[Miyamizu Residence, 7:14 AM]
Nothing happened that night, of course.
With Yotsuha curled between them like a territorial housecat—one small fist bunched in Mitsuha's yukata, the other somehow anchored to the hem of Nozomi's sleeve—Hozuki Nozomi wouldn't have tried a thing, and Mitsuha knew it. They simply slept. The tatami exhaled its familiar scent of dried rush grass and old cedar, the summer futon too thin for three but warm enough from body heat alone, and the only sound was Yotsuha's soft, rhythmic breathing and the distant percussion of wind chimes hanging from the engawa.
Neither Nozomi nor Mitsuha blamed her. They stroked her hair together in the grey half-light of early morning—Nozomi's thumb tracing the part along her crown, Mitsuha tucking a loose strand behind the girl's ear—until Yotsuha stirred, blinked once, registered the dual attention, and went the colour of pickled plum.
They're treating me like a baby again. I'm not a baby. I'm in middle school.
"H-hmph! I was only staying because the futon in my room smells weird!"
She huffed with the practiced arrogance of someone who'd rehearsed the excuse three times in her head, scrambled upright, and fled down the hallway in a blur of bare feet slapping polished wood.
The shoji clattered shut behind her.
Silence pooled back in.
Finally—time.
Mitsuha turned to him, braided hair half-undone and draped across one shoulder, the collar of her sleeping yukata fallen open just far enough to expose the ridge of her collarbone and the soft shadow beneath it. Dawn light pressed through the paper screens in pale, golden slats, catching the faint sheen of sleep-sweat along her throat, the sweet residue of the hinoki bath oil she'd used the night before still clinging to her skin.
"She's gone," Mitsuha whispered, as though naming an obvious miracle.
Nozomi pulled her in by the waist. She came easily, one knee folding over his thigh, palms flat against his chest. Her mouth found his—tentative at first, just the dry brush of lower lips, then deeper when his hand slid up the back of her neck and tilted her head. Her breath hitched, a tiny, bitten-off sound—"nn"—and her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt. The taste of her was faintly mineral, warm, like well water in summer. He kissed down the line of her jaw, teeth grazing the soft skin below her ear, and Mitsuha arched into him, her hips rolling once, twice, finding friction against the hard line of his thigh through the thin cotton.
"Nozomi—" Half his name, half a plea.
We don't have enough time. We never have enough time.
He pressed his forehead to hers. Their breathing steadied, tangled together in the narrow space between mouths.
"I'll come back soon," he murmured against her temple.
Mitsuha closed her eyes and nodded, her fingers lingering at his jaw before she finally, reluctantly, let go.
The matters at the Miyamizu household were considered concluded.
Before Nozomi left—shoes on, bag shouldered, standing in the genkan with the smell of morning dew and wild hydrangea bleeding through the open door—Miyamizu Yotsuha appeared from behind the corner pillar and forcibly seized his phone from his back pocket.
"What are you—"
"Saving my number. Obviously." Her thumbs moved at a speed that would shame a court stenographer. She thrust the device back at him, screen displaying a new contact: Yotsuha-sama ★. "If Onee-chan is busy, you call me. Got it?"
She didn't wait for an answer, just spun on her heel and vanished back into the house.
Not that I care or anything. It's just practical.
---
Hozuki Nozomi was three blocks from the bus stop, calculating whether the 11:15 express would get him back to Sakurasou in time for lunch, when his phone buzzed.
Sakurabara Momo.
Her voice on the line was tight, clipped—none of her usual teasing lilt.
"Nozomi-kun. I need you to come meet us. Now-ish. It's about something… weird."
The designated location turned out to be a café wedged between a florist and a used bookshop, the kind of narrow storefront with mismatched chairs and a chalkboard menu bleeding pastel dust onto the sidewalk. The air inside was thick with the competing fragrances of roasted hazelnuts and vanilla syrup, undercut by the green, vegetal tang of fresh-cut flower stems drifting in through the propped-open door.
He spotted them immediately.
Sakurabara Momo sat with her legs crossed at the ankle beneath the table, long pink hair falling in loose waves past her shoulder blades—the colour of cherry blossoms in full bloom, a soft, deliberate saturation that caught every stray beam of light from the café window.
Her face was oval, features delicate but animated: wide-set eyes the colour of dark rose quartz, a small nose, lips perpetually curved as though holding back a punchline. She stood roughly five-foot-five, her figure generous in the specific way that drew second glances—full through the bust and hips, cinched at the waist, thighs pressing together beneath a pleated cream skirt.
A fitted lavender cardigan hung open over a white camisole, the top button undone, a thin gold chain resting in the hollow of her throat. No visible blemishes, no piercings—just that effortless, magazine-editorial polish she carried like armour.
Beside her, Kusami Runa nursed an iced matcha, stirring it with a straw she hadn't sipped from. Her hair had changed since the last time Nozomi saw her—light blue now, the pale, crystalline shade of glacial meltwater, grown out past her collarbones in soft, slightly uneven layers. Her face was rounder than Momo's, cheeks still carrying a girlish softness, but her grey-blue eyes held a sharpness that contradicted the rest. She was shorter, five-foot-two at most, with a slimmer build—narrower shoulders, a modest chest, but a surprising curve through the waist and backside that her fitted denim skirt did nothing to disguise. She wore an oversized striped tee tucked loosely at the front, white sneakers scuffed at the toes, a single silver ring on her right index finger.
"Yo, Cherry, Tsukimi. Long time no see." Nozomi slid into the chair across from them, dropping his bag on the floor. "Have you missed me?"
Both girls startled at his casual entrance—Momo's eyes widening a fraction, Runa's hand stilling on the straw.
"Nozomi, you're here," Momo said, recovering first.
"Of course we missed you." Runa's voice was softer, but her gaze didn't waver from his face.
He came right away. He always comes right away. That's what makes this so unfair.
Momo exhaled through her nose and let the pout surface—lips pushed forward, brow pinching in theatrical irritation. "It's just that you've got so many girls circling you, we can barely find a gap in the schedule to ask you out."
Nozomi tilted his chair back, thinking. "How about you both transfer?"
"Absolutely not!"
They shook their heads in near-perfect unison. Staying where they were had its own quiet logic—he'd always make time to visit, and they both knew it. Transferring would only collapse the distance that kept things manageable. Too many people crammed into one orbit invited collisions none of them wanted.
"So." Nozomi let the chair drop forward, forearms on the table, gaze shifting between them. "What's the urgent matter?"
Momo's playfulness drained. She exchanged a glance with Runa—a brief, loaded thing, the kind of silent negotiation between people who'd already rehearsed this conversation twice on the walk over.
I hope he doesn't think we're being dramatic. This is genuinely terrifying.
"You remember Hazuki Yasuo, right?" Momo asked.
"Hazuki Yasuo," Nozomi repeated, leaning back. "The student who used to help Sumireko—fell in love with her, tried to pursue her, struck out. What happened to him?"
Momo's expression curdled into something uneasy. "Let me preface this—Tsukimi and I cut ties with Hazuki a long time ago. But the reason we're coming to you now is that he's been acting genuinely strange lately, and it's making us nervous."
Runa picked up the thread without prompting, her slender fingers wrapping around Nozomi's forearm beneath the table. "We were friends once. We couldn't just pretend we didn't see it. That's why we came to you."
"I trust you both." Nozomi smiled—a real one, not his stage-ready default—and reached across to brush the hair from Momo's cheek with one hand while his other settled over Runa's knuckles. "Tell me what happened."
His hand is warm. Why does that still catch me off guard every single time?
Runa tugged gently at his arm. "Let's walk. It's easier to show you."
They left the café. The midday sun hammered down on the narrow commercial street, heat shimmering off the asphalt in liquid distortions. The smell shifted—hazelnut and vanilla replaced by sun-baked concrete, car exhaust, and the faint sweetness of melting ice cream from a vendor's cart two blocks up.
"Last week," Runa began, walking close enough that her shoulder grazed his bicep with every other step, "Cherry and I went to try the new dessert shop across from campus. On the way back, we saw Hazuki in the courtyard—laughing, gesturing, having a full conversation with the empty air beside him."
"We assumed it was rehearsal for a performance," Momo added from his other side, her arm looped through his. "He's in the drama club. Weird behaviour is practically in the job description."
"But it kept happening," Runa said, her voice dropping. "Every day that week. Talking to no one. Dancing with no one. Holding hands with nothing. And the worst part—other students didn't seem to notice anything wrong. Some of them even said it was his girlfriend."
She shivered, the tremor passing from her arm into his.
"But in our eyes," Momo finished, grip tightening, "there was no one beside him at all."
Nozomi absorbed this in silence for several paces.
"We both think he's possessed," Momo said flatly. "And if whatever's attached to him starts affecting the other students—"
"I understand." Nozomi nodded. "Sounds like a possession. Do you know where he is right now?"
"Drama club. Probably rehearsing with his invisible girlfriend as we speak."
---
[Drama Club]
The drama club occupied an old auditorium on the east wing—high ceilings stained with water rings, velvet curtains faded from burgundy to a tired maroon, the permanent smell of sawdust, greasepaint, and the musty, papery odour of old scripts left in stacks along the walls. Dust motes swam in the shafts of light falling from the clerestory windows.
On the stage, Hazuki Yasuo moved.
He was tall—close to six feet—with neatly parted dark hair and the kind of conventionally handsome face that photographed well from every angle. He wore the drama club's rehearsal blacks: a fitted long-sleeve shirt and tapered trousers, both slightly dusty at the knees. His posture was impeccable, one arm extended, the other curled around an invisible waist, guiding a partner who wasn't there through a slow, sweeping waltz. His footwork was precise, his expression tender, his mouth moving in quiet murmurs directed at empty air.
The other students in the folding seats watched, rapt. Their eyes tracked something—a shape, a presence—that neither Nozomi's companions could perceive.
"Good! Excellent form, Hose-kun!"
"That footwork—truly our prince!"
Applause scattered through the small audience. Genuine, unironic applause.
Kusami Runa pressed closer to Nozomi's side, fingers digging into the fabric of his sleeve.
"See?" she whispered. "Isn't it creepy?"
Sakurabara Momo stood rigid on his other side, her usual composure fractured. A fine tremor ran through her shoulders. If Runa hadn't confirmed she saw the same emptiness, Momo might have questioned her own sanity weeks ago.
"It is unsettling," Nozomi acknowledged calmly.
He watched Hazuki complete the turn, dip his invisible partner with theatrical grace, and smile down at nothing with an expression of pure, uncomplicated adoration. Nozomi's eyes narrowed slightly. He could feel it—a faint distortion in the air around Hazuki, a coolness that didn't match the stuffy heat of the auditorium, the barest whiff of something floral beneath the sawdust and greasepaint. Wisteria, maybe. Or lily.
He understood what this was.
"Can it be solved?" Runa looked up at him, grey-blue eyes wide.
She wasn't worried about Hazuki Yasuo—not particularly. Hazuki was a flawed person who had spent years oblivious to the damage he caused, only recently beginning to read between the lines of what people actually meant. The bridges he'd burned couldn't be rebuilt. But whatever clung to him now was bleeding into the student body, warping perception, and that instability endangered everyone.
"Of course it can. But let's wait until rehearsal's over. No sense making a scene."
---
[Drama Club — Empty 12:07 PM]
The last students filed out, chatter fading down the corridor until only the ambient creak of the old building remained. Dust resettled. The auditorium smelled of vacated warmth—stale breath, residual perfume, the chemical sweetness of stage makeup left open on a table backstage.
Nozomi led the two girls down the centre aisle toward the empty stage. Their footsteps echoed.
"Nozomi, what are we doing here?" Momo scanned the vacant seats, the dark wings, the motionless curtains.
"Meeting Hazuki Yasuo's girlfriend." Nozomi stepped onto the stage, the boards groaning faintly under his weight. He turned to face the empty air stage-right and pitched his voice with deliberate calm.
"Miss Ghost. You've been avoiding me since we walked in, but I can feel you. Show yourself now—or I start an exorcism, and I promise that's less pleasant for both of us."
A beat of silence.
Then—"P-please… Sir, please spare me!"
The air shimmered. A figure materialized like watercolour bleeding onto wet paper—translucent at first, gaining opacity in slow, uneven pulses. A young woman, short-haired, the cut uneven and slightly choppy around her jaw. Light brown strands, the colour of roasted barley tea. A scattering of freckles across the bridge of a small, upturned nose. Round face, soft-featured, with wide hazel eyes that darted nervously between Nozomi and the two girls flanking him. She was petite—barely five feet—with a slight, almost boyish frame draped in what appeared to be a school uniform: a navy sailor-style blouse, pleated skirt, knee socks that bunched at the ankles. A faded wisteria corsage was pinned above her left breast—the source of the floral scent.
Runa and Momo gasped simultaneously.
"You—Kako?!"
"Oh?" Nozomi raised an eyebrow. "You know her?"
"Her name is Nishinori Kako," Runa said, voice unsteady. "She's—she was—in our class. She stopped coming to school last month."
Kako-chan… so this is where you've been. All this time.
"Kako," Momo breathed, "how could you…?"
The ghost girl—Nishinori Kako—hovered an inch above the stage, her feet not quite touching the boards. She scratched the back of her head with a sheepish, translucent hand. The gesture was so mundanely human it made the supernatural context worse.
"Well… I, um. Accidentally… died. Heart attack." She said it the way someone might confess to breaking a borrowed mug. "It was sudden. One second I was studying, the next—" She trailed off, her form flickering at the edges.
I didn't mean to scare anyone. I just wanted one thing. Just one.
"I've always admired Hazuki-kun," she continued, her voice gaining a fragile steadiness. "He promised once—ages ago, back when nobody else was paying attention—that he'd perform a play with me. He probably doesn't even remember saying it. But I do." Her translucent fingers twisted together in her lap. "So I've been staying with him. Rehearsing. That's all."
She turned her wide, pleading eyes to Nozomi.
"Exorcist-sama, please. I only have one wish. Let me finish the performance with Hazuki-kun. After that—after opening night—I'll leave on my own. I swear it."
The wisteria scent thickened, sweet and aching, filling the dead air of the empty auditorium.
Nozomi studied her for a long moment, then shifted his gaze to the girls beside him.
"What do you two think?"
Runa exhaled—long, slow, the kind of breath that carries surrender.
"Grant her wish."
Nishinori Kako had been a loyal, quiet admirer of Hazuki Yasuo for years. Overshadowed by the gravitational pull of girls like Runa and Momo, she'd never once had the chance to stand beside him while she was alive. Now, in death, she'd finally found her opening—and there was nothing predatory in it. No malice. No corruption. Just a girl in love, asking for one dance under stage lights before she disappeared forever.
What evil intentions could a dead girl with a corsage have?
Momo nodded slowly, her trembling finally stilled. "Let her have it."
As for Hazuki Yasuo—when opening night ended and his partner's hand dissolved into empty air mid-bow, when the truth carved itself into him the way only loss could, the grief would be real. But grief, in its own blunt way, was also remembrance. A wound that proved something had been precious.
Nozomi turned back to Nishinori Kako and inclined his head once.
The ghost girl's face crumpled with relief, tears she couldn't physically shed shimmering at the edges of her translucent eyes. She pressed both palms together and bowed so deeply her forehead nearly touched the stage floor.
Nozomi stepped off the stage, the old boards singing one last groan beneath his shoes, and draped an arm around each girl's shoulders as they walked back up the aisle toward the bright rectangle of the open door, the smell of wisteria fading behind them with every step.