I wake up the next day slower than usual, as if my body's forgotten how to begin. There's no alarm this time—just the muffled chirp of birds outside the window and the soft whirr of the fan oscillating above. A gentle morning, if such a thing exists.
I stay in bed longer than I probably should. The sheets are warm, tangled, and my limbs are reluctant, heavy with that strange in-between weight—rested and weary at once. Not the kind of tired you sleep off. The kind that settles into your bones and loops around your shoulders like a coat you never took off.
A few of the cats are already in the room.
Nimbus is curled on the pillow beside me, tail twitching in his sleep like he's chasing something only he can see. Meow-Meow is stretched along my feet like a furry heating pad, purring softly. I envy their ease—their unthinking rhythm. The way they inhabit each moment without worry or need for justification. No expectations. No guilt.
I, on the other hand, keep thinking about how I'm supposed to use this leave wisely. As if healing from burnout is a project I'm supposed to manage. As if stillness must be earned.
The day creeps by. Light filters in, golden and slow. At some point, I drift off again—unintentionally. I don't even remember lying down, just blinking and then waking to new shadows. The fan still turns. The light on the walls has changed, stretched longer now, curling like sleepy ghosts in motion.
The cats have migrated, forming new constellations across the apartment: Xiao perched atop the laundry basket like a sentry, Uno claiming the windowsill like royalty, and Meow-Meow still loyal by my side—curled like a croissant.
And then—
Bzzzt.
A single vibration, sharp and unexpected.
In the quiet of the apartment, it sounds louder than it should. Like a dropped pin in a cathedral.
I did not move at first. I know what it might be. meme from Katie. A work email I'll pretend I didn't see. Maybe another message from Liam— being honest like he is, caring and earnest but I cannot bring myself to accept his feelings, I know I am the problem, I just cannot pretend having feelings more than I can offer.
It's been a year now since his confession. It's always been awkward since then. He said it kindly, honestly, he's always been subtle about it and I turned him down gently, I hope I did it gently, but I cannot remember being one, all I can remember that time is seeing a photo of him posted on our common friends socials, a pboto of him getting wasted— drinking and crying. And because of that there's always a weight to our conversations now. A subtle shift in the air. Like standing too close to a door you're not ready to open.
The phone buzzes again.
I sigh, reach for it without much urgency. Liam's name appears first.
Liam:
Are you still alive? I saw you online. Don't ignore my message, Daff.
So, naturally, I ignore his message, exactly the thing he'd hope I wouldn't do. I cannot continue giving him mix-signals unintentionally, if ever, I want to be clear on what we have, on what I can only offer. It's making me feel like this is a responsibility.
I close the chat, guilt forming like a film I can't quite scrub off.
That's when I notice another notification—subtler, but insistent.
Friend Request.
My thumb pauses over it. The name on the screen didn't register at first. It looked familiar in the way faces in dreams do—like something important seen through fog.
Tachibana Ryusei.
I blinked, sat up straighter more than I can. My heart gave an odd thump in my chest, out of rhythm with the quiet.
"It couldn't be." I gave myself a slight slap on my cheeks.
It had to be a fan account. Or some elaborate cosplay profile, the kind built by devoted followers who knew how to make things look real. I'd seen plenty before—pages mimicking celebrities with almost alarming accuracy.
But something about this one...
It wasn't flashy. It didn't scream for attention. There were no profile banners with over-edited collages, no emoji-packed bios screaming "Official ✨Ryusei✨ Fanpage." The account name was simple: @ryusei__. Almost as if someone had tried to vanish among the crowd of usernames but couldn't help being seen.
The profile picture was a candid shot—not one you'd find in promotional materials. It looked like it had been taken during rehearsal, maybe backstage. Ryusei-- he wasn't posing. He was mid-laugh, head slightly turned, eyes half-lidded. His trademark silver streak—dyed into otherwise jet-black hair—caught the stage lights just right. He looked real. Tired. Warm.
The bio read:
Just passing through.
27. Tokyo. I sing sometimes.
No links. No flashy hashtags. Just that.
I scrolled down the feed. Only a handful of posts. Grainy photos of empty train stations. A short clip of rain on a windowpane. An image of a small poodle—captioned only with a heart emoji and a name Cora. And one video where the camera focused on a cup of coffee on a balcony as dusk fell. His voice hummed softly in the background, off-key, barely audible. Not for performance—for memory.
It was... personal. Private. Like a digital diary that wasn't meant to be found. The kind you'd only share with someone you trusted. Or someone you thought might understand.
And it had sent me a request.
I stared at the screen for a long time, trying to make sense of it. The logical part of me scrambled for answers. Maybe he accidentally tapped "Add Friend." Maybe it was someone else entirely. A friend playing a prank. A cat walking across the phone.
But the username, the tone of the posts, the intimacy of them—it felt... sincere.
Still, my thumb hovered over the "Delete" button. That would be the smart thing to do, right? Decline. Ignore. Move on. Protect the fragile equilibrium I had carved in the quiet corners of my life.
But then—
Why me?
That thought echoed, uninvited.
I wasn't special. I didn't have a following. My profile was private, filled mostly with cat photos, books I half-finished, and the occasional song lyric I'd never dare explain. There was nothing that stood out. Nothing that would catch the eye of someone who had performed in sold-out domes and appeared on billboards ten stories tall.
Unless...
He saw something.
The thought felt dangerous.
I looked again at his profile—@ryusei__ and back at the request button.
One click. Accept.
That was it. That was all it took.
I placed the phone down like it might burn through my hand. The cats had started to stir again, hungry for their third meal of the day, but for once, I didn't move. I just stared at the ceiling fan, its steady rotations now oddly mismatched with the rhythm of my thoughts.
What if it was him?
The real him.
What did I just let in?
I don't want to tell anyone. Not Katie, not Liam, not even my journal. It didn't feel real enough to say out loud. Like a dream I might wake from if I gave it a name.
Still, that night, as I lay in bed with the cats scattered like stars around me, I picked up my phone again.
I opened the app.
No new messages. No likes. Nothing.
But he was there—on my list now. Quiet. Present. Real?
And for reasons I couldn't explain, my heart wouldn't settle.
I wasn't lonely.
I had made peace with solitude.
But something had changed.
Something small.
Something strange.
Something like a new gravity in my orbit.
And even though the night was quiet as always... it didn't feel empty.
Not tonight.