiu, marched her to the bedroom, shoved her inside, locked the door.
"She can be a handful sometime" she said flatly.
"I know, I'm we're in the same honors class" Yusuke was already rinsing the catfish.
Einstera sulked
I'm such an idiot
He taught her step by step. Clean the fillet yourself. Salt both sides, not too much. Medium heat. Let the crust form. Don't touch it.
"Flip that one." He handed her the spatula. Their fingers brushed. Skin against skin, less than a second. Einstera pulled back like she'd touched the burner. Yusuke didn't react.
"Where did you learn this?" she asked.
"My brother."
"I didn't know you had a brother."
A pause. "Had."
The word landed quietly. No drama. Just a fact reclassified.
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay." He plated the fish. Squeezed citrus. "Try it."
Einstera took the first bite. And everything stopped.
Wolf-morphers didn't just taste food. Their palates were hundreds of times more sensitive, capable of isolating individual compounds the way a musician picks out a single instrument. She tasted the butter, the salt applied exactly ninety seconds before cooking, the fresh citrus, the clean oil heated to the perfect temperature.
She knew this flavor.
This is it. The exact same. The catfish on my doorstep, the one I've been eating for weeks. Same hand. Same technique. It's him. It's been him this whole time. No Maybe I just wnat it to be him.
"How is it?" Yusuke asked.
"...It's good." The understatement of her entire life.
They ate at the small table. Yusuke told her speed was impressive. She deflected, morpher genetics, wolf bursts, nothing special.
"I watch you run," Yusuke said. "It's not just fast. It's graceful. Peaceful. Like you're part of the air."
A beat. Then he sat back. "Not that I'm watching you all the time. I just, in training. I notice."
Einstera smiled. A real one. "I watch you too. The way you fight. No wasted movement. No ego. I think you're amazing."
Yusuke gazed into her eyes, then quickly looked away.
Quiet settled between them. Then Einstera asked, "Do you ever want to leave?"
"Every day."
Something in her shoulders released. "Me too. This place is suffocating. Everyone acts like Dragon Hive is the whole world. But it's a cage with a nice view."
"A cage people don't know they're in," Yusuke said.
They looked at each other, and the loneliness each carried, quietly, for years, was a little less heavy.
The light had gone amber. Late afternoon bleeding into evening. Neither had noticed the hours passing.
They'd moved to the couch. Closer than before. Einstera trailed off mid-sentence. Yusuke was looking at her. Not scanning. Not analyzing. Looking.
She leaned forward. He didn't pull back. His eyes dropped to her mouth. Then back up. Closer. She could smell cedar and salt and something electric.
Closer.
The bedroom door burst open.
"HIC" Xiu stumbled out, new bottle, wild grin. "You guys wanna play truth or dare?"
Yusuke stood. "I should go."
Einstera walked him to the door.
"Thank you," he said. "For today. I lost track of time."
"I'm sorry about Xiu."
"Don't." Gentle. Not a command. A kindness. "The day was worth it."
Worth it. He said the day was WORTH IT. The day with me was worth it.
"I'll see you in school tomorrow," she said, cheeks burning.
He nodded and walked away. Steady. Unhurried. Hands in his pockets.
Einstera pressed her back against the doorframe, slid to the floor, and exhaled like she'd been holding her breath for four hours.
It's him. The catfish. The doorstep. It's been Yusuke this whole time.
From inside the apartment, Xiu's muffled voice drifted through.
"So... is that a no on truth or dare?"
Einstera closed her eyes.
And smiled.