The ocean spread out in front of us, flickering under the haze like it wasn't sure if it wanted to be water or just a reflection of more interesting glitter. Shin'yume stretched between us and the shore—half real, half memory.
The city looked like one of those forgotten onsen towns you'd find in an old calendar: faded pinks and off-brand pastels, neon signs still buzzing from decades ago, twitching like ghosts in a power grid that stopped caring.
It seemed like sometime between 1967 and 1986, the city had stopped updating its soul. It kept replaying a dream it didn't know how to wake up from.
Left unchecked, those dreams fester into nightmares.
Most of the paint had faded long ago under the unforgiving Pacific sun. Even this far north, things left outside pay a heavy toll. Where the paint hadn't faded, it had crumbled away—bare brick, plaster, and rusted iron seeping into the concrete like a bruise.
Yuki hovered beside me, arms folded behind her back, hair still braided like a Lisa Frank fever dream from earlier.
"Shin'yume's seen better days," she said softly.
"I'm sure someone could say the same thing about the three of us," Shion said flatly.
Yuki wasn't wrong. The signs had all outlasted the shops.
I could see the faint flicker of the cellphone store down near the main stretch—its windows dim, like even the phones inside had gone to sleep and never woken up.
Behind me, I heard the crunch of Shion's boots in the gravel as she stopped just behind my shoulder.
"Clubs start tomorrow evening," she said, watching the evening sun dip into the Pacific's horizon.
The sunset reminded me. "Shion, no dodging this time. How are you able to stand in the sunlight? I thought that fried vampires or something."
She just smirked and rolled her eyes. "Ryu. Do you want to know something amazing?"
Oh god. I messed up. "…I get the feeling you're going to tell me anyway."
Shion and I just kept walking. She pushed her bicycle along. "When I was turned into a vampire, I didn't get an instruction booklet."
I saw what she was getting at. "Okay, so—"
"No, just wait." Her voice had an edge. "I'm going somewhere with this."
I nodded, listening.
"That night I couldn't walk through the front door of my house, Ryu. I just… couldn't. My mother. She stood in the doorway, with dad, holding her because she was in tears and they had to invite me in. Do you know what that meant for them?"
My eyes grew wide. I'd never considered that.
"They had to move out. That night. I couldn't stay in the house with my parents anymore…"
She shook her head, remembering.
"I mean—they couldn't stay with me." She looked at me from under her black hair, staring into my eyes.
"No one told me that when I turned. No one said, 'don't get in the shower if you have blood on you because running water burns.' No one told me 'garlic doesn't just repel. It burns like your sinuses are melting.' Or 'don't knock over a jar of marbles unless you want to spend five minutes counting for god-knows-why.'"
I blinked. Slowly. "That sounds like—"
Shion continued. "So, I'm guessing, Ryu. And my guess is that I'm supposed to show up for classes. That means, as long as I'm here, that I can be up during the day. That's my guess because vampires don't come with instructions."
I didn't answer. What could I say?
This was my best guess too, and I ended up who-knows-where in a body that resembled me if I'd worked out more and drank less soda when I was fifteen.
She waited for me to say something.
"I'm just glad you're here with me," I said.
"I am too," Yuki said.
And we stopped walking for a moment.
Shion rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to be the odd one out. Fine. I am too."
I didn't even blink. Just kept staring at the flickering letters on the store, watching the "E" twitch like it was trying to leave the word "PHONE" out of embarrassment.
"Oh, look. A sign that's as happy as I am to be here," said Shion.
"You don't sound thrilled," Yuki added.
"Not particularly. But it's nice getting to go out at all. Tomorrow evening we'll probably be finished with literature club about now."
We stopped outside the store. Shion parked her bike on the side.
"Why'd you want to join the literature club anyway?" I asked. "It can't just be because Fushineko-sensei is the sponsor."
I thought of having to listen to the nekomata's whiny, grating voice first thing in the morning and last thing before leaving for the onsen and winced.
"I like to read," she offered, voice flat. Not defensive. Just… there.
I glanced back at her. "Is that what you do all night? Since you clearly don't stay in your room with that mattress you murdered?"
She grinned. "Aren't you curious about what I do at night? Why?"
Her grin turned into a smirk. "Jealous?"
That was all I got.
"I used to like to read. Back when it was easier to turn the pages," said Yuki.
Shion took a breath. "…okay, I'll bite. What did you like to read?"
Yuki bobbed up and down excitedly, her braided charms clacking against one another. "Oh, I just loved reading everything I could get my hands on. Nancy Drew was my favorite. Did you ever read any of her series?"
I decided to step inside the store and buy a new cell phone. "Girls, I'll be back in a few minutes."
Shion crossed her arms. "You can't leave now. I want to hear more about the Hardy Boys."
Yuki gasped in joy. "You do know Nancy Drew and her friends too!"
I hadn't even taken the plastic off the box when Shion snatched the phone store's bag from my hand.
"Gimme. I wanna see this thing," she said.
She immediately ripped the box from the bag and sliced open the plastic with a clean swipe from her nails, grinning like a schoolgirl the entire time.
"I don't see what the big deal is," Yuki said. "I mean, really, an entire store that only sells phones? What's next? One that exclusively sells ottomans I suppose. Icebox stores will be next. Natsumi told me that she saw an apple store. Can you imagine?"
I heard Shion take a breath so she could laugh at me.
"You got a burner phone?" she said, mustering as much smugness as possible.
I rolled my eyes, expecting her to rib me for this. Most of the money I had, though, came from Rinko's bra earlier. It was enough for the burner phone, but not much else.
Yuki looked over Shion's shoulder. "Gracious, but that's hardly a phone. It looks like a little plastic square."
Then I saw the mischievous look in Shion's eyes. "Yuki, you're completely right! Ryu, you absolute klutz. Don't you know the difference between a phone and a plastic square?"
She turned to Yuki. "I think he's the square."
Yuki giggled. "That's so very square."
Shion scrunched her face up with laughter.
I knew they were making fun of me. Well, okay, Shion was making fun of Yuki and me all at once, but it was the first time that I saw both of them laughing together.
And I didn't care that it was at my expense.
Maybe, that's what made it work.
Worth it.
A few minutes later, Yuki floated ahead, humming to herself. I saw her stop under a bent streetlight where a poster flapped in the warm breeze. She pointed to it like she'd found treasure.
"Hey! Shion! That looks just like your bike!"
I walked up beside her and squinted. It was a poster of a lost bicycle. Black frame. Red accent. Beat-up handlebars. Exactly like the one Shion parked outside the dorms every night like she was daring someone to ask.
Exactly like the one she was pushing beside us now.
I turned slowly. "Shion…"
"Unclaimed property," she said flatly.
I blinked. "What? No. You've got to explain that."
She took a breath to scoff at my accusation. "Fine. It was at the post office," she said, deadpan. "Unclaimed property. I grabbed it. Completely legally."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Completely," she said again. "Legally."
I waited. She didn't blink.
I exhaled and turned back toward the street.
"You know what? I don't even care at this point."
And then, as we passed a café, out of the corner of my eye: a familiar grin.
I stopped and did a double take. But there, sitting alone at an outdoor table was the bus driver.
Looking at me and grinning like he had a secret.