It began in silence.
Takashi couldn't remember when he'd fallen asleep—only that it was late, the pages of Dazai's *No Longer Human* spread open on his chest like wings, the soft drone of rain on his bedroom window the last thing he heard before slipping under.
The dream didn't come all at once.
First, it was a hallway.
Familiar.
The hallway of his school, but softened, as if washed in watercolor—edges blurring, lights dimmed. He walked slowly, his steps quiet, soundless against the polished floor. No students. No teachers. Just the hum of nothing, stretched out like fabric.
Then he saw her.
Mizuki Ayane stood by the window at the end of the corridor, her figure outlined in the pale golden hue of dusk. She wasn't facing him. Her hands were folded loosely in front of her, and her gaze was fixed beyond the glass.
He didn't speak. Couldn't, perhaps.
But she turned, as if sensing him.
When their eyes met, something shifted.
She smiled—not the polite, composed smile she wore in class, but something softer, something unfamiliar. Her hair was loose. Her blouse unbuttoned at the collar. She looked... different.
Human. Unshielded.
He took a step forward, and suddenly they were closer, though he hadn't moved. The dream did that—bent the rules, folded distance like paper.
She reached out, not to touch, but to offer. Her palm was open, and in it lay a small white camellia.
He stared at it.
Then at her.
"You'll forget this," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
But he didn't want to.
He reached for the flower—
—and woke with a sharp intake of breath.
---
The early morning light filtered through the curtains, drawing pale lines across the ceiling. Takashi blinked up at them, disoriented. His room was still. No rain. Just the faint stir of traffic outside.
He sat up slowly.
The book had slipped to the floor sometime during the night. He retrieved it, holding it in his lap, but he didn't open it. Instead, he stared at his hand.
It was empty, of course.
But for a fleeting moment, he had almost expected the camellia to still be there.
---
At school, everything was as it should be.
Students loitered near lockers, laughter echoed off the walls, and the faint scent of chalk and ink clung to the hallways. Takashi moved through it all like he always did—half-present, mostly silent, his headphones tucked loosely around his neck though nothing played.
Yet something had changed.
It was subtle. Like the feeling of being watched when no one is there. Or the taste of a memory you couldn't quite place.
When Mizuki entered the classroom, she greeted them as usual—calm, composed, her clipboard in hand.
Takashi found himself watching her more closely than before. Not in the way boys sometimes watched pretty teachers, but with something more questioning. Searching.
She noticed.
Not immediately. But midway through a grammar exercise, she glanced up from her desk and caught his gaze.
Their eyes met.
Neither looked away.
Then, slowly, Mizuki tilted her head—barely perceptible—and raised a single eyebrow in polite inquiry.
He blinked, as if snapping out of a trance, and turned his attention back to the page.
But inside, something stirred.
---
The day moved forward. Lessons passed like scenery through a train window.
During lunch, Takashi sat in his usual spot on the rooftop, alone. He didn't eat. He didn't read. He thought.
About the dream.
He didn't know what it meant—not exactly. Dreams were usually just fragments, random emotions shaped into imagery. But this one had felt different. Not just vivid, but intentional. As if his subconscious was pulling at something he hadn't yet acknowledged.
Why her?
It wasn't that he didn't admire Mizuki. He did. Her intelligence. Her calm. The way she handled people without overpowering them. But admiration was safe. Easy to hide.
This felt different.
This felt dangerous.
He leaned back, staring up at the pale sky.
He had dreamed of her smile.
And it had moved him.
---
After school, he didn't linger as long as he usually did. He passed by the classroom, saw Mizuki inside organizing her materials, and for a brief moment, considered stepping in.
But he didn't.
Not yet.
Instead, he kept walking.
That night, he tried not to think about the dream. Tried to focus on his assignments, his reading, even the dull noise of television in the living room.
But when he finally lay down to sleep, the image returned.
The camellia.
The open hand.
And the feeling that something inside him had quietly begun to shift.
---
Mizuki, on the other hand, had noticed more than she let on.
She kept a careful distance from her students—not out of detachment, but out of necessity. Boundaries were important. Lines had to be drawn.
But Takashi Arata had a way of stepping carefully along the edge of those lines. Not with arrogance, but with quiet curiosity.
That afternoon, she'd seen the way he looked at her. Not challenging. Not flirtatious.
Searching.
She wondered what he had seen.
That evening, she pulled out her journal again.
*He looked at me like he was trying to remember something that hadn't happened yet.*
*I'm not sure what to do with that.*
She paused, pen hovering over the page.
Then she added:
*I dreamed once, years ago, that someone saw me completely. Not as a role. Not as a teacher. Just me. I forgot his face, but not the feeling.*
She closed the journal.
Neither of them knew what was forming.
But something had begun.
Something quiet. Something real.
Something that, in time, would refuse to be ignored.