Ayame Lane did not ask for an interview the way most people asked for things. She didn’t soften her request. She didn’t apologize for taking time. She didn’t wrap it in politeness like a cushion. She simply appeared at the co-op shed the next afternoon, notebook in hand, eyes bright with the kind of focus that turned ordinary moments into public record, and said, “Takumi-san, I want to speak with you privately.”

  Koji, who had been in the middle of stapling copies of the Volunteer Registry rules for households that wanted them, froze like a guard dog hearing a strange footstep. “No,” Koji said instantly.

  Ayame’s gaze flicked to him. “Not you,” she replied, tone calm, and the dismissal was so effortless Koji looked personally offended. “Him.”

  Koji pointed at himself. “I am the official youth representative,” he declared, as if it was a legal shield.

  Nakamura didn’t look up from her notebook. “You are a loud youth,” she murmured. “That’s not the same thing.”

  Hoshino, seated nearby, grunted. “Let her,” he said. “If you don’t talk to her, she’ll talk to someone else, and someone else will say something stupid.”

  Koji glared at Hoshino. “That is… unfortunately true,” Koji muttered, then looked at Clark. “If she tries to pry your soul out, blink twice.”

  Clark exhaled slowly. “Koji,” he said gently, “stay close, but not inside the conversation.”

  Koji’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a fancy way of saying ‘stand guard,’” Koji said.

  “Yes,” Clark admitted.

  Ayame watched the exchange with a small twitch of amusement, then nodded toward the door. “Ramen shop,” she said. “It’s neutral ground. And your friend there can glare from a distance.”

  Koji opened his mouth to protest the phrase “your friend,” then stopped, because any denial would be a lie. His expression tightened as he lost the argument internally.

  They walked to the ramen shop under a sky that looked too clean for the amount of tension in the village. The streets still wore storm scars, but people had begun moving with purpose again—repairing, sorting, organizing, the way humans always did when nature reminded them how fragile things were. The hill road remained blocked, but alternate routes had been established, and the village’s daily life had resumed with a limping stubbornness.

  The ramen shop bell jingled, and the owner looked up with immediate irritation. “If you’re bringing the journalist,” he said flatly, “you pay extra.”

  Ayame bowed slightly. “I’ll pay for my food,” she said. “Not for your mood.”

  The owner stared at her for a long moment, then snorted. “Fair,” he said, and pointed at the back table. “Don’t break anything.”

  Koji took his position two tables away with a bowl of ramen and an expression that suggested he was ready to die for his bowl and his village. Clark and Ayame sat at their usual corner table, backs to the wall, window to the side. Ayame set her notebook down but didn’t open it immediately. That alone made Clark’s chest tighten. The questions that mattered most came when the pen was still.

  Ayame studied him for a long moment. “You handled the audit well,” she said finally.

  Clark nodded once. “We prepared,” he replied.

  Ayame’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Most villages don’t prepare like that,” she said. “Most villages panic, then apologize, then comply. You didn’t do any of those things.” She leaned forward a fraction. “Why?”

  Clark’s throat tightened. He couldn’t answer with the truth—that he’d learned this in a life where officials, reporters, and villains were constant, where you either documented or you were rewritten. He chose the grounded truth instead. “Because the storm showed us how quickly things collapse,” Clark said. “If we don’t build structure, fear fills the gaps.”

  Ayame’s pen remained still. “That’s not a farmer’s answer,” she said quietly.

  Clark felt the familiar cold. Kobayashi’s suspicion, now echoed by someone sharper and less malicious. He forced himself to breathe slowly. “Maybe I’m learning,” he said.

  Ayame’s mouth twitched faintly, not amused—acknowledging. “Maybe,” she allowed. Then she opened her notebook and wrote a few lines. “I want to write about the village,” she said. “About the lantern walk. About the registry. About the hill road closure and the pressure families are under.” She looked up. “And I want one quote from you that isn’t ‘the village is the center.’”

  Clark’s mouth twitched despite himself. “That was a good quote,” he said.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Ayame’s eyes sharpened. “It was a safe quote,” she corrected. “I’m not asking you to be reckless. I’m asking you to be honest.”

  Koji, eavesdropping like a professional, muttered, “Uh-oh,” into his ramen.

  Clark leaned back slightly, buying time. “Honest about what?” he asked.

  Ayame’s gaze held him. “About why Kobayashi is so interested in you,” she said. “He wasn’t just concerned about a volunteer board. He was concerned about you.” Her pen hovered, still not moving. “He mentioned your accident. Your language. Your behavior. That’s not just business. That’s personal.”

  Clark’s chest tightened. He could feel his heart trying to speed up and forced it back down. “He wants leverage,” Clark said. “If he can make people doubt me, he can make them doubt the board.”

  Ayame nodded slowly, writing. “That’s plausible,” she said. Then she lifted her gaze again, sharper. “But it’s incomplete.”

  Clark didn’t respond immediately. Silence was a tool, and Ayame used it like a scalpel. The ramen shop owner clanked dishes behind the counter. A couple near the window laughed softly. Koji stared at Ayame like she was a predator and stared at Clark like he was the prey who refused to run.

  Ayame’s voice softened just slightly. “Takumi-san,” she said, “I grew up in rural places. I know what quiet pressure looks like. I know what it feels like to have your options narrowed until you call it choice.” Her eyes narrowed. “And I know what it looks like when someone is… not exactly who everyone thinks.”

  Clark’s skin went cold.

  Koji’s chopsticks froze mid-air.

  Ayame held Clark’s gaze steadily, not accusatory, not triumphal. Just focused. “If you’re hiding something,” she said quietly, “it matters because Kobayashi will use it first.”

  Clark swallowed hard. He couldn’t tell her. Not because he didn’t trust her intentions, but because truth in the wrong context became a weapon. A journalist’s notebook wasn’t a diary. It was a megaphone. And Mrs. Shibata’s life would become collateral the moment Kobayashi sensed exposure was possible.

  Clark chose his words carefully. “I’m hiding fear,” he said, because that was true enough. “I’m afraid that if the village becomes divided, people will sign out of panic. I’m afraid someone will get hurt because they felt alone.”

  Ayame watched him for a long moment, then wrote again. Her pen paused, and she asked the quieter question that had teeth. “Why you?” she said. “Why are you the one doing this? Takumi Shibata was not known for meetings and paperwork. People say you were quiet.” She tilted her head. “Then there’s an accident, and suddenly you’re… this.”

  Clark felt the line he couldn’t cross press against the back of his teeth. He forced himself to keep his expression steady. “People change after accidents,” he said softly. “Sometimes they realize they don’t want to die without trying.”

  Ayame’s eyes narrowed. “That’s still a story,” she said. “Not an answer.”

  Clark’s pulse thudded. Koji’s gaze burned into his side profile, as if his eyes could demand honesty out of Clark by force.

  Ayame didn’t push immediately. Instead, she did something more dangerous: she shifted the angle. “Can I visit your house?” she asked casually, as if it was about tea. “I want to photograph the recovery. The fields. The family perspective.”

  Clark’s chest tightened. “My mother doesn’t like strangers,” he said quickly.

  Ayame nodded once. “Then I won’t photograph her,” she said. “I can photograph the tools, the fields, the shed. The human side without invading.” She leaned forward slightly. “And I want to understand you.”

  Clark hesitated. Saying no would make her more curious. Saying yes would bring her closer to the things he was hiding upstairs: the Superman comics, the notes, the panic. But keeping her away completely would also isolate him from the one person in town with the ability to publish a narrative Kobayashi couldn’t fully control.

  Clark exhaled slowly. “You can visit,” he said finally. “But you don’t go into private rooms.”

  Ayame’s mouth twitched slightly. “Understood,” she said. Then, as if sealing the agreement, she finally wrote his answer down.

  Koji, two tables away, mouthed silently, What are you doing? with the intensity of a man who had just watched his friend invite a wolf into the house. Clark didn’t look at him. If he did, he might lose his steadiness.

  Ayame closed her notebook and sat back. “One more thing,” she said.

  Clark’s stomach tightened. “Yes?” he asked.

  Ayame’s gaze was sharp and strangely kind at the same time. “You’re not Superman,” she said.

  Clark’s breath caught.

  For a heartbeat, the ramen shop’s noise faded. The owner’s clanking. The couple’s laughter. Koji’s paranoid chewing. The world narrowed to Ayame’s calm eyes and that sentence, spoken like a test and a warning in one.

  Clark forced air into his lungs. “No,” he said carefully. “I’m not.”

  Ayame nodded. “Good,” she said softly. “Because if you try to be, you’ll break. This village doesn’t need a myth. It needs a man who keeps showing up.”

  Clark’s throat tightened. He couldn’t tell her how close she’d come to something true. How the word Superman wasn’t just a comic title now, but a mirror pressed against his identity until it cracked.

  Ayame stood, bowing slightly. “Tomorrow,” she said. “After morning work. I’ll come by the co-op first.”

  Clark nodded. “Okay,” he managed.

  As she left, Koji slid into the seat she’d vacated immediately, too fast, like he was trying to block her lingering presence. “She knows,” Koji whispered.

  Clark exhaled slowly. “She suspects,” he corrected.

  Koji’s eyes were wide. “That’s the same thing,” Koji hissed.

  Clark stared at the tabletop. “No,” he said quietly. “Suspicion can be managed. Knowledge can’t.”

  Koji leaned back, fuming. “I hate this,” he muttered. “I hate her notebook. I hate Kobayashi. I hate paperwork. I hate—” He stopped, then said, quieter, “I hate that I don’t know who you are.”

  Clark’s chest tightened. He looked at Koji and saw the strain there, the loyalty pulling against doubt like rope under tension. Clark didn’t have a heroic answer. He didn’t have a revelation scene. He only had the same grounded truth he’d been living.

  “I’m here,” Clark said softly. “And I’m trying.”

  Koji stared at him for a long moment, then looked away, jaw clenched. “That’s not enough forever,” Koji said.

  Clark nodded, because Koji was right.

  Outside, Ayame walked down the wet street, notebook tucked under her arm like a quiet weapon. Somewhere else, Kobayashi was also planning, recalculating after the audit, looking for softer angles to cut through. Clark felt the circle tightening—not with brute force, but with attention.

  He had dragged the fight into daylight.

  Now daylight was turning its gaze back on him.