Yumiko stayed away.
Days passed without rain, without silver skies or flickering streetlamps. She changed her routes, her hours, even the way she breathed—careful, controlled, determined not to let her thoughts drift back to him.
But absence didn't erase Jash.
It sharpened him.
He appeared in her mind at the quietest moments—when steam curled from her coffee, when the city lights blurred at dusk, when she pressed her fingers to her wrist and felt the faint pulse beneath her skin. The mark hadn't vanished. It never did.
One evening, as the sun bled into the horizon, Yumiko stopped suddenly.
The world felt… wrong.
Too still. Too quiet.
The silver mark burned.
"Jash," she whispered, not knowing why she said his name aloud.
The air shifted.
He was there—standing across the street, not under a lamp this time, not hiding in rain or shadow. Just him. Open. Waiting.
"You said you wouldn't follow me," she said, heart racing.
"I didn't," he replied softly. "You came to me."
She realized then that her feet had carried her here without permission—to the bridge, to the place where truth pressed closest to the surface.
"What's happening?" she asked.
Jash's gaze flicked to her wrist. "The space between your lives is thinning."
Her breath caught. "So I'm remembering?"
"Yes," he said. "And someone else has noticed."
The word someone sent a chill down her spine. "Who?"
"Those who guard the cycle," Jash answered. "They don't interfere—unless the balance is threatened."
"And I'm the threat," Yumiko said quietly.
"You always were," he replied, not unkindly.
The city lights flickered, just once. Yumiko felt it—a pressure in the air, like eyes she couldn't see watching her.
"What happens now?" she asked.
Jash stepped closer, lowering his voice. "Now, you have to decide whether you want the truth… or the peace of not knowing."
Her heart pounded. She thought of the dream, the promise, the way he had waited through lifetimes.
She met his gaze. "Tell me everything."
Something dark and resolute crossed his expression.
"Then we don't have much time," Jash said.
As if summoned by his words, the wind rose suddenly, whipping around them, carrying a whisper that wasn't quite sound.
Yumiko's wrist flared with silver light.
And for the first time, fear wasn't the strongest thing she felt.
It was certainty.