"You think this is indulgence. You think this is impropriety. I call it research."

My fingers worried the hem of my shirt — a slow, hollow rhythm that said nothing and everything at once.

Up close, Renji’s jaw tightened. He tried to look away, but his eyes kept sliding back to the slope of my shoulder and the thin shadow the lamp threw against my collarbone. I let him measure the space between a refusal and a meaning.

"If lessons frighten you, consider it an academic exercise," I said, quietly curious.

I sat up; the stiffness in my muscles greeted me like an old acquaintance. My ledger still rested on the stand beside the bed, a pen balanced against its edge. Had I written? Had I only imagined the act of writing? My fingertips traced the leather as if the cover could answer for me.

The whisper lingered at the edge of thought.

That pressure. That outside presence. It wasn’t theirs. It wasn’t mine.

Something had reached into the dream-cage. Something had watched me where even I thought myself untouchable.

And now I was awake — but the word felt inadequate. I was more restless than before, as if the waking were only another kind of dreaming.

"Right — what time is it?" I asked, tilting my head toward the mantel clock. Its long hand hovered near the four.

The room held the muffled distance of a dream: sound dulled, edges softened, light like cotton over everything. My hand brushed the ledger and drew back; touch, but distant.

I shouldn’t have heard it. I shouldn’t have known its shape.

"Renji..."

Selene, half-asleep beside me, mumbled in her sleep. Her breaths were even; some syllable slipped from a mouth that was not entirely hers.

The name landed in the hollow of my chest like a pebble.

I tasted disbelief first — a small, sharp metallic tang — and then the memory of a face I had only ever known from paper: the famous artist behind The Chain Devil. Renji. His panels had been obeyed like scripture in my quieter hours.

It made no sense for that name to be here, in Selene’s somnolent murmur. Maybe I’d misheard. Maybe my ears, still half-dreaming, had stitched two things together.

But the syllable had weight. It occupied space.

I couldn’t tell whether I had heard it or whether I had called it into being.

Either way, it disturbed the neat line between dream and waking.

I woke to the sound of my own pulse hammering in my ears. The room still smelled like paper and graphite—my ledger, my sketches. I reached for it before I even sat up. The cover felt warm, as though it had been handled. My stomach dropped.

Selene.

She lay on the other side of the mattress, eyes half-lidded, lips moving in the soft stammer of sleep. "Renji..." she mumbled again, like a spell she couldn’t finish.

A cold prickle climbed up my spine.

That name. My name for him. My drawings. My secret.

I swung my legs off the bed so fast the floor bit into my heels. My ledger was still on the stand, but the elastic strap was loose—sliding off like an undone bra strap. The pages beneath were crooked. I didn’t even need to open it to know she’d been inside.

I shot to my feet.

"Selene!" My voice cracked. "Did you just open my notes? You freak!"

Her eyes fluttered open, unfocused. She blinked at me like a child caught in a too-bright room. "Mm... Kairi...?" she murmured, not even trying to sit up.

I marched to the bed, fists trembling at my sides. "Don’t ’Kairi’ me. You went through my things, didn’t you? You saw the drawings!" My voice rose until it bounced against the walls. "The ones I was going to send to Renji’s address—God, you—"

She rubbed at her temple lazily, like my anger was just a mosquito buzzing around her head. "But..." her voice was soft, flat, "I am Kairi, right?"

I didn’t even think. My palm connected with her forehead in a sharp smack.

"Ouch!" she yelped, actually recoiling this time, eyes a little clearer.

I stood over her, shaking. She was right, technically. She did live inside my body like a ghost wearing my skin. But still—"You can’t just do that!" My voice broke on the last word. "You can’t go snooping through everything like you own me."

She tilted her head, a smile twitching at the edge of her mouth—sleepy, crooked. "But if I’m you," she murmured, "then whose secret is it really?"

Something in my chest snapped. "You’re impossible."

The ledger sat on the stand like an accusation. I wanted to hurl it at her, wanted to scream until the walls split open, but instead I grabbed the edge of the mattress, leaning in so close I could smell her hair. "Fine," I hissed. "Then answer me this."

She blinked up at me.

"Did you do it?" My voice came out low, dangerous. "With Renji. Did you?"

Her eyes unfocused again, like she was sifting through a dream.

"Not yet," she said simply.

For a second, the air left the room.

Not yet.

Not yet.

I reeled back, heat flushing up my neck. "What the hell do you mean ’not yet’?!" My voice cracked, higher this time. "Are you planning to—what, seduce him? Sleep with him? Using my body?"

Selene yawned, covering her mouth with the back of her hand like a bored cat. "You’re the one who draws him like that," she mumbled. "You’re the one who keeps sending him pieces of yourself."

"That’s different!" I snapped. "That’s art! That’s—God, you’re insane."

I wanted to shake her awake, drag her fully into consciousness so she could feel every ounce of my fury. Instead, she just lay there, eyes half-lidded again, as if my words were the breeze.

I stood at the foot of the bed, fists clenched, trying to steady my breathing. Every nerve in my body buzzed like live wire.

Not yet.

The phrase looped in my skull like an echo. It was worse than if she’d said yes. It was worse than a confession. It was a promise.

And if she kept her promises...

My stomach twisted.

"Selene," I whispered, "you can’t. You can’t do this."

Her lashes fluttered, a shadow of a smile tugging at her mouth. "We’ll see," she said, so softly I almost missed it.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to end my life if I could ever have done so.