The next morning, Mira sat cross-legged on her bed, notebook open on her lap, ink pen hovering above the page as if unsure where to land. Her tea had gone cold. The red scarf lay folded on her pillow like a punctuation mark she wasn't sure how to interpret.
She finally wrote:
**Letter 1: accurate. Red scarf → seat offered.**
**Letter 2: followed advice. Café avoided. Something happened at Café Luca.**
And below that, in smaller letters:
**These aren't harmless notes.**
There was a quiet knock at her door.
Without looking up, she called, "It's open, Kanna."
Sure enough, her neighbor slid in holding a half-eaten bun and wearing socks that didn't match. "You always know it's me. Psychic or psychic-adjacent?"
"I can hear your humming three doors away."
"It's called a *vibe*, thank you very much." Kanna flopped down on the edge of the bed. Her eyes dropped to the journal in Mira's lap. "Still writing love letters to the universe?"
Mira closed it instinctively. "Something like that."
"You didn't answer my texts last night. You okay?"
Mira hesitated. "Do you believe in coincidences?"
Kanna's eyebrows lifted. "Only when it's me finding cheesecake on sale the exact day I'm craving it."
Mira smiled despite herself, then slowly pulled the envelope from the edge of her desk. She handed it over.
Kanna took it with dramatic curiosity. "Ooh. Mysterious stationery. Is this scented?" She held it to her nose. "Nope. Smells like... deadlines and emotional confusion. Very on brand."
"Read it."
Kanna opened it. Her eyes scanned the line. "Avoid the second café on your right?"
She tilted her head. "Okay. Cryptic fortune cookie, got it. Is this from that weird storytelling game you signed up for?"
Mira shook her head. "It was on my floor yesterday. Like the first one. And the advice—it matched something real."
Kanna looked up. "Wait, this isn't a prank?"
"I thought so at first," Mira murmured, voice low, "but... it's too specific. And it keeps happening."
Kanna was quiet for a beat.
Then: "This is either the best meet-cute setup of all time, or someone has *a lot* of time on their hands."
"I don't even know who to tell. Sota would say it's my imagination. My mom would tell me to join a study group."
Kanna leaned back, chewing the corner of her bun. "Okay. Let's take this seriously. You've gotten two letters, right?"
Mira nodded.
"And they were both accurate?"
"Uncomfortably."
"Maybe it's a social experiment. You know how the psych department is always doing weird questionnaires on perception?"
"Psych students don't use parchment paper and prophetic timing."
"Touché."
They sat in silence for a moment, broken only by the soft hum of the heater and the tapping of light rain outside.
"Keep the next one," Kanna said finally. "Don't just read it. Let's catalog it. I'll help."
Mira gave her a look. "You think this is turning into a pattern?"
"I think," Kanna said, standing and brushing crumbs from her skirt, "that if some faceless fortune-teller from the future wants to change your life, we may as well keep good notes."
---
Later that evening, Mira returned to her journal. The page from that morning stared back at her, unfinished. She uncapped her pen and wrote slowly:
**Kanna doesn't think I'm crazy. That helps.**
**But I can't explain this. Not logically.**
Then, before she could stop herself:
**What if this isn't the first time this has happened to me? What if I just forgot?**
She frowned.
Ridiculous.
Still… she turned to the back of her notebook and scribbled a new section title: **The Letter Log**. She numbered it from one to ten, even though she only had two entries so far. Just in case.
There was something oddly comforting about writing it down. Like if she made it *real* on paper, she could hold it still long enough to understand.
She glanced at the scarf on her chair. Crimson wool. A ghost of a memory. Her father's voice—"Red suits you, Mira. You look like spring in motion"—drifted faintly through her mind, like music remembered from another room.
Something about that memory tugged.
She went to her closet, dug through a pile of old notebooks and binders, and pulled out a box of mementos—photos, birthday cards, faded receipts. At the bottom lay an unopened envelope.
Mira blinked.
It was blank. Same thick paper. Same faded corners.
Her heart stuttered. She brought it into the light. Nothing written. No name, no date.
But when she opened it—
It was empty.
Only it wasn't. Something scraped faintly along the inside of the paper lining. Carefully, she pulled out the tiniest feather she'd ever seen.
It shimmered slightly, pale gold in the lamplight.
She stared at it.
Then carefully placed it next to the first letter in her journal, hands trembling just slightly.
"I don't think this started yesterday," she whispered into the room.
The feather didn't answer.
But the air felt... expectant.
Like something had just woken up.
---