Rei woke to the sound of sizzling bacon and an argument. For a disoriented moment, he thought he was back in his old life, that the smell was his mother cooking breakfast and the argument was a playful spat between his parents. The illusion shattered as soon as he opened his eyes. He was on a futon on the floor of the Ayase living room, the morning sun streaming through the shoji screens. The argument was coming from the kitchen, and it involved the proper way to exorcise a maneki-neko that had stolen Okarun's other… family jewel.
He sat up, the blanket pooling around his waist. He had slept in his uniform, too exhausted and mentally drained to do anything else after Seiko had insisted it was too late for him to go home. The word he had spoken last night—"Okay"—echoed in his mind. It had sealed his fate. He was no longer a ghost. He was part of the circus.
He could hear Seiko's exasperated voice, Momo's indignant shouts, and Okarun's panicked yelps. Aira's voice was absent. He wondered where she was. As if on cue, the shoji screen to the veranda slid open. Aira stood there, dressed in a spare tracksuit that was slightly too big for her. She was holding two mugs of steaming tea.
"Good morning," she said, her voice soft. She avoided his eyes, focusing instead on carefully placing one of the mugs on the low table in front of him.
"Morning," Rei replied, his voice raspy with sleep. He watched as she sat down, curling her legs beneath her. The new yokai aura within her was a gentle, crimson hum, a stark contrast to the chaotic energies of Momo and Okarun.
"I… wanted to thank you," Aira said, finally looking at him. Her gaze was direct, her expression serious. "For yesterday. Even if… even if it was strange."
"I didn't do much," Rei deflected, reaching for the tea.
"You did everything," she countered, a hint of her usual iron will returning. "You showed up. And you were right. About the yokai. She wasn't… bad." Aira touched her chest. "I can feel her sometimes. Her sadness. It's a part of me now." She looked at him again, and the connection from the night before was there again, that unnerving understanding. "It feels a little like you."
Rei had no idea how to respond to that. He had spent a year building walls of silence and apathy, and this girl was dismantling them brick by brick with a few quiet words. He took a sip of his tea. It was green, and slightly bitter. It was grounding.
Their quiet moment was shattered when Momo slid the kitchen door open with a loud bang. "Breakfast is ready! And you," she said, pointing a spatula at Rei, "don't think this means we're friends. You're on thin ice, mister 'I-see-the-future'."
The school day was a new kind of ordeal. Rei's carefully maintained invisibility was gone. Now, he was part of a group. A weird, chaotic, and frankly, dangerous group. He walked to school with them, a few paces behind, listening to Momo and Okarun argue about whether the Mothman was an alien or an undiscovered cryptid. Aira walked beside him, a comfortable silence settling between them. People stared. Aira was usually surrounded by a flock of admirers, not the school's resident occult-obsessed weirdo, the standoffish girl he was rumored to be dating, and a complete non-entity like Rei.
The rumors about Aira and Momo's "fight" had spread like wildfire. Aira found her usual circle of friends had become distant, whispering behind their hands when she approached. They were afraid of her, of the rumors, of her new association with the school's outcasts. For the first time in her life, Aira Shiratori was on the outside looking in.
Rei found her on the roof during lunch. She was leaning against the safety fence, looking out over the city, a carton of milk untouched beside her. He had come up here seeking his usual solitude, but seeing her there, he found he couldn't just turn around and leave.
He walked over and stood beside her, not saying a word. They stood in silence for a long time, watching the clouds drift by.
"It's weird, isn't it?" Aira said finally. "Yesterday, they all wanted to be my friend. Today, they look at me like I'm a monster."
"You're not a monster," Rei said. It was a simple statement, but it carried the weight of his conviction.
"I know," she said, a small smile playing on her lips. "But it's lonely." She turned to him, her eyes clear and bright. "Is this what it's like for you all the time?"
The question was a direct hit. It bypassed all his defenses and struck at the very core of his being. He could only nod, his throat suddenly tight.
"It sucks," she said with a sigh. She picked up her milk and took a sip. "But maybe… it doesn't have to."
Before Rei could process that, a strange sensation washed over him. The air grew heavy, thick, and humid, like the inside of a fish tank. The sounds of the school—the distant chatter, the bell for the end of lunch—faded away into a dull, underwater drone. He looked around. The sky was no longer blue but a murky, shifting teal. The school grounds below were gone, replaced by an endless expanse of rippling water.
"What's happening?" Aira asked, her voice tight with alarm.
Rei's senses, sharpened by the Hollow, went into overdrive. He could feel a familiar, discordant hum in the air. Static. The same energy he had felt from the Serpo aliens.
"They're back," he said, his voice a low growl. He scanned the watery horizon. Then he saw it. A ripple in the distance. Something was moving under the surface, something big and fast, heading directly for the school.
He turned to Aira, his expression grim. The brief moment of peace, of connection, was over. The circus was back in town, and the next act was about to begin. "Stay behind me."