The decision is still there, humming at the back of my mind. If I send it, I’ll have to face Satoko with whatever consequences follow. If I don’t, the thread between us might fray until it snaps.

I remember Grandfather’s voice: Choose when not to act.

I remember Satoko’s voice: You have a remarkable intelligence.

They don’t contradict each other. They just demand different kinds of courage.

I run my fingers along the edge of the paper. The motion is small, almost idle, but I feel the weight of it. Sometimes choices don’t announce themselves with grand gestures. Sometimes they arrive quietly, disguised as the moment you decide whether to pick up a pen.

Maybe I’ll never know whether my feelings for him are love, projection, or some strange hybrid born from grief. But I do know this: both men taught me that hesitation is only a refuge for so long. Eventually, you have to move—toward something, or away from it.

I fold the note once, then again, the address now hidden from view. My hand hovers over the drawer. Sending it would be easy. So would destroying it. But for now, I slide it inside and close it with a soft click.

Not because I’m avoiding the choice, but because I’m choosing not to act yet.

It’s a thin distinction, but one I think both Grandfather and Satoko would understand.

And when I finally do decide, it will be mine—not an echo of someone else’s path.

* * *

Thirty minutes.

That’s what the receptionist had said, with a tone carefully balanced between apology and formality.I gave a small nod, my expression politely neutral, and turned my attention back to the smartphone in my hand.

Kairi’s hand. Small-boned, lightly calloused along the sides of the fingers, but with skin so soft it almost felt polished. I’ve been in this body long enough to move it without hesitation, but there’s still that faint, underlying disconnect—the sense that every action I take is built on someone else’s training, not my own.

Scrolling is almost hypnotic. Her thumb glides across the screen with practiced ease, each swipe perfectly measured so the page stops exactly where she means it to. There’s no waste in her motion—no jitter, no overcompensation. That isn’t me. That’s her muscle memory guiding the touch, a habit worn smooth from hours of use.

And when I pause over a page, the fingers don’t just still—they anchor, resting lightly against the bezel, as if the hand knows how to hold the device steady without me telling it to. Little instincts like that are everywhere. When I cross my legs, it’s not the casual stretch I’d normally use in my own body; instead, this one folds neatly, knees close, ankles aligned—an unconscious balance between modesty and comfort.

Kairi’s habits.Her body’s programming.

Even the way she breathes gives her away. Just now, when the receptionist had said, "Renji Fujimoto will see you in about thirty minutes," there had been a tiny change in rhythm. Her diaphragm tightened, breath catching for half a second before releasing in a slow exhale. Excitement, disguised as composure. If I weren’t inhabiting her, I might have missed it.

I wonder if she realizes how deep her reverence for him runs.

Renji Fujimoto.Her favorite mangaka, the one whose ink lines have carved themselves into her nights and thoughts for years. I’ve seen the way she treats his books—never bending the spine too far, never letting dust collect. I’ve caught glimpses of her shelves, where his works sit like quiet monuments among the chaos.

She’d be jittering in this seat if she were in control right now. Tapping her foot. Shifting her weight every thirty seconds. Running over rehearsed lines in her head until they frayed.

But she’s not. I am.

I lean back into the stiff lobby chair, letting the phone rest loosely in my hand. Beige walls. Plastic potted plants. The faint hum of an air conditioner somewhere overhead. Even the clock on the wall feels deliberately slow, as if measuring time in syrup instead of seconds.

This kind of waiting doesn’t bother me. Thirty minutes is a gift. I’ve sat through negotiations that stretched for hours, entire evenings where silence itself was the weapon. Time isn’t the enemy. It’s the filter. Those who can’t endure it show themselves quickly.

I flick my thumb again, the motion sharp and exact—hers, but under my will. It’s fascinating how much information a body gives away. The way her pupils adjust fractionally when Fujimoto’s name is spoken. The way her pulse skips, just once, before settling. Her hands are steady, but the micro-tremors in her fingers tell another story.

If I walked into that office acting like her, he’d see nothing but adoration. But I’m not going to do that.Adoration clouds judgment.

Instead, I let my expression remain indifferent, my gaze sliding lazily over the receptionist and the sealed door behind her. Let Fujimoto think I’m uninvested. Let him think I’m here because I could be, not because I need to be.

People are easiest to read when they think you’re not looking too closely.

I let the phone go dark and set it in my lap, folding Kairi’s hands loosely over it. The motion feels unfamiliar to me but natural to her—her fingers interlock in a certain way, left over right, thumbs touching just enough to anchor without fidgeting. Muscle memory again.

She’s practically vibrating under the surface. I can feel it—the urge to lean forward, to close the gap to that door. If she could speak right now, she’d be saying, Don’t just sit there—this is Renji Fujimoto. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

But patience is a currency, and I’ve never been afraid to spend it.

I checked the time on Kairi’s smartphone again. Twenty-eight minutes since I arrived, two more to go.

In my own body, I wouldn’t have been this patient. But Kairi’s muscle memory was doing half the work for me—her posture was already relaxed into that perfectly measured slouch that looked casual yet kept the spine loose. Her fingers had this unconscious habit of rolling the phone in micro-circles between thumb and forefinger, like she was keeping her dexterity warmed up without even thinking about it. If I wasn’t inhabiting her right now, I’d have called it fidgeting.

It wasn’t just the posture. Every little motion felt like I’d borrowed a body that came with a manual already burned into the joints. When I crossed her legs, her ankle landed at the exact angle to support the shin without muscle strain. When I reached for the strap of her bag, my—no, her—fingers curled into it with the kind of easy strength that didn’t overcompensate. I was moving more efficiently than I ever did in my own skin. Kairi’s body remembered things she didn’t need to tell it—subtle calibrations from years of deliberate precision.

And inside that bag was the reason I’d come here in the first place.

I slid the zipper open just enough to glimpse the pristine cover of Monster Chainsaw, the latest volume. Even in this world, the jagged logo and hyper-stylized splash of red were instantly recognizable. I’d been saving this for him—Renji Fujimoto, the man behind the chaos, the supposed genius whose work had kept Kairi up until sunrise more times than she’d admit.

From the way Kairi used to talk about him, I expected someone enigmatic. Someone sharp, maybe aloof, maybe carrying that strange aura certain creators have when they’re too wrapped in their own worlds to fully exist in ours. I was prepared for an eccentric brilliance. I was not prepared for... whatever was about to walk through that door.

When he did, my brain took a second to accept that it was him.

Renji Fujimoto looked like he’d lost a wrestling match with his own laundry. His shirt—once white, I think—was wrinkled enough to suggest he’d slept in it, possibly on the floor. The buttons were mismatched, skipping one entirely so that the hem sat lopsided over jeans that had clearly seen better years, not just better days. His hair stuck out in three different directions, as if he’d tried to tame it with water, then given up halfway. There was an actual coffee stain on the sleeve, a ring-shaped reminder of a mug that probably wasn’t even washed before reuse.

If I’d been in my own body, I would’ve stepped back, maybe coughed into my hand just to put a barrier between us. In Kairi’s, the reflex was different—her body didn’t recoil. It just blinked once, tilted its head slightly, a subtle assessment. But I was screaming internally.

Had I eaten breakfast? I couldn’t remember, but if I had, it was currently in danger.

I forced myself to focus on the manga in my hands, pulling it out like a shield. "Renji Fujimoto?"

"Yeah, that’s me," he said, smiling with the easy, careless warmth of someone who hadn’t noticed or didn’t care that his outfit was a biohazard. His voice was deeper than I’d expected, tinged with exhaustion but not unpleasant.

This... was the man whose panels could break a reader’s heart in twelve pages flat. The one who balanced absurd comedy with gut-wrenching tragedy like it was breathing. The one Kairi—sharp, sarcastic, emotionally fortified Kairi—had actually called "amazing" without irony.

Kairi’s body stayed still, but in my head, I was muttering,

You’re lucky I’m in someone else’s skin right now.