Ren had never been a boy to seek trouble.
He was the sort who preferred afternoons with tea and a book to the bright chaos of the city. Life, to him, was best when it went unnoticed—like the quiet turn of a page, or the cool wind threading through the schoolyard trees.
On that particular afternoon, he was walking home with two friends, their laughter trailing in the air like the tail of a kite. They were speaking of small things—tests, television, and which teacher had the strangest necktie—when he saw her.
A woman.
She was crouched beside the road, her hands clutching the hem of her skirt, her head bowed so low her hair hid her face. Not a beggar's rags—her clothes were modest, neat—but there was a tremble in her shoulders, the quiet collapse of someone cornered by life.
Ren slowed, his friends' voices blurring behind him.
Something about her sadness pressed against him like the heavy scent of rain.
He knelt to face her, the asphalt cool against his shoes.
"Are you all right?" he asked, his voice soft, as though the wrong tone might shatter her.
She didn't answer.
Ren, unsure what to do, offered the only thing he had—a half-empty can of soda, still cold from his hand. "Here," he said. "It'll be fine."
For a heartbeat, she looked at him. Dark eyes, glassy as wet stone. She took the can, and he rose, returning to the world of his friends.
The next day, she was there again.
And the day after.
No longer folded in misery, she sat straighter, her eyes scanning the street as if waiting. But each time Ren passed, he felt her gaze cling to him like a shadow that had learned to breathe.
Weeks slipped by, and she began appearing in places she could not reasonably be—at the station when he took the late train, at the small grocery when he ran errands. Even when he delivered meals for the hotel where he worked part-time, the address would, by coincidence or design, lead him to her door.
Ren laughed it off with his coworkers, but the laughter felt brittle. This was too much to be chance.
He began to notice things.
That her gaze lingered even when she wasn't close. That he could walk through a crowd and still sense her somewhere behind him, steady and patient.
And then—one evening—his parents were away, and the house was a hollow thing filled with the rustle of paper as he worked on homework.
The first sound was faint, like the sigh of a drawer being shut downstairs. He thought nothing of it until it came again, sharper. Ren rose, but his legs betrayed him. They folded beneath him like wet paper. He did not black out—he was simply… locked inside himself.
Footsteps.
And then she appeared.
A figure in a gas mask, its dull eyes reflecting the lamplight.
She came closer, and beneath the mask he saw the dark hair, the familiar tilt of her head. The woman from the road.
Ren's pulse thundered. He had no power, no way to flee. Logic would not save him—not here. He would have to speak his way out.
"Aren't you," he said, his voice trembling but steady enough to shape, "the beautiful lady I saw that day?"
She nodded.
"Why are you doing this? Is it… to get my attention?"
Again, a nod. Hesitant, like a child admitting to stealing sweets.
Good. He could work with that. If this was obsession, it was better than violence.
She reached out, fingers brushing his cheek. Her breath, loud through the mask, carried the faint heat of blush. Her heart beat like a drum too near his ear.
"Why go through all the trouble?" he murmured. "I've noticed you… for some time. I know how you feel." He lied—he had never known—but survival demanded kindness.
"What do you plan to do to me now? Will you harm me?"
She shook her head quickly, almost desperately.
"Then… may I see your face? Don't I deserve to see you again?"
She faltered, glancing away. More color rose beneath the pale mask of her skin.
"Don't you think this is too fast?" he pressed, voice gentle as a falling leaf. "What if you scare me away? We should talk. Later, if not now. I mean… we have to know each other first. Dating seems fine, right?"
Her head turned sharply aside, her shoulders stiffening. Was that embarrassment? Her hands twitched as if unsure whether to reach for him or retreat.
Ren realized, with strange surprise, that his fear had dulled—not gone, but softened into a sharp awareness. He could still feel the tremor in his limbs, but his mind was no longer drowning.
"I'm still a student," he said, careful to lace the words with calm. "I have learning to do. A future to build… a family, someday."
Her gaze drifted toward his study table. She sat beside it, the mask tilting down toward his notebooks. Ren's limbs still refused him, but he could speak, and so he kept speaking—soft, measured, coaxing her into stillness.
She picked up a pen. For a long moment, the only sound was the scratch of ink against paper. Then she checked her watch, untied him, and stood.
At the door, she waved—an oddly shy gesture for someone in a gas mask.
Ren thought, absurdly, that she was smiling beneath it.
Minutes later, feeling returned to his fingers, his legs. They shook as if the ground itself had been taken from him. On the desk, his homework was done—neat, precise handwriting not his own.
He stared at it for a long time, the ink swimming before his eyes.
What the hell just happened?
The next afternoon, as he walked home, he saw her again.
She stood at the corner where he had first met her, but now dressed carefully, as though for an occasion. A scarf framed her face. Her eyes found him, and she smiled—no mask this time.
A chill slid down Ren's spine, but his hands trembled not from cold.
She had noticed. And she was waiting.