The walk home was a blur.
Ryunosuke couldn't recall how many blocks he passed, or whether the lights turned green or red as he crossed. The city moved around him as always—buses groaning at curbs, steam curling from underground vents, early commuters clutching coffee like lifelines.
But it all felt distant.
As if the world had been smeared at the edges.
Muted.
Softened.
His thoughts weren't on the streets, or the people, or the hum of traffic. They were still beneath the garage.
Still with her.
"Everyone leaves fingerprints on the past."
"You're getting warmer."
Her words looped through his mind like a melody he couldn't unhear.
By the time he reached the apartment, the sky had barely started to lighten. The restaurant below was still dark, steeped in morning silence. The air upstairs was thick with sleep.
He climbed the stairs slowly, careful not to disturb the quiet.
Inside his room, he closed the door gently behind him.
And sat.
The sketchbook was already in his lap before he even realized his hands had moved.
He flipped to the page he'd drawn the night before—the figure in the coat, those faint outlines of violet eyes that refused to stay still on the paper.
He turned to a new page.
And began to draw.
Not with intent.
But with instinct.
The lines took shape without guidance—his pencil sketching what his memory couldn't explain.
The garage reappeared.
But this time, it was emptier.Darker.Quieter.
The BMW sat where he remembered it, though now it looked smaller—dwarfed by shadow.
And next to it, a figure.
Not fully defined.Not named.
But unmistakable.
He didn't draw her face. He couldn't.
But her presence was clear in the lines—the weight of her stance, the tilt of her shoulders, the subtle gravity that seemed to bend the space around her silhouette.
He shaded the coat. The faint glow at her feet. The suggestion of something other.
Then paused.
The pencil slipped from his fingers, rolling across the desk in a slow, deliberate arc.
Silence folded around him.
Not oppressive.
But aware.
He stared at the page.
She was real.
Not a hallucination. Not a dream.
He knew that now—because the sketch in front of him felt truer than memory.
He didn't know how she'd disappeared so suddenly.
Or how she knew about his father's car.
Or how, with a glance, she could hush every nerve in his body like turning off a light.
But he remembered her words:
"You're getting warmer."
His eyes narrowed.
Victor Navarro.
That was the link.
Somehow.
He reached for his phone again, reopening the article he'd read earlier.
There it was.
That face.
Sharp suit. Calm eyes. Polished to perfection.
A man who had never even met Ryunosuke—and yet, somehow, felt like a shadow in his story.
Ryunosuke stared into the screen, unblinking.
What does this man have to do with us?
Why did Mamá freeze the second I said his name?
What isn't she telling me?
His stomach twisted.
Not from fear.
From knowing something had been hidden.
Buried.
And now…
That silence wasn't peaceful anymore.
It was cold.
Heavy.
And alive.
Something had been waiting inside him.
And it was beginning to wake up.