Ethan left before dawn.
The first thing Kaori heard was the front door clicking shut, soft but hurried.
Then the muffled thump of his shoes on the front step, and silence.
By the time the pale light of morning crept through the curtains, the house was already still.
Kaori blinked awake to emptiness.
For a second she thought he might still be in the kitchen, banging pans or muttering at the coffee pot. But the air carried no human sound—only the faint ticking of the clock and the lazy hum of electricity.
Her eyes narrowed. "Coward," she muttered under her breath.
She pushed back the blanket, stood carefully on her healing leg, and crossed to the window. The street outside shimmered with early light; Ethan was nowhere in sight. His bike was gone.
"He ran away before I could stop him again," she said to no one, voice half-resentful, half-amused. "Pathetic."
She turned, the echo of her own words bouncing back strangely from the walls.
The house was unnervingly still.
Kaori made her way downstairs, one hand grazing the rail. The floorboards creaked in places they hadn't before. Every sound seemed to arrive a fraction late, like the walls were remembering what noise was supposed to be.
The couch sat in its usual spot, rumpled blanket still thrown over the backrest. The faint indentation of Ethan's sleep marked the cushions.
For reasons she didn't want to examine, she hesitated before touching them. Then she lowered herself into the seat.
The fabric was warm.
Not from sunlight—the curtains were drawn—but from something deeper, like the couch still remembered his weight, his heat, his exhaustion.
Kaori exhaled through her nose. "Hopeless human."
Behind her, the air shifted.
A figure stood only a few feet away: pale dress, hair falling like smoke, face hidden. She was silent, unmoving, her gaze fixed not on Kaori but on the spot beside her—the hollow where Ethan had slept.
Kaori didn't see her.
The ghost tilted her head, a slow, almost curious motion. Her fingers hovered inches above the cushion, tracing the faint outline left behind. The air cooled, a shimmer of frost spreading under her invisible touch.
Kaori rubbed her arms against the chill and frowned at the window. "Weather changed fast," she murmured.
The ghost remained there for a long moment, as if memorizing every breath of warmth left in the room, then faded back—her outline slipping into the shadows near the stairwell.
Kaori spent the morning trying to keep busy.
She swept the hall, re-bandaged her leg, boiled water for tea. The chores felt mechanical, almost ritualistic. She didn't realize how often she looked toward the door, expecting to hear Ethan stumble back in with another excuse.
At 10 a.m. she sat at the dining table, the silence pressing against her ears. She could hear her own heartbeat—and beneath it, something slower. A second rhythm, faint and patient, pulsing from the walls.
Ignore it.
She took a sip of tea, eyes fixed on the clock. The second hand ticked normally. When she blinked, it was moving backward.
Her breath caught. She looked again—forward now. Ordinary.
She stood, chair scraping softly across the floor. Every instinct screamed to keep moving, not to listen. Movement meant control.
She went to the kitchen. The faucet dripped once. Then again.
Kaori turned the handle tightly. The dripping stopped. When she let go, the handle turned itself half an inch, and water began to fall again, perfectly timed: one drop every two seconds.
She stared for a full minute before walking away.
Upstairs, she checked her weapons. The sword gleamed in its scabbard, blade clean. She set it beside the window where the light hit the edge, a reminder that there were still things in the world she could trust.
Outside, children's voices drifted faintly from the street—school laughter, bicycle wheels, the soft thud of a ball. The sound was comforting, almost enough to drown the stillness inside.
Then the voices faded too quickly, cut off mid-word, like someone had pressed mute on the world.
Kaori turned slowly toward the door.
A shadow moved across the hallway wall—thin, feminine, hair trailing.
"Ethan?" she called before she could stop herself.
No reply.
The shadow paused, then melted into the corner.
Kaori's grip tightened on the doorway. "You're not getting me again," she whispered.
But she didn't chase it. She knew what happened to people who chased noises in this house.
Afternoon drifted by in uneasy stretches.
She sat at the table reading one of Ethan's notebooks—class notes full of scribbles and doodles. His handwriting was messy, confident, impatient. There were half-finished equations, arrows, a small cartoon of a stick figure screaming HELP, MIDTERMS.
The smallest smile crossed her face before she realized it.
The ghost was in the doorway again.
Kaori didn't see her, but the reflection on the kettle caught her faintly: a pale blur standing too still, watching from the threshold.
Every time Kaori turned a page, the ghost inched closer. Every blink closed the distance. Until she stood directly behind the chair, head tilted, watching the steam curl from Kaori's cup.
When Kaori exhaled, her breath fogged in front of her mouth. She rubbed her arms again, unaware of the shape behind her mirroring the motion exactly.
By sunset the house felt smaller.
Kaori lit the single lamp in the living room. Its glow didn't reach the corners; shadows clung stubbornly to the ceiling.
She stood near the window, eyes on the street. People passed by, unaware. The normal world marched on—traffic lights, laughter, the hum of life. She wondered if Ethan noticed, sitting in some classroom pretending his world was still ordinary.
Behind her, the couch shifted slightly. The blanket lifted and settled again, like someone invisible had sat down.
She didn't look.
Instead she whispered, "You're attached to him, aren't you?"
The air thickened. The temperature dropped another degree.
"I can't see you," she said softly, "but I know you're here."
The house answered with a faint creak—wood stretching like a sigh.
Kaori's jaw tightened. "He's alive. He's mine to protect. If you harm him again, I'll—"
The lights flickered once. Her reflection in the window darkened until she couldn't see her own face—only two faint points of red where eyes should be.
Then everything steadied.
She let out a long breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and turned away from the window. The couch was empty. The blanket undisturbed.
For the rest of the evening she refused to speak, refused even to think too loudly. The house seemed to listen.
Night fell.
Kaori sat on the couch again, sword resting across her knees, staring at the door. The clock struck nine. No Ethan yet. She told herself he was at work, that the outside world still existed, that the sun would rise again tomorrow.
Somewhere above her, floorboards creaked—soft steps, deliberate.
Not her own.
Not his.
She rose carefully, listening. The sound stopped.
When she looked back to the couch, the blanket had shifted again—folded neatly, as if someone had just finished straightening it.
Kaori swallowed hard. "Enough," she whispered to the empty room.
The front door handle turned.
Her heart leapt into her throat.
The lock clicked open.
She gripped the sword, ready to strike—
"Hey! It's just me!"
Ethan's voice cut through the dark as he stepped in, juggling a grocery bag and his keys. His hair was windblown, his shirt untucked.
Kaori froze, lowering the blade inch by inch.
He blinked at her. "You, uh… planning to greet me like that every night?"
She exhaled slowly, forcing her pulse to settle. "You should knock."
He grinned tiredly. "It's my house."
Behind him, unseen, the ghost stood just beyond the doorway, her face hidden, eyes fixed on the space between them.