Ren's apartment is the kind of quiet that makes the refrigerator sound like a river.
He sets the small pharmacy bag on the kitchen table, takes off his shoes, and pauses with one sock half-peeled, as if the day might unravel if he pulls it all the way.
The window's cracked. Evening leans through it—cool air, faint siren somewhere far, the smell of grilled fish from a neighbor's balcony. He closes his eyes and listens. When the city gets this soft, the wind sounds almost like track breath: in for four, out for four, a steady metronome you can build a life around.
He finishes with the sock, washes his hands, and pulls the bandages from the bag. Gauze, tape, antiseptic wipes. He lines them up in a neat row along the table edge—like the tape rolls at the shed, like the cones he places on the track, like anything that can be ordered into behaving. He takes a picture and sends it.
Ren: Got the stuff.
Kenta: you're a hero
Kenta: again
Ren: It's just tape.
Kenta: knuckles say thanks. wall deserved it tho
Ren: The wall never deserves it.
Kenta: ok monk
Kenta: see you monday
Ren smiles before he notices. The expression startles him—like catching a stranger's reflection living in his face. He clicks the phone off and sets it down screen-first, as if light itself were something to be careful with.
He fills a glass, drinks, and studies the bandages a second time. There's comfort in their simple purpose: one strip at a time, clean, cover, protect. Bodies try to heal when you let them. The trick is not picking at the scab because you hate the time it takes.
The day rewinds whether he wants it to or not: the damp lane squeak, Aoi's careful steps matching his, the way she shared the onigiri like it wasn't a favor. Her laugh—he keeps pretending he didn't hear that part, but he did. Twice.
You're terrible at phrasing things, she had said, cheeks pink despite the shade.
I'm out of practice, he had answered.
He sets the glass in the sink and catches himself grinning again.
Great. Twice in one night. Overachieving.
He showers quickly. The water hits the back of his neck and unspools the day in heat. For a heartbeat he's back on a starting line, breath suspended, world narrowed to a lane's width and a sound that hasn't fired yet. Then the pipes bang, the temperature wobbles, and the memory dissolves into steam.
He towels off, pulls on a faded T-shirt and sweats, then pauses at the door. The keys feel heavier than keys should. He picks them up anyway.
Outside, the stairs echo under his sneakers. The sky is graphite—one star brave enough to show through the city glow. The street below holds the kind of quiet that comes right after rain, when tires whisper and people speak half as loud so their words don't ping off the wet.
Ren puts in earbuds but doesn't play anything. He walks. Past the shuttered bakery (still smelling faintly of sugar), past the empty bus stop (advertisement peeling at one corner), across the intersection where the signal changes for no one. His pace settles—easy, a step under a jog, the kind of movement that convinces the body it's safe without convincing it to want more.
The park sits two blocks over, one down. The gate creaks in friendly recognition. He takes the outer loop, the path lit by lamps that make islands of gold on gravel. A jogger passes, ponytail swinging, breath steady; she nods the way night runners do, a shared secret permission to keep going.
Ren stops at the field. The grass is damp; the baseball diamond looks like a memory of a moon. He palms the chain-link fence, metal cool. The urge visits him—the old one, not sharp like a knife now, but persistent as a small tide. Just one straight. One curve. No one's here. No one will know.
"No heroics," he hears Minobe say, a voice borrowed from earlier in the day. He looks down at his shoes—the cheap trainers he refuses to replace because not-running doesn't deserve new laces. He steps back from the fence.
Instead he stretches—calf, hip, a cautious lean that tells the tendon hello but not let's go. He counts silently. The wind moves his shirt against his back, and something inside him unclenches—not because he's running, but because he didn't need to.
On the second lap he fishes his phone from his pocket, thumb hovering over her name: Kisaragi. In his contacts it's just the last name, neat as a label on a file. He types and erases three different messages.
Good work today. Too formal.
Brace looked better on the second lap. Too clinical.
You laughed twice. Insane.
He pockets the phone. The path curves. Gravel scrapes like the sound of baton knurling against palm—a tiny texture you forget until it's gone and remember like a lost word.
He thinks about what she said at the fence: Because it doesn't have to prove anything. It just moves. He rolls it around like a lozenge. He's spent years trying to outrun air; she gave him permission to let it carry him for once. It's such a simple thing it almost feels like a trick.
A cat sits on the path ahead—gray, lantern eyes, the same face as the vending machine stray. It stares like it knows him. He slows. The cat does not move. They conduct a quiet negotiation and arrive at peace: he steps off the path; the cat blinks magnanimously.
"Everyone's brave at night," he says to no one. His voice sounds different outdoors—less careful.
On the bench near the baseball fence he sits and watches the air tangle the park trees. The leaves gossip in whispers. He remembers his father's voice the way you remember a slammed door—through the vibration afterward rather than the sound. Technique first. Speed second. Win. It was meant as a map; his body learned it like a commandment.
He pulls out his phone again and opens notes. He writes:
Kisaragi — static at first → quieter by end of 2nd lap.
Guarding less when distracted (conversation helps).
Standing marches: smallest range = best control.
Laugh = diaphragm better than any cue.
He stares at the last line like it arrived from someone else. Then he adds, almost against his own rules:
I forgot what that sound does.
He locks the screen and leans back. The bench is cold through the cotton. A cyclist ghosts past on the outer path; the red tail light sways like a held breath.
He wonders what Aoi is doing right now. The image arrives without permission: her sitting on her floor, towel under knee, phone timer glaring like a small moon; her thumb hovering over his name and not pressing send. He hopes she doesn't need to text him. He hopes she knows she can.
The wind shifts. On impulse he stands, steps to the start of the gravel straight, and places his toes against an imaginary line. He closes his eyes.
Ready.
Set.
He doesn't go.
He breathes instead. In for four, out for four. He lets the body think about moving and then not move. It feels like a rebellion so small it might be a seed.
Back at the apartment, the hallway smells of fabric softener and someone's late curry. He washes a bowl and chopsticks that didn't need washing. He dries them like a ritual and sets them in their narrow place. The bandages on the table look less like supplies and more like promises.
His phone buzzes once.
Aoi: Homework done. No sharp pain.
Aoi: Only emotional.
A laugh escapes him—quiet, helpless. He sits, thumbs hovering, and tries to pick a language that won't sound like a diagnosis or a retreat.
Ren: That's not in the manual.
Aoi: Write a new one.
Ren: Working on it.
Aoi: Monotone counts as writing?
Ren: It's an advanced technique.
The three dots blink, vanish, blink again. He waits without looking like he's waiting.
Aoi: …thanks for today.
Aoi: Not for the exercises.
Aoi: For the walking.
He reads it twice. The window carries a cooler draft in, like the night leaned closer to eavesdrop.
Ren: Same time tomorrow.
Aoi: It's Sunday.
Ren: I know.
Aoi: …okay.
He puts the phone face down, but his eyes keep finding it anyway. In the dark glass he sees the faint silhouette of a boy who doesn't look handsome until he smiles. He doesn't make the mistake of smiling at himself; he just touches the glass like that could steady it.
Before bed he sets the cooler by the door, checks the ice packs in the freezer, counts them without counting out loud. He writes two more notes he'll forget where he put, and then he turns off the lights.
In the square of open window, the curtain moves—not the dramatic way of storms, just the kind of motion that proves a room is breathing. Ren listens until breathing turns into sleep.
Outside, the wind takes a slow lap around the building and doesn't hurry back.