Daiso doesn't sleep right away.
The apartment settles around him in uneven waves—voices rising and falling through the walls, a television laugh track cutting in where it shouldn't, pipes ticking as hot water crawls through them like something alive. The air smells like reheated food and dust baked warm by the day.
He lies on his back on the floor, staring at the ceiling fan.
Click.
Whirr.
Click.
The rhythm is wrong.
He counts anyway.
Not to fix it.
To keep it from fixing him.
Every time he closes his eyes, he sees the street again—not the kids, not the shoving. The moment after. The way the air had shifted when they noticed him. The way the wire had twisted, not to stop something, but to redirect it.
Interference.
The word sits heavy in his chest.
He rolls onto his side and presses his forehead to the cool tile. The contact helps. Grounding. Real. His fingers curl against the floor, nails scraping lightly, a sensation sharp enough to anchor him.
This is new, he thinks.
Not the stopping.
The staying.
Before, moments passed through him like storms—violent, loud, gone. Today, the moment had looked back. It had remembered him.
Daiso swallows.
That's how patterns form.
He pushes himself up and grabs a glass of water from the sink, drinking too fast, throat burning. The tremor in his hands hasn't stopped yet. It probably won't tonight.
When he finally crawls into bed, sleep comes in pieces. Shallow. Fragmented.
He dreams of streets folding in on themselves. Of lights that never quite change. Of people hesitating—not because they're afraid, but because they're waiting for someone else to move first.
He wakes before dawn, heart racing.
The wire hums.
Not sharp.
Expectant.
⸻
The next morning smells like rain that never falls.
Clouds hang low, trapping heat and sound. The city feels compressed, like everything's been nudged half a step closer together.
Daiso eats without tasting and leaves early.
On the walk to school, he takes his usual route—and then doesn't. His feet carry him down a side street he doesn't normally use, past a construction site wrapped in orange netting and warning signs no one reads.
The wire tightens.
He slows.
A cluster of people waits at the corner ahead. Too many for this early. Their body language is wrong—angled inward, attention pooled toward something Daiso can't see yet.
He stops across the street.
Listens.
A car idles where it shouldn't. Someone mutters, irritated. Another voice rises, sharp and tired.
"It's been like this all week."
"Then do something."
The light stays red.
Too long.
Daiso feels the pressure build—not spike. Accumulate. Like a held breath stretched past comfort.
He doesn't move.
He can.
He knows exactly where to step. Exactly how long to wait. The wire lays the path out clean and obvious.
He doesn't take it.
Across the street, a woman steps forward, then hesitates. A man behind her sighs loudly. A cyclist rings a bell, annoyed.
The air tightens.
Daiso's heart pounds.
This is the part where it's on him.
The wire hums, urging.
He clenches his fists and stays put.
Then—unexpectedly—the woman lifts her head and raises her voice.
"Hey," she calls. "Light's stuck."
The man behind her grunts. "So?"
"So we wait," she says. "Or we get hit."
A beat.
The cyclist lowers his bell.
The group settles—not comfortably, but together.
The light flips green a second later.
They cross.
No crash.
No near-miss.
No Daiso.
He exhales, shaky and disbelieving.
That worked, a part of him whispers.
Another part tightens immediately after.
Because the wire doesn't relax.
It adjusts.
As he steps into the crosswalk last, Daiso feels it clearly now—not just around him, but through the people who just moved. The moment had reshaped itself without him, but it had used the space he'd left behind.
Shared load.
Shared risk.
His chest aches with something dangerously close to hope.
And hope, he knows, is heavier than fear.
At school, the looks last longer today.
Not staring.
Checking.
A teacher's gaze lingers when he answers a question too quickly. A classmate shifts closer at lunch, then backs off like they've touched something hot. The girl from yesterday—the one who'd stepped in—passes him in the hallway and tilts her head, curious.
The wire hums, steady and alert.
Daiso keeps his head down and tells himself this is fine. This is better. People stepping in. People noticing.
But deep down, something coils tight.
Because noticing is the first step to expecting.
And expectation is how weight finds a new place to sit.
By the end of the day, the city feels louder again—not in sound, but in anticipation. As if it's leaning forward, waiting to see if yesterday was a fluke.
Daiso pauses at the school doors, backpack heavy on his shoulders.
He senses it then—faint but unmistakable.
The wire isn't just reacting anymore.
It's learning.
And somewhere beyond streets and classrooms and almosts, something is learning it too.
Not the boy.
The correction.
The shape that stays.
Daiso steps outside, heart thudding, unaware that this is the last day he'll be able to pretend that stepping back is the same thing as stepping away.