The afternoon light spilled across the street in a way that should have felt warm.
It was the kind of light that usually meant dinner would come soon, that voices would drift in through open windows, that the world would slow itself gently toward evening. Gold clung to the edges of rooftops and fences, turning dust into glitter when the wind stirred it. The sky was clear—too clear—and for a moment I found myself staring at it for no reason at all, as if something important might be written there.
Nothing was.
I sat near the window, my knees pulled up, tracing the cracks in the wooden frame with my thumb. The house smelled like old paper and tea leaves. Familiar. Safe. Dad was nearby, not saying much, just moving through the room with that quiet confidence he always carried, the kind that made you forget he was there until you needed him.
That was when I noticed he had stopped moving.
At first, I didn't think anything of it. Adults paused all the time. Thinking, listening, resting their feet. But the longer the silence stretched, the more it pressed against my ears. The usual sounds—the clink of something being set down, the low hum of the house settling—had thinned, like someone had reached out and gently turned the world's volume down.
I shifted in my seat.
Dad stood near the doorway, one hand resting against the wall. He wasn't looking at me. He wasn't even looking inside the house. His gaze was fixed past the threshold, out toward the street, his posture loose but wrong in a way I couldn't explain. Not tense. Not relaxed. Balanced. Like he was waiting for something to move.
I followed his line of sight.
The street looked the same as it always did.
Neighbors passed by at a distance, their footsteps unhurried. Somewhere farther off, a cart rattled over stone, its wheels bumping rhythmically. A dog barked once, then fell silent. The wind brushed through the trees lining the road, lifting leaves just enough to make them whisper.
Everything was ordinary.
So why did it feel like I'd interrupted something?
A strange thought crossed my mind then—one that made no sense at all. It felt as if the street had been arranged. Like a picture that had already been drawn before I looked at it, every person standing exactly where they were supposed to be. The longer I stared, the more aware I became of how still everything was between movements.
"Dad?" I asked.
He didn't answer right away.
His eyes narrowed just slightly, not in anger, not even in suspicion, but in concentration. When he finally looked down at me, the expression was gone, smoothed away so cleanly I wondered if I'd imagined it.
"Yes?"
"Is something wrong?"
He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"No," he said. "Nothing's wrong."
The words should have settled me. They usually did. Instead, they slid past, leaving something cold behind.
Dad stepped forward then, positioning himself just a little closer to the door. It wasn't obvious. Anyone else would have thought he was just stretching his legs or changing his stance. But from where I sat, it felt deliberate—like he was placing himself between me and the outside world.
I glanced back at the street.
For a moment, I thought I saw someone standing across from the house. Just a shape near the lamppost. When I blinked, the shape didn't move.
I leaned forward, curiosity stirring despite the tightness in my chest.
"Don't," Dad said quietly.
His hand came down on my shoulder—not hard, not gentle. Certain.
I froze.
"It's nothing," he added, softer now. "Just… stay where you are."
The words should have settled me. They usually did. Instead, they slid past, leaving something cold behind.
As I settled back, I told myself the feeling would pass. That I was tired. That the light was playing tricks on my eyes. Houses didn't notice people. Streets didn't watch.
Still, I couldn't shake the sense that something had shifted—that the afternoon had taken a wrong turn somewhere, and we were all pretending not to see it.
And for the first time, I wished the sun would hurry up and set.
Dad stepped forward then, positioning himself just a little closer to the door. It wasn't obvious. Anyone else would have thought he was just stretching his legs or changing his stance. But from where I sat, it felt deliberate—like he was placing himself between me and the outside world.
I glanced back at the street.
That was when I noticed the man by the lamppost.
He hadn't appeared suddenly. That was the strange part. I couldn't remember a moment when he hadn't been there. He stood with one shoulder resting against the metal, posture casual enough to disappear into the background if you weren't looking for him. His clothes were plain, the sort of thing dozens of people wore every day, and his face was turned just enough that I couldn't see it clearly.
He wasn't looking at our house.
At least, that was what it seemed like at first.
His gaze lingered somewhere to the side, unfocused, as if he were waiting for someone or killing time. Anyone passing by would have assumed he was bored, or lost in thought. I almost did too. Almost.
But when the light shifted, glinting faintly off the lamppost's surface, I caught the reflection of his eyes.
They were angled toward us.
The realization came softly, without shock. I felt no jolt of fear, no rush of alarm. Just a quiet, crawling awareness that settled beneath my skin. He didn't move when I noticed him. Didn't flinch, didn't look away. If anything, he seemed more still, like a painting someone had finished and stepped back from.
I told myself he was waiting for someone.
People leaned against lampposts all the time. Maybe his feet hurt. Maybe he liked the shade. Maybe this was just where he always stood in the afternoons. The reasons stacked neatly in my mind, one on top of the other, each one smoothing over the unease just enough to keep it from becoming fear.
Still, I found myself watching him.
Dad shifted beside me.
Not enough to draw attention. Just enough that his shoulder blocked part of the window. His hand lifted, adjusting the curtain slightly—not closing it, just narrowing the view. The movement was so casual it almost fooled me.
Almost.
The man by the lamppost didn't react.
Minutes passed. Or maybe only seconds. Time felt oddly stretched, like it was waiting for permission to move on.
When I finally looked away, my reflection stared back at me from the glass, pale and unsure. And behind it, faint but unmistakable, I could still see the lamppost—and the man who hadn't left.
I didn't realise how long I'd been holding my breath until Dad exhaled beside me.
The sound was quiet, controlled. Not a sigh. More like a release he hadn't meant for me to hear. He shifted his weight, just slightly, as if testing the floor beneath his feet. His eyes never left the street.
I followed his gaze again.
That was when I saw the second man.
He stood closer than the first. Not across the street, not half-forgotten by distance, but on the same side as our house, a few doors down. He wasn't leaning on anything. He wasn't pretending to be busy. He stood with his feet planted and his hands folded loosely in front of him, posture straight without being rigid.
He was watching us.
Not the house.
Us.
There was no mistaking it. His eyes met mine the moment I looked up, as if he'd been waiting for me to notice. They weren't sharp. They weren't cruel. If anything, they were calm—too calm—like he was studying something he'd already decided upon.
I felt heat creep up my neck.
I looked away first.
The embarrassment surprised me. It didn't feel like danger. It felt like being caught staring, like I'd broken some unspoken rule and didn't know what the punishment was supposed to be. My fingers curled into the fabric of my sleeve, nails pressing lightly into my skin.
Why was he looking at me like that?
I glanced up again, careful this time.
He hadn't moved.
The man's expression hadn't changed either. His face was ordinary enough that I struggled to remember any specific feature—the kind of face that slipped from your mind the moment you stopped looking at it. Dark hair, perhaps. Or brown. I couldn't be sure. It was as if my eyes refused to settle on anything concrete.
Dad took a step forward.
It wasn't sudden. It wasn't aggressive. He simply placed himself fully in front of me now, blocking the window entirely. From where I stood, all I could see was his back, broad and steady, a familiar shape that suddenly felt like a shield.
"Go sit," he said quietly, not turning around.
I hesitated. "But—"
"Now."
There was no anger in his voice. No panic. Just certainty. The kind that didn't invite arguments.
I moved.
As I stepped away, I felt it again—that sensation of being measured. Even with my back turned, even with Dad between us, I could feel the man's gaze lingering, heavy and unblinking. The feeling followed me across the room, like a shadow that didn't care where the light was.
When I reached the far wall, I risked one last glance.
The man was still there.
Still watching.
Dad hadn't moved either. His stance was relaxed on the surface, but I could see it now—the way his shoulders were set, the way his hands hung at his sides, loose but ready. I had seen that posture before, though I couldn't remember where. It made my stomach twist.
After a long moment, the man finally looked away.
Not in defeat.
In dismissal.
He turned and walked down the street at an unhurried pace, disappearing around the corner without once looking back. The space he left behind felt wrong, like a dent in the air that hadn't smoothed out yet.
I waited for my chest to loosen.
It didn't.
Because even as his footsteps faded, I knew—somewhere deep, in a place I didn't have words for yet—that he had seen enough.
And that scared me far more than if he'd stayed.
The street should have felt emptier after that.
One man gone. One pair of eyes no longer on the house. Logic said the tension should ease, that whatever had been coiled in my chest could finally loosen. I waited for the relief to come.
It didn't.
Dad remained where he was, still blocking the window. He didn't relax. Didn't turn around. His attention stayed fixed outside, as if the man who'd left were only part of the picture, a piece removed from a larger pattern that hadn't finished forming.
That was when the feeling returned.
Not sight.
Pressure.
The kind you feel when someone stands too close behind you, close enough that you can sense their presence without hearing a sound. My skin prickled, a quiet warning crawling up my arms. I shifted, uneasy, and scanned the street again, slower this time.
Nothing.
The lamppost stood alone now. The road stretched empty in both directions. Doors were shut. Windows reflected the fading light without giving anything back. If I hadn't known better, I would have sworn we were the only ones left.
And yet.
I frowned, my gaze drifting upward without knowing why.
The second floor across the street had always been unremarkable—a narrow building with dark shutters and a single window that usually caught the sun just before evening. I'd looked at it a hundred times without ever really seeing it.
Now, it felt like it was looking at me.
A figure stood just inside the glass.
Not pressed against it. Not hiding. Simply there, half-swallowed by shadow, positioned far enough back that the details blurred. I couldn't tell if they were tall or short, young or old. Only that they were facing our house.
I couldn't remember when they had arrived.
That thought sent a chill through me.
Had they been there when I first sat by the window? When Dad stopped moving? When the man by the lamppost pretended not to look? I searched my memory, replaying the afternoon over and over, but there was no moment where the window had been empty.
It was as if my mind had skipped over it. Like it had decided, on its own, that noticing would be a mistake.
Maybe they lived there.
The excuse came quickly, eagerly. Of course they lived there. People stood in their own windows all the time. Watching the street. Watching the weather. Watching nothing at all. I was the strange one for staring.
Still, I couldn't look away.
The figure didn't move. Not when a cloud slid over the sun. Not when the light dimmed and the glass turned reflective. They remained exactly where they were, a quiet silhouette framed by fading gold.
Dad's hand came up.
This time, he didn't touch me.
He closed the curtain.
The fabric slid across the window with a soft, final sound, cutting the street in half. The room darkened instantly, shadows pooling in the corners like they'd been waiting for permission to return.
Dad leaned his forehead briefly against the window frame, just long enough for me to notice.
Then he straightened.
"That's enough," he said.
I nodded, though my throat felt tight.
As we moved away, I tried to convince myself that I'd imagined it. That my eyes had played tricks on me, layering fear where none belonged. But the feeling followed me anyway, clinging to my back as I climbed the stairs to my room.
Even there, even with the door closed and the curtains drawn tight, I found myself glancing at the walls.
Wondering which side of them the watching was happening from.
And whether it had ever really stopped.
Renar Hoshino's POV:
They were sloppy.
That was the first thing I noticed.
The street had been dressed to look ordinary, but the rhythm was wrong. Too many pauses. Too much stillness between movements. People passed, sounds carried, the wind did its work—but the pattern underneath it all had been disturbed.
I felt it before I saw them.
I stopped moving.
You learn early not to react too quickly. Sudden shifts invite attention, and attention was exactly what they wanted. So I rested my hand against the wall and let my breathing settle, eyes fixed outward as if I were nothing more than a man enjoying the afternoon light.
The first watcher leaned against the lamppost across the street.
Amateur concealment. Adequate distance. Face turned away just enough to give plausible deniability. He didn't look at the house directly, which told me he'd been trained not to—but not well enough to understand reflections.
He was there to confirm presence.
I adjusted my stance, placing myself closer to the doorway without making it obvious. My son sat by the window, too close, too exposed. I watched the reflection of the lamppost in the glass and saw the watcher's eyes angle toward us.
So he'd already spotted Hoshikawa.
That narrowed things.
The second watcher made no effort to hide.
He stood on our side of the street, posture open, hands loose, eyes steady. Confidence like that didn't come from courage—it came from knowing you weren't alone. When Hoshikawa noticed him, the man met his gaze immediately.
Testing reaction. Age. Awareness.
I stepped forward before my son could lean closer.
Shielding instinct overrode caution. I positioned myself fully between them, letting my body say what my words could not: this one is protected.
The second watcher assessed me in a single glance.
His eyes didn't linger. They didn't need to.
He wasn't here for me.
That realization tightened something old and sharp in my chest.
I told Hoshikawa to move away from the window. My voice stayed level. Calm was a weapon as much as any blade, and panic would only make us easier to read. He obeyed, though I could feel his confusion pressing against my back.
Good. Confusion meant innocence.
The second watcher left without hurry, which confirmed my suspicion. Scouts didn't rush. Runners did. This man had already learned what he came for.
I waited.
The third presence revealed itself the way it always does—by refusing to be noticed.
Upper window across the street. Interior shadow. No movement, no signal. Just a shape placed where it could see everything without being seen. That one was patient. Disciplined. The kind that reported, not acted.
I closed the curtain.
Not abruptly. Finality didn't need force.
For a brief moment, I rested my forehead against the frame. A habit I thought I'd buried long ago surfaced without permission. The past had a way of finding you when you least wanted to be found.
They had found us.
Not today. Not yet. But the house was marked now, if not in maps then in memory.
I turned away before Hoshikawa could ask questions.
"That's enough," I said.
He nodded. Too easily. Children trusted silence when it came from someone they believed in. I hated myself for that, just a little.
As he went upstairs, I stayed behind, counting heartbeats until the street's rhythm returned to something resembling normal.
They wouldn't act soon.
But they would come back.
And next time, they wouldn't be watching.