I reached out and placed my hand on her forehead, concerned she might be coming down with something. This isn't really a "Tsukiyo moment," I thought.
"You don't seem to be sick," I said.
She didn't flinch. Instead, she tilted her head, her gaze fixed on my worried expression. "I am not sick," she confirmed, her voice flat. "My temperature is normal. Why would you think I'm sick?"
Somehow, her sentences were casual, and her question had that distinct, cat-like curiosity.
He is concerned, she deduced. Because I brought a drink. Because I initiated contact. He interprets deviation from my baseline as a sign of illness. That is… logical, for him.
"Oh... I just assumed," I replied, giving an awkward chuckle. "Most people usually do things differently when they're sick. Some change when they're nearing, but those are just tales in this scenario. You're not like them... it's refreshing."
She processed my words, taking a moment before responding.
"I am not like them," she said.
"Bringing a drink was an investment," she explained, her tone matter-of-fact. "If I bring one once, you will not expect conversation as payment for my presence. It is efficient."
She took another sip of her tea, then added, almost as an afterthought, "And your smile is… less irritating today. So it was a good investment."
My smile softened. "That is so Tsukiyo."
"I guess it indeed is very 'me'."
There she goes with being literal again, I thought.
The silence that followed wasn't heavy or strained; it was the quiet of two people who had run out of data points to analyze and were finally just existing in the same room.
Eventually, she spoke, her fingers tracing the condensation on the empty drink in her hands.
"The pull is gone," she stated.
"Gone?"
"For now. It faded while I was sitting here." She looked up, her gaze meeting mine directly. "That has not happened before. It has always been present at some strength."
"Are you worried? Also... you stopped speaking analytically. But you started to simplify your sentences."
She considered my questions, her expression unreadable. "No. It is a change in data. Worry is an emotional response to potential negative outcomes. I have no data on outcomes, so worry is inefficient. Also, I found it more efficient to talk more casually."
She stood up and moved to the bin, discarding the empty containers before turning to face me from the center of the living room.
"If the pull does not return..." she said, her voice dropping lower. A rare flicker of hesitation crossed her features. "I have no directional reason to come here." She subtly bit her lip.
"In that case, I will find you then. I will go in the direction you are," I stated softly.
For a heartbeat, it felt like a light jab against her chest—a tangible sensation of small chains unwrapping from her carefully constructed persona.
"I see..." she said. "Coming without the pull will be a choice. Choices require reasons..." She paused and walked to the door, opening it to the hallway. She took a single step out, but stopped, leaving the door ajar. She looked back at me.
"You are a reason," she stated. "My presence is now confirmed to be independent of the external directional stimulus..." Her voice was sharp, but she trailed off, followed by a small, momentary pause. A internal recalculation; she clearly hadn't accounted for the fact that she would say something like that.
"You sound surprised," I said with a soft smile.
"Bye, Ken," she said, and softly shut the door behind her, not waiting for a response.
I let out a long, slow breath, listening to the fading echo of her footsteps in the hallway. "That girl remembers to say goodbye now..." I reminisced to the empty room. "She used to say it too, but it was inconsistent..."
Across the city, Tsukiyo walks. She walks for blocks... then miles. She's paying no attention to where she's going. She's softly gripping onto the side of her chest where the pull silently used to reside.
Nothing.
An hour passes, then two, three, until it reached night.
She lost track of time. Not very "efficient" of her.
She finds herself on a park, sitting on a bench.
The pull is gone, truly gone.
She sits on the bench for a long time. The absence of the pull isn't a relief, it isn't a loss. But a vacancy.
She thinks about Ken's apartment, the way he reacted to the cat pictures, the warmth of Ken's shoulder when she fell asleep.
"Those are reasons..." she tells herself with the gentle quiet solitude of the night. "But are they my reasons?" she asks herself.
"Ken... a spot is vacant for you..." Tsukiyo whispered to herself, her fingers clenching the fabric over her chest where the pull used to reside.
"A spot for you..." she repeated, the words serving as a mantra for her recalibrating mind. She searched inward, tracing the ache of that newfound emptiness. "But where?"
Tsukiyo's "spec"—her internal guidance—remained dormant. She sat motionless on the park bench, her thoughts spiraling in the quiet, an unopened umbrella resting forgotten across her lap.
Then, the sky gave way. A light, rhythmic downpour began to gray the air around her. It wasn't a violent storm; it was the kind of soft, persistent rain that dampens the world without forming deep puddles. She didn't move to open the umbrella. She was too occupied with the architecture of her own thoughts, mapping out the vacancy in her chest.
She didn't hear his approach, but she felt the shift in the air.
Suddenly, a shadow fell over her, and a hand reached down to catch the handle of her umbrella, snapping it open above her. The rain stopped drumming against her shoulders, replaced by the steady, hollow patter against the fabric overhead.
Ken stood behind the bench.
"You're really going to get sick, you know?"
Tsukiyo turned, her movements sharp, her eyes widening as they locked onto his face.
"You weren't sick earlier," I said, a knowing, gentle smile playing on my lips. I let out a soft chuckle as I looked down at her. "But you might be now."
"Ken?" she breathed, the name sounding like a question she hadn't quite finished asking herself.
"You are a worrywart," Tsukiyo stated, her voice barely rising above the rhythmic patter of the rain.
"I am," Kento replied confidently. He didn't pull away; he remained grounded in the space he'd claimed beside her. "It's dangerous at night, Tsukiyo. What are you doing here, blanketed by crying clouds?"
Tsukiyo looked up at the grey sky, her expression analytical even as the rain slicked her hair to her cheeks. "The clouds aren't crying; it's just precipitation. But if you're using the metaphorical definition, I suppose the sentiment tracks. Regardless, I am capable of self-maintenance should I fall ill." She reached up, wringing the water from a stray lock of hair. "I didn't want you to see me like this..." she added, her voice trailing off with a hint of quiet, invisible disappointment.
Kento knelt slightly, bringing his face closer to hers, his expression softening. "But in that case, I will find you then," he said, restating his promise from earlier. "I will go wherever you are. Pinky promise." He held out his hand, his smallest finger extended toward her.
Tsukiyo stared at his hand as if evaluating an alien artifact. "This is childish," she commented, her tone flat yet devoid of malice. "A contract of words and the physical connection of two small fingers."
Despite her critique, she didn't refuse. She reached out, her movements hesitant, and curled her finger around his.
"Our fates are intertwined," Kento told her, offering that knowing, gentle smile that seemed to see right through her defenses.
As their fingers locked, the world outside—the rain, the park, the darkness—felt suddenly, impossibly distant.
The atmosphere shifted instantly. The gentle, melancholic rain suddenly felt heavy, charged with an invisible, suffocating static. Ken's hand, which had been anchoring her to the present moment, tightened as he scanned the darkened park.
"But Tsukiyo, seriously, we have to get out," he urged, his voice tight with an urgency that bypassed all her logical filters. "Celi is here."
Before she could process the warning, a flicker of movement disturbed the canopy above. A piece of paper fluttered down from a high branch, spiraling through the damp air before landing on the bench between them. It was drenched, the paper pulp softening against the wood.
Tsukiyo leaned in, her eyes scanning the lines. This time, there was no iron tang of blood. Only the stark, stark contrast of dark ink bleeding into the fibers.
Nobody is coming out to die, so I have to write in ink. I will always love you, Ken. I don't like how you're always with her.
Tsukiyo didn't need to see a face to know the truth. The rain hitting the pavement nearby began to distort—unnatural, rhythmic ripples emanating from a point just a few yards away. The air shimmered, the visual refraction of a presence that was physically present yet effectively hidden.
She turned back to Ken, her expression devoid of fear, replaced entirely by a rapid, cold calculation.
"Ken, you should run," she said, her voice chillingly steady. "Logically, you are the target."
The two immediately tensed, sprinting toward the city's most populated district, yet they found the streets unnervingly deserted. The usual hum of life had been sucked out of the air, leaving only the sound of their own frantic breathing.
From the roof of a nearby canopy, another note fluttered down, landing amidst the splashing of footsteps in the puddles.
It read: "I don't like the rain! Just come to me Ken. Make this easier for us, running in the rain is hard."
"Got any theories Tsukiyo?"
"Stalker. Definitely stalker." She said with a cat-like silent jealousy while holding his wrist and dragged me into an alley. "My spec told me this is the optimal path."
"I trust you." I said.
The alleyway was a claustrophobic tunnel of obsession. The walls were scarred with deep, frantic carvings, and the brickwork was plastered with posters of couples—each one defaced, their original faces ripped away and replaced with my own, paired alongside a haunting, unfamiliar figure.
"What the fuck. This is creepy, why is my face plastered onto this woman's?"
"That is Celi, or also known as Celina." Tsukiyo immediately answered, just to give an answer to the question.
"This seems to be a love nest... how peculiar." She said while tearing off a poster for inspection, her gaze lingered on the poster while her eyes often flickered to Ken.
Ten minutes of absolute stillness passed, the silence heavy enough to feel. Finally, I broke the quiet with a daunting realization.
"The rain isn't chasing this area." I outstretched my hand overhead, palm upturned to the sky. The air here was bone-dry.
Tsukiyo inspected her clothes, her hands and her shoes. "Indeed... you are right."
"What do you think about this?" I asked her.
"I don't know, but she's coming. Celina." She answered, voice flat.
"What does your spec say?"
Her eyes flickered back to me, away from the posters. "It tells me to stay."
The figure emerged from the crown of a four-story building, defying gravity as she hopped from ledge to ledge before sliding down the sheer concrete face of the wall.
It was Celina.
She was a discordant sight in the gloom: short, jagged black hair framing a face twisted into a manic, possessive grin. She wore a pristine white dress that stood out starkly against the grime of the alley. Strapped to her back was a heavy-duty rifle, modified with a serrated blade fixed beneath the muzzle, while twin stilettos hung ready at her waist. Her smile wasn't just sharp; it was a blade in its own right, radiating a terrifying, singular determination.
Without a sound, Tsukiyo's movements blurred. In one fluid motion, she drew two heavy, white ornate flintlocks with golden flower patterns from the hidden depths of her side seam pockets. The weight of them seemed to manifest out of thin air—Ken hadn't even known she was armed, let alone carrying such antiquated, lethal hardware.
She leveled both barrels at Celina, her stance unwavering.
"Stop your advance," Tsukiyo stated. It wasn't a request; it was a demand—a cold, immutable command.
Celina halted mid-stride, her smirk deepening into something eerily predatory. She didn't retreat; instead, she mockingly raised her hands into the air, a gesture of feigned surrender that held no warmth.
"And if I don't?" Celina challenged, her voice dripping with amusement.
Tsukiyo didn't blink. The silence between them grew heavy, charged with the scent of ozone and impending violence.
"Try me." Tsukiyo said, her voice dropping to a temperature that froze the air in the alleyway.
Celina's smirk widened, finally cracking into a full-throated, manic laugh that echoed off walls that no longer existed. "How foolish! Have you not noticed yet? This is a dominion!"
As she spoke, the reality of the alley—the damp brick, the graffiti, the posters—dissolved like ink in a downpour. The world blurred, folding in on itself in a violent shift of perspective. When the haze cleared, the oppressive rain was gone, replaced by the hushed, velvet atmosphere of a high-stakes casino.
They were seated at a long, plain oak table. Across from them sat a man dressed in a sharp black coat and a matching fedora, accented by a stark horizontal white stripe. There were no cards, no chips, no game to be played. Just the polished wood between them.
The man reached up, tightening his black silk tie. His handsome face was marred by a grin that was far too calm, far too calculating.
"You just walked into god-kin territory," the man said. His voice was a deep, gravelly rasp—not a reflection of his mood, but the natural, chilling texture of his vocal cords.
"Where are we, Tsukiyo?" Ken asked. His pulse was racing, his composure fraying at the edges, though he forced himself to stay grounded.
"We're in a dominion," Tsukiyo answered. The flintlocks were lowered, hanging limp at her sides. She knew better than to waste ammunition on a reality that wasn't bound by standard physics. "That man is a god-kin." She pointed a steady finger toward the dealer.
FYI: This chapter has been MASSIVELY improved by AI. AI has been used in this chapter, the story still stems from my but it has been MASSIVELY polished and improved by AI in terms of vocabulary/ writing and proofreading. But for the most part the story is still made by me, and it follows my storyline that I still had to plan out.
Reminder: I am doing this entirely for fun and please do not harass me for AI usage for I am simply just writing down stories I like.