The sun was down again. Day three had folded into night like a closing book.
Araragi hadn't moved.
But something in the room had.
Not physically. Not in any obvious way. Just... the feeling. Like the story itself had started to breathe again, drawing in air before the next act.
Kiss-shot sat where she always did—still, composed, child-shaped and godlike in the same breath. She perched on the edge of the couch like a crow on a high branch, eyes half-lidded, unreadable.
"You're not sleeping," I said.
"I don't need to."
"Not even to dream?"
She opened one eye. "You ask too many questions."
"You never answer them."
"That's what makes them worth asking."
I leaned back against the window, watching moonlight spill across the floor. Araragi's face was still and pale. Peaceful, if you didn't know what was happening beneath the skin.
"Do you think he'll be the same?" I asked.
"No one is," she said. "After something like this."
"You weren't."
"That's different."
"Why?"
She turned to look at me, eyes sharp even in the dark.
"Because I chose what I became. He's still becoming."
I thought about that.
Had I chosen this? Or had I simply followed gravity into someone else's story?
A long stretch of quiet.
Then:
"What did you expect me to be like?" she asked.
It wasn't hostile—just curious. Like a cat circling something unfamiliar.
"I don't know," I said. "I imagined you... bigger."
She quirked an eyebrow.
"I meant presence-wise," I added quickly. "Not literally."
"I'm conserving energy."
"I know."
"You say that often," she said. "'I know.' Even when you shouldn't."
I stayed quiet.
"You see through people," she added. "And yet you show so little of yourself. It's... unnatural."
"Maybe I've just seen people like you before."
Her eyes narrowed. "There are no people like me."
"Maybe not exactly," I said. "But sadness looks the same on most faces."
A flicker.
Not anger. Not offense.
Just something... pausing behind her gaze.
"You're afraid of me," she said.
"Yes."
"But you don't run."
"I've done enough running."
Another silence.
Then:
"Do you pity me?"
"No."
"Liar."
I shook my head. "I don't pity you. I relate to you. That's worse."
This time she looked away—not dramatically, just slightly. Like something itched at the edge of her mind and she couldn't scratch it.
"I don't understand you," she said.
"Me neither."
That earned the smallest twitch of her mouth. Not a smile. Not yet.
But something cracked open behind her expression.
The couch creaked.
Araragi's body shifted—just a twitch.
We both saw it.
"Soon," she said.
"Yeah."
We didn't move. Didn't speak again.
Just sat in the dark, two strangers with too many secrets and not enough questions left to ask, waiting for the boy on the couch to wake up and change everything.