Archive of Our Own

The office door creaked, and Shoyo burst in, as if the place belonged to him. In his hands, he carried a stack of folders, almost dropping them when he tripped over the leg of a chair.

“Hey!” he shouted, laughing and trying to juggle the documents. “Your experiments aren’t as dangerous as your furniture!”

Tobio, already sitting at the desk, looked up from his notes. His expression was as serious as always, almost scowling, but the corners of his mouth twitched slightly.

“If you were a bit more careful, it wouldn’t be a problem,” he muttered.

“If you were a bit more cheerful, that would be a miracle!” Shoyo shot back and slammed the folders down on the table.

The two of them leaned over the scattered papers. While Tobio carefully organized tables and charts, Shoyo leaned in too close, resting his elbows on the desk and breathing down his neck.

“Hinata…” Tobio began, trying to sound stern.

“Yes, Professor?” Shoyo answered with mock seriousness, immediately bursting into laughter.

The sound was clear, bright, full of energy. Tobio tried not to show it, but his heart skipped a beat for a second.

“Sometimes you’re unbearable.”

“And sometimes you’re boring!” Shoyo laughed again, then nodded toward the charts. “But I admit, this is starting to look like something real. We might really be on the verge of something big.”

Tobio opened his mouth to respond, but…

A sharp alarm scream cut everything off.

The world around him shattered like dust.

Tobio woke up abruptly in his dark apartment. The alarm kept blaring, he reached out and turned it off with a single motion. The room was silent, empty. No laughter, no rustling of folders. Just him—and silence.

He lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. His heart was still racing from Shoyo’s laugh, which seemed to echo in his mind. But the room was quiet. The air—stale.

He got up slowly. The floor under his bare feet was cold. He crossed the apartment almost mechanically, as if performing movements he had done a million times, no longer thinking about them.

In the kitchen, the sink was full of half-drunk cups of coffee and dishes that should have been washed long ago. He cast a fleeting glance, then looked away. He poured himself a new coffee, bitter and too strong.

In the living room, the table was covered with notebooks, yellowed notes, pens that barely worked, and scattered printouts from old experiments. Some of them bore handwriting that wasn’t his own.

Tobio froze when he saw one of the sheets. In the corner, there was a doodle drawn in orange ink. A childlike, rough little smiley.

His hand lingered over the drawing longer than he wanted to admit.

Then he looked away, sat down in the chair, and began flipping through the documents—once again sinking into work, as if only there could he find meaning.

*

The university corridors were noisy, filled with students talking loudly and laughing. Tobio walked slowly among them, dressed in a dark blazer, his eyes fixed on the floor. No one would have guessed he was part of this noisy world—he seemed to move in his own silence.

Entering the lecture hall, he placed a stack of folders on the podium. The students’ chatter gradually quieted.

“Today, we will discuss the phenomenon of near-death experiences,” he said, his voice even, almost colorless. “Many of you have heard of the ‘light at the end of the tunnel.’ But psychology interprets it as the result of specific neurological processes in the brain…”

As he spoke, several students wrote diligently. Others watched him with a faint unease—the professor sounded less like a scholar and more like someone who had thought too deeply about the subject.

In the back rows sat Yamaguchi Tadashi and Tsukishima Kei.

Yamaguchi listened carefully, slightly leaning forward, as if Kageyama’s words were pulling him closer.

Tsukishima, on the other hand, leaned back, arms crossed, with his characteristic expressionless face. From time to time, he made sarcastic comments into Yamaguchi’s ear, and Yamaguchi only smiled awkwardly.

After the lecture, as the students were leaving, Yamaguchi approached timidly.

“Professor Kageyama… the lecture was… impressive.”

“Just facts,” Tobio replied dryly, gathering his notes.

“Maybe for you they are ‘just facts’… but for us, it sounds… deeper.” Yamaguchi smiled uncertainly, then quickly stepped back before Tsukishima could grab him by the shoulder.

Tobio sat back at his desk. He rested his head on his arms and for a moment just breathed.

-

The streets around the university were half-empty. Streetlights cast a yellowish glow, and the three walked shoulder to shoulder—Shoyo, Tobio, and Yachi.

Shoyo gestured animatedly with his hands, as always when talking about something that excited him.
“Imagine, Tobio, if we could prove that consciousness really remains… even for a moment after the heart stops… it would change everything!”

“Hinata…” Tobio began in that stern, almost mentoring tone.

“No, wait, listen to me!” Shoyo interrupted, turning back to walk backward so he could look him straight in the eyes. “Imagine if you could see that moment. To know what comes after dark. Wouldn’t it be… incredible?”

Tobio looked at him seriously. “This isn’t a game. There must be precise methods, data.”

“Ah, got it,” Shoyo grinned. “I’m talking about the meaning of life, and you’re thinking about tables and percentages again!”

Yachi sighed and quickened her pace to catch up. “Honestly, you two… it’s not healthy to obsess over this so much. We’re alive, aren’t we? Wouldn’t it be better to… focus on the present?”

Shoyo looked at her, smiling widely, but there was something hidden flashing in his eyes.
“You’re worrying too much, Yachi-san. We are fine.” Shoyo turned his head toward Kageyama. “Right, Tobio?”

For a moment, silence fell. Only the sound of their footsteps on the asphalt could be heard.

“Tobio…”

“…Tobio!” A sharp female voice snapped him back to reality.

He lifted his head from the stack of notes on his desk. Standing in front of him was Professor Yachi, her brow slightly furrowed with tension.

“We’re going to be late for the meeting with the director,” she said, crossing her arms. “I’ve told you three times already, but apparently, you’re lost in your own head again.”

Tobio blinked several times. His heart was still somewhere between the street from that memory and Shoyo’s laughter.

“Yes…” he muttered. “I’m coming."

*

The boardroom was brightly lit, the walls lined with books and certificates. At the long table sat the director—an elderly man with graying hair and a stern gaze behind his glasses. Next to him, two other board members were reviewing documents.

Yachi entered first, offering her usual polite greeting. Tobio followed, holding a folder of printouts. His movements were precise, but there was something distant in his eyes.

“Professor Kageyama,” the director began, motioning for them to sit. “We’ve heard from your students. Your lectures… they attract attention.”

“Thank you,” Tobio replied briefly.

“But…” The director set his glasses on the table. “The topics you choose raise concern. Almost every lecture deals with death. Experiences of the dying. The psychology of grief. There is a line between academic curiosity and a morbid obsession.”

Yachi cast a worried glance at Tobio, as if silently asking him to respond calmly.

“These are important topics for psychology,” Tobio said evenly. “We cannot pretend they don’t exist.”

“No one is disputing that,” one of the female board members interjected. “But the way you speak… gives the impression that you are speaking from personal experience. Your students don’t know how to interpret this.”

A tense pause followed.

Tobio fixed his gaze on his hands, pressed over the folder. For a moment, he thought he heard Shoyo’s laughter—a distant, muffled echo in his mind.

“If students think more deeply,” he whispered quietly, “then I’ve done my job.”

The director sighed and closed the folder in front of him.
“We will give you freedom in teaching, but please… find a balance. The university cannot afford a professor about whom rumors circulate that he… experiments beyond limits.”

His gaze was piercing.

Yachi quickly nodded to diffuse the tension. “We understand, Director. Professor Kageyama will take your words into account.”

*

Tobio returned to his office after the meeting.
The air inside was stale, heavy with the smell of old paper and dust. His desk was buried under folders, notebooks, scattered photocopies—an island of chaos that only he knew how to navigate.

He sat down and pulled one of the folders closer. The first page contained his own notes—clinical, precise.

“Neurochemical responses in the dying brain. Hallucinations induced by oxygen deprivation. The body as a machine winding down.”

He flipped to the next.

“Subject reports tunnel of light. Interpretation: cortical disinhibition. Sensory cortex firing without order.”

Another folder, this one thicker.

“Patterns of residual consciousness—time perception in the final seconds.”

Tables, numbers, charts. All signed in his neat, narrow handwriting.

Then—he froze.
On a loose page tucked between reports, the handwriting shifted. The letters were messier, curved, almost impatient. Not his. He recognized it instantly.

Shoyo’s.

His throat tightened as his eyes scanned the words. They weren’t dry observations. They were fragments of thought, written in orange ink, full of restless energy:

“It’s about what comes after dark. That’s what I want to see. That’s where the truth is.”

Not “after death.”
After dark.

The phrase stabbed at him like a memory too vivid to bear. Shoyo had always said it that way, half-joking, half-serious—like he wasn’t afraid of what lay beyond, only curious.

Tobio let the page rest beneath his hand, pressing it flat against the desk as if to keep it from slipping away.

The office was silent, but for a moment he could almost hear it again—the laugh that had once filled these very walls.

Then, almost afraid, he reached for another folder.

This one was a mixture—half his notes, half Hinata’s. His precise handwriting interwoven with Shoyo’s restless scrawls. He turned the pages slowly, reading fragments aloud in a low voice, as if he needed to hear them in the air.

“Neurons fire even after the body shuts down. Maybe consciousness doesn’t stop, just… shifts. A shadow state.”
His own note.

He turned the page.

“Yes! Exactly! That’s what I mean. The shadow state. Like the body is one court, and when the match ends, maybe the game keeps going on another one we can’t see yet.”
Hinata’s note.

Tobio shut his eyes for a moment. He could almost hear Hinata’s excited voice beside him, the way he leaned too close over the desk, grinning as if discovery was always one step away.

He kept reading.

“Residual time perception. Seconds stretch. Dying brain experiences eternity in a breath.”
His handwriting again.

Beneath it, Shoyo’s rushed scrawl:
“Then maybe eternity isn’t after dark—it’s inside those last moments. In that crack of time. We have to catch it.”

Tobio’s breathing grew shallow. His vision blurred, but he forced himself to keep turning pages. Notes from nights spent working together, arguments scribbled in margins—

“DATA, NOT HYPOTHESES!” in his sharp hand, followed by

“STOP BEING A ROBOT, TOBIO!” in orange ink with a messy doodle beside it.

The deeper he dug, the more the balance shifted. At first, his own handwriting dominated, clean and clinical. But in the later folders, Hinata’s notes began to take over—scrawled diagrams, bursts of half-formed ideas, words underlined three times as if he had been writing faster than thought.

On one page, circled in thick ink:
“If we prove it, Tobio… no one will ever be afraid again.”

Tobio’s hand shook as he touched the circle, following the lines. His throat felt dry, his chest heavy. He leaned back in the chair, staring at the chaos of notes spread before him. For a moment, it felt as though Hinata had just been there—that if he turned his head, he would see him leaning over the desk, grinning, orange pen still in hand.

But the chair beside him was empty.
The only sound was the faint hum of the lights above.

Tobio let out a long breath, lowered his head into his hands, and whispered—so quietly it was almost inaudible:

“…After dark.”

*

The next day, the lecture hall was packed. Students filled the rows, their chatter a restless hum until the heavy sound of the door silenced them.

Professor Kageyama walked in, carrying a stack of folders pressed tightly to his chest. His face was pale, sleepless, but his movements were precise as ever. He placed the folders on the podium with a muted thud, straightened the papers, and began without preamble.

“Today,” he said, his voice low but sharp, “we continue with the study of consciousness at the threshold.”

A pause. The students leaned forward.

“Most research describes this threshold as the dying process. But what if it is not about death? What if it is about what comes… after dark.”

Several students exchanged glances. Some bent down quickly to scribble notes; others frowned, uncertain.

Tobio continued, his eyes fixed on the pages but his voice carrying further than usual, edged with intensity.

“Imagine perception extending beyond the body. Imagine time fracturing in the last second, stretching into infinity. What if we are not extinguished, but displaced? What if the final breath… is only the beginning of a different state?”

The room was completely silent. The only sound was the scratch of pens and the nervous cough of a student in the back.

Tobio’s gaze swept the hall. His eyes seemed to linger not on the present students, but on someone else entirely. Someone who wasn’t there. For a brief second, he almost smiled. Then his expression hardened again.

“Your textbooks will call this hallucination. They are wrong. Or—at least—they are incomplete. There are traces, patterns, evidence that something remains. Something real.”

He closed the folder with finality.
The students jumped slightly at the sound.

“That is all for today.”

Without another word, he gathered his papers and left the hall.

In the corridors afterward, voices broke out as soon as he was gone.

“Did you hear him? He sounded… obsessed.”

“Obsessed? He sounded insane.”

“No, wait—I think he’s brilliant. Like, he knows something we don’t.”

“Brilliant? Please. He creeps me out.”

“Yeah, but what if he’s right? What if there really is something after…” the student lowered his voice, “…after dark?”

“Don’t say it like that! Ugh, it gives me chills.”

“Either way, you can’t deny he’s different. Dangerous, even. The way he looks at us… like he’s not really seeing us at all.”

*

The corridor stretched long and quiet after the students left. Tobio stepped out, folders pressed tightly against his chest. He froze the moment he saw him—Shoyo, leaning against the wall just outside the lecture hall door, like he had been waiting the whole time.

“Well, hello there, Professor,” Shoyo said, voice light and playful. His grin carried that same reckless warmth, unbothered by the cold stares and whispered rumors that had lingered in the air moments ago.

Tobio’s throat tightened. He didn’t move, as if afraid that one blink would make the vision disappear.

“Do you know,” Shoyo continued, stepping away from the wall with lazy confidence, “your students think you’re crazy? Dangerous. A little mad scientist in a suit.”

“I don’t care,” Tobio muttered. His voice came out hoarse, strained, but steady.

Shoyo laughed—bright, unshakable. He closed the distance between them in two quick steps, standing in front of him now. Close. Too close. His eyes locked onto Tobio’s, burning with mischief and something else—something deeper.

“If you ask me,” Shoyo whispered, the corners of his mouth lifting, “I’d say you’re incredible.”

Tobio’s heart jolted violently. For one unbearable second, he couldn’t breathe.

Shoyo leaned back slightly, tilting his head as though savoring the moment. Then he burst into another laugh, spinning half a step away.

“But crazy works too,” he said, the laughter spilling into the air. “At least you’re not the only one.”

The sound of his laugh rang in the corridor—clear, sharp—until suddenly it was joined by another sound.

A bell. Shrill. Endless.

The corridor faded around him like dust scattering in sunlight. The laughter blurred into the sharp blare of an alarm.

Tobio’s eyes snapped open. He was in his dark bedroom, the ceiling above him cold and familiar. The alarm clock screamed beside him. He reached out with a single motion and silenced it.

Silence.

Just him, the stale air, and the sound of his own heartbeat hammering against his ribs.

Tobio lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling. The shadows of dawn crawled weakly across the walls, filling the room with a pale, colorless light. His chest still felt heavy, the echo of laughter clinging to him like static.

He pushed himself out of bed. The floor was cold beneath his bare feet as he crossed the apartment. In the kitchen, the sink was still crowded with dirty cups, and the smell of yesterday’s coffee lingered faintly in the air. Without thinking, he filled the kettle, spooned in too much coffee, and let the bitterness scald his mouth as he drank.

Back in the living room, the table was as he had left it: notebooks, folders, scattered sheets covered in numbers and scribbles. He sat down, pressing his palms to the desk, but his eyes drifted elsewhere.

His phone lay face down beside the pile of papers. Slowly, he reached for it and unlocked the screen.

The chat with Shoyo was still pinned at the very top.
He opened it.

The last message glared back at him, bright, impossible:

''TOBIO YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT I FOUND!!!! MEET ME AT THE OFFICE IN 15!!''

A cluster of exclamation points, full of Shoyo’s unstoppable energy.

Tobio stared at the message for a long time. His thumb hovered over the keyboard. Slowly, almost against his will, he typed two words:

''I’m sorry.''

He sat frozen, staring at the small text box. His chest tightened as though the words might tear him apart if he let them go.

But he didn’t press send.

Instead, he erased nothing, changed nothing—he just locked the phone again, face blank, and placed it back on the table.

The room returned to silence, broken only by the faint ticking of the clock and the sound of his own uneven breathing.

*

The campus was unusually quiet when Tobio arrived. The crisp air of morning had already given way to the muted buzz of students rushing between lectures, but the wing of the psychology building where he was headed felt more contained, almost heavy with anticipation.

Today wasn’t an ordinary lecture. It was research day.
The university had arranged for several participants—people who had survived near-death experiences—to speak about what they had felt, seen, or thought in those suspended moments between life and death.

The small seminar room was prepared with a long table, a recorder set in the center, and folders stacked neatly beside Tobio’s chair. Yachi had helped coordinate everything; she stood near the door, greeting the participants with her usual careful politeness.

Tobio, already seated, adjusted his pen and notebook. His face betrayed nothing, but his pulse was louder than usual in his ears.

The first participant was a middle-aged man with a worn expression, his voice rough as he began.
“I remember… falling. Everything shutting down. But at the same time, there was light. A tunnel, maybe. It felt peaceful. Like I wasn’t afraid anymore.”

Tobio’s pen scratched quickly across the paper.
Light. Tunnel. Loss of fear.

Another participant, a younger woman, described something different.
“It was… noise. A rushing sound, like water in my head. And then blackness. But not empty—more like… waiting. I can’t explain it.”

Noise. Blackness. Sense of presence.

One by one, they spoke. Some told stories filled with images—faces of relatives long gone, landscapes impossible to describe. Others described only silence, weightlessness, or a sense of time being stretched thin.

Tobio listened intently, writing down every word with precise strokes, as if he could capture the intangible by sheer discipline. His questions were direct, clinical, but his eyes betrayed a flicker of something else—something almost hungry—when a description resonated too closely with notes he had once written, or with words Shoyo had scrawled in orange ink.

One participant hesitated before speaking. An older woman, her hands trembling slightly as she folded them in her lap.
“I remember… laughter. Just before I came back. Not mine. Someone else’s. Clear and bright. And then—suddenly—I was here again.”

The pen in Tobio’s hand froze. For a heartbeat, he forgot to breathe.

He forced himself to write, letters tightening on the page:
Laughter. External. Associated with return.

But the sound of it—her description—echoed too sharply against a memory that wasn’t hers.

Across the table, Yachi noticed his stillness. Her eyes lingered on him for a moment, concern flickering, but Tobio gave nothing away. He kept writing, filling page after page with fragments of other people’s journeys.

Yet beneath the neat lines of ink, his mind kept repeating the word that didn’t belong to any textbook, any chart, any medical study.

After dark.

*

The café was crowded with the usual midday noise—cups clinking, chairs scraping, students laughing too loudly at nearby tables. Yet at the small table by the window, Tobio and Yachi sat in their own pocket of silence.

Tobio stirred his coffee mechanically, watching the swirl of black liquid without drinking. His notebook was already out beside him, filled with lines from that morning’s session, though his pen lay untouched.

Yachi sat across from him, her hands wrapped tightly around her cup. She hesitated before speaking, her voice quieter than the surrounding noise.

“Tobio… are you feeling alright? Today you seemed… different. More than usual.”

Tobio didn’t look up. “I’m fine.”

But his tone was too flat, too quick.

Yachi studied him with a faint crease in her brow. “You keep saying that, but I don’t think you mean it. Even during the interviews, it was like you weren’t just listening—you were… somewhere else.”

Finally, Tobio raised his eyes. His gaze was steady, dark, unreadable. “I said I’m fine,” he repeated.

Yachi nodded slowly, though the doubt didn’t leave her expression. She sipped her coffee, clearly weighing whether to push further. The silence stretched, filled only by the background hum of the café.

When the check came and they stood to leave, Yachi lingered a step behind him. Just before they reached the door, she leaned closer, her voice barely above a whisper. “You need to stop blaming yourself.”

Tobio froze mid-step. The words seemed to hollow out the space around him. For a moment, he didn’t breathe, didn’t turn, didn’t move.

But when he finally straightened and pushed the door open, the only response he gave was silence.

Outside, the autumn air hit his face, sharp and cool. He kept walking, the words echoing inside him long after Yachi’s footsteps faded behind.

*

Tobio unlocked the door and entered his apartment. Silence. He took off his blazer, left it draped over a chair, and headed to the kitchen.

The fridge was nearly empty: a bottle of water, one egg, some old sauce. From the cupboard, he pulled out a package of instant ramen. He boiled water, poured in the noodles, added the seasoning packets. The smell quickly filled the room but didn’t stir his appetite.

A few minutes later, he sat on the couch, holding the bowl of hot ramen in his hands. Steam rose, fogging the lamp above him. He stared at the bowl, but his thoughts were elsewhere—far away.

And then he heard laughter.

“Ah, ah, ah!” A familiar voice, bright and lively. “This is way too spicy!”

Tobio lifted his head sharply.

On the floor, leaning against the couch, sat Shoyo. Clumsily holding chopsticks, he blew on the surface of the ramen, trying not to spill the bowl. His eyes sparkled, his cheeks flushed from the heat.

“Did you really put this much spice on purpose, huh?” Shoyo laughed, that clear, ringing laughter that seemed to split the silence.

Tobio didn’t move. The bowl in his hands steamed, and his gaze was fixed on the boy on the floor. His heart skipped a beat.

“Shoyo…” he whispered, almost voiceless.

Shoyo was still laughing, his chopsticks trembling as he blew furiously on the ramen.
“Seriously… even your food is like a lab experiment! Everything has to be… extreme!” He grinned widely. “Only now I’m suffering!”

Tobio said nothing. He just watched. No blinking, no sighing.

Then Shoyo’s laughter suddenly stopped. He set the bowl aside, as if noticing for the first time the weight in Tobio’s gaze.

Silence.

Shoyo turned slowly toward him. There was no joke in his eyes anymore—only warm, quiet seriousness.

“Thank you, Tobio.” His voice was soft, almost a whisper.

Tobio leaned slightly forward, lips parting, but no words came out.

“I…” he began.

But before he could finish, Shoyo’s figure dissolved. Like the steam rising from his bowl, the laughter and presence vanished.

Tobio blinked. He was alone on the couch, the hot ramen in his lap. No one was on the floor.

He gripped the bowl with both hands, squeezing it so tightly his fingers went white. His heart raced, and a thought cut through him like a knife:

Had he dreamed it? Or… had it really happened?

*

That night, Tobio couldn’t finish his ramen. The bowl stayed on the table while he slumped onto the couch, hugging his knees, head heavy with thoughts. In the end, his body betrayed him. He moved to his bed, but sleep didn’t come right away—only the silence of the apartment, the ticking of the clock, and the echo of laughter that should no longer exist.

When he finally drifted off, his dream pulled him back.

The first meeting.

⸻

It had been just an ordinary day at the university. Tobio was leaving his office, arms full of folders, when he heard it:

“Professor Kageyama!”

The voice was clear, slightly breathless. Standing by the door was a boy— with fiery eyes, messy hair, and an uncertain smile that seemed to mask impatience. “Is it you?” he asked, as if he already knew the answer. “Kageyama Tobio?”

Tobio blinked. A student? He didn’t know him. “Yes. And?”

The boy stepped closer, extending his hand, then withdrawing it as if unsure how to begin. “I… I’ve been looking for you. They say you’re the one who can explain. That you study… what comes after dark.”

Tobio frowned. “After dark?” he repeated, as if unsure he’d heard right. “Is that some kind of term? Or…” His voice edged with cold caution. “Are you mad?”

“No, no!” the boy raised his hands, flustered. “I’m not. I just… maybe I didn’t say it right.”

Tobio eyed him sternly, ready to send him away, but the boy hurried on:

“My name’s Hinata Shoyo. I want to understand what comes after death. I... I was dead. My heart stopped, for a few seconds, and before the doctors brought me back... I saw… something.”

There was no lie in his eyes. Only a flame that didn’t obey logic or fear.

Tobio tightened his grip on the folders. Dozens of questions flashed through his mind—medical, statistical, clinical. But above all there was one single feeling: standing before him was someone who had glimpsed what he himself had been chasing in endless files and graphs.

And from that moment on, there would be no going back.

The noise in the university corridor faded as Hinata began to speak. His voice was quick, slightly uneven, as though his words could barely keep up with his thoughts.

“It wasn’t… exactly seeing something,” he said, tilting his head slightly. “More like… a feeling. Like someone was there. Someone close. Like… family.” His eyes met Tobio’s for a moment, then slid away again. “And it was… nice. Better than anything. Death… felt better.”

Tobio didn’t move, but his brows knitted.

“People tell different stories,” Shoyo continued quickly, as if embarrassed by his own confession. “Some say it was horrible. Pain, panic, complete darkness. I’ve read so many accounts… and I don’t know why, but mine was different.”

“How…” Tobio coughed, the words stuck in his throat. “What… happened?”

Shoyo went silent. His eyes widened as if the question had caught him too quickly. He looked away, bit his lip. “I… uhh… I got hit by a car.”

The words came out too sharply. Too neatly, like a line he’d rehearsed.

Tobio just stared at him. His gaze was cold, piercing, as if already sensing the weight of something unspoken.

“Oh.” That was all he said. No question, no doubt in his voice. But in his eyes, a shadow of disbelief remained.

Shoyo felt it. He blinked quickly and gave a nervous smile, spreading his hands. “Anyway! It doesn’t matter. What matters is… I know there’s something there. And I think you can help me understand it.”

*

That evening, Tobio’s apartment was quieter than usual. The clock ticked steadily, the lamp casting a pale, yellowed glow over his cluttered desk. His folders and notes lay in piles, but for the first time in a long while, he couldn’t focus on them.

He sat at the desk, elbows propped on the surface, thinking about the boy from earlier.

After dark.
The words wouldn’t leave his mind. Not as a term, not as a metaphor, but as something real, something the boy believed down to his core.

Kageyama recalled his face: that eager look, almost naïve, yet strangely… unwavering. And the lie. “Hit by a car.” Too quick, too tidy. Tobio was used to spotting cracks in people’s voices—and Shoyo’s voice had more than one.

Why did he lie?

And why, despite that, was there a spark in his words that couldn’t be denied?

Tobio reached for one of the folders and opened it, but instead of tables and graphs, the words he’d heard floated before his eyes again:
“It wasn’t about seeing. It was about… feeling. Like someone close was there. And it was better. Death felt… better.”

He closed his eyes, pressing his fingers to his temples. No one had ever spoken to him like that. His students, his colleagues—they all used terms, clinical descriptions. But this boy… spoke of death as if it weren’t an end.

Tobio felt his stomach tighten. Part of him wanted to dismiss it—to call him a fantasist, a boy searching for meaning where there was none. But another part—the part he didn’t want to admit—was captivated.

For the first time, it felt like he wasn’t alone in this search.

He leaned back in his chair. The air in the room was heavy, yet somehow… less empty than before.

*

The next evening, the university was already nearly deserted. The corridors echoed with emptiness, the only sound a faint buzzing from the ceiling lights. Tobio stood in his office, eyes fixed on a chart, but his thoughts wandered elsewhere.

There was a patter of footsteps. Quick, uneven steps in the corridor. Then—a sharp knock at the door.

Tobio looked up.

Before he could even say “Come in,” the door swung open. Shoyo burst in, slightly out of breath, hair tousled by the wind. In his hands was a notebook, filled with uneven lines, some even slanted, as if he’d been writing in motion.

“Hi, Professor!” he said, grinning widely, as if barging in like this were perfectly natural. “I have a new theory.”

Tobio blinked. “You… again?”

“Of course!” Shoyo raised the notebook in the air. “I can’t leave it be. I’ve been thinking all day about what I told you yesterday.”

He stepped closer to the desk, lightly tapping the cover with his palm, and opened it to a page full of chaotic arrows and words connected by lines.

“Look. Some people feel calm, others—terror. Maybe it’s not the same ‘place.’ Maybe after dark is like… different rooms in the same corridor. And which corridor you see depends on yourself.”

Tobio leaned slightly forward, eyes resting on the scattered diagrams. The handwriting was terrible, the ideas childlike. But there was something in them. An energy he himself had long since lost.

“This has no scientific value,” Tobio said quietly. “These are just guesses.”

“What if the guesses are exactly what matters?” Shoyo leaned closer. “You collect data, I… I feel connections that aren’t in the numbers. Together, we could find something no one’s ever seen.”

For a moment, Tobio said nothing. He felt the words of this strange boy pulling him forward, toward an abyss that was equally terrifying and enticing.

“You…” he started slowly. “Why do you even want to know? What’s after death?”

Shoyo looked him straight in the eyes. His smile this time was quieter, almost serious.

“Because if we don’t understand what’s after the dark… how can we live in the light?”

Tobio was silent. Something in his chest seemed to tighten, then suddenly release.

The silence in the office thickened after Shoyo’s words. The lamp above the desk cast a cold light over the chaotic scribbles.

Tobio reached out, first slowly, hesitantly, then confidently grabbed the notebook and pulled it toward him.

Shoyo grinned, eyes sparkling. “So you’ll look after all?”

“That doesn’t mean I believe it,” Tobio replied dryly. But he was already flipping through the pages.

Lines interrupted by drawings of tunnels, arrows pointing to words like “silence,” “warmth,” “voices.” Other pages were just explosions of question marks in orange ink. Among them was one sentence, written in large, shaky letters:

“If we can catch the moment, maybe we can prove it’s real.”

Tobio felt a familiar tension in his chest—the same one he’d felt the first time he began his own research.

“Hm.” He left the notebook on the desk, but didn’t push it away. “Most of this is nonsense.”

“And the rest?” Shoyo leaned forward, his face shining with anticipation.

Tobio didn’t answer immediately. His gaze was fixed on a small note in the corner of the page:
“Not death. Transition.”

He closed the notebook and slid it back toward Shoyo. “We’ll see. If you want to talk about these things, we’ll have to do it properly. With protocols. Data.”

Shoyo straightened abruptly, as if he couldn’t believe it. “So… we’re going to work together?!”

“This isn’t ‘working together.’” Tobio stood, organizing a few folders into a neat stack. “This is… testing your ridiculous ideas.”

Shoyo laughed, loud and genuine. “Call it whatever you want, Professor, you know it’s the same thing.”

Tobio turned his gaze away but felt something twitch at the corner of his mouth.

*

The next day, Tobio unlocked the small laboratory room at the university. It was nearly empty—just a desk, two chairs, an old monitor, and a tangle of cables. It was usually used by students for practice, but today he had decided to take it over.

Shoyo burst in, backpack on his shoulders, notebook in hand. “Ready!” he announced triumphantly. “I have an idea for how to start!”

“An idea?” Tobio raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t I tell you we need to make a protocol first?”

“Yes, yes, protocol, I know,” Shoyo waved his hand dismissively. “But look!” He pulled out a small voice recorder and a cable that clearly didn’t fit anywhere. “We can record what I feel while I simulate a near-death experience.”

“…What?” Tobio looked at him sharply. “This is insane.”

“No, no, not literally!” Shoyo laughed. “I mean… hyperventilation, sensory deprivation, things like that. Only safe stuff!”

Tobio shook his head. This isn’t an experiment, it’s a circus.

Shoyo sat on the chair, put headphones over his ears, and closed his eyes, pretending he was already starting. “See? If you cut out the noise, if you focus, the brain starts making… shadows, colors, sensations. Just like in those reports we read.”

Tobio exhaled but didn’t look away. He picked up a sheet of paper and began writing, pretending he was only taking note of his nonsense. “Describe,” he said sharply.

Shoyo opened one eye. “What?”

“Describe what you feel.” Tobio held the pen above the page. “In detail.”

Shoyo smiled widely and closed his eyes again. “It’s dark… but not scary. It’s like someone’s standing next to me. Like… like a loved one. Or when you get home and smell a home cooked meal. It feels calm.”

Tobio’s hand moved across the paper, quick and precise. His face remained expressionless, but a faint, strange tightening appeared in his chest.

Shoyo continued. “There’s also a sound, like a distant wave. As if… time stretches. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Tobio glanced up at him for a moment, staring, then looked back down and wrote the words carefully, one by one.

When Shoyo took off the headphones and opened his eyes, Tobio had already filled an entire page.

“Well?” Shoyo asked impatiently. “What do you think?”

Tobio put the sheet into his folder. “It’s chaotic. Incomplete. But…” He paused for a second. “It’s worth repeating. With control.”

Shoyo burst out laughing. “So we’re a team now!”

Tobio didn’t answer. He only held the folder tighter to himself, as if it could hide how strongly Shoyo’s words had shaken him.

*

Weeks passed. Evenings in the small lab became routine—Shoyo with his notebook and endless energy, Tobio with stacks of protocols and reports.

At first, they complemented each other. Shoyo brought new ideas, Tobio structured them. But over time, their differences began to weigh.

“You can’t just say ‘I felt a presence,’” Tobio snapped one night, slamming the notebook down. “That’s not data. That’s a subjective experience.”

Shoyo frowned. “But that’s the point! People feel it, do you get it? That’s important, more than your numbers!”

“Without numbers, there’s no proof,” Tobio’s voice was cold. “Stories mean nothing if we can’t measure them.”

“So you’re still a slave to your machines,” Shoyo stood, voice sharp. “You can’t measure the warmth of a hug, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist!”

“This isn’t science!” Tobio shouted, louder than he expected.

Silence. The air grew heavy.

Shoyo stared him down, face flushed. “And maybe that’s exactly why you’ll never find the truth, Tobio. Because you’re afraid of everything you can’t put in a table.”

The words struck like a blow. Tobio fell silent. For a moment, it seemed he would explode again, but instead he only clenched his jaw and sat back in his chair.

Shoyo grabbed his notebook. “You know what? I’ll continue on my own.” His voice was tense, but it trembled with pain as well. “You’re good with numbers, but in the dark, there are no numbers. There are only people.”

He slammed the door behind him, leaving a silence that felt endless.

Tobio remained alone in the lab, hands trembling over the folders. In his head, Shoyo’s laughter from the previous nights still echoed—and his last words, spoken with a fury that hurt more than any critique.

*

Two days passed with the lab remaining silent. No laughter, no heated arguments. Tobio came and went alone, twirling a pen in his hand, but his thoughts kept returning to Shoyo’s last look—the one where anger and hurt blended together.

On the third evening, he heard footsteps in the corridor. The door cracked open, and there he was—Shoyo, notebook tucked under his arm, wearing a guilty smile.

“Hey.” His voice was quieter than usual. “Can I come in?”

Tobio said nothing, only nodded.

Shoyo approached, set the notebook on the table, and scratched the back of his neck. “I know I was a jerk. I didn’t mean to… it’s just… sometimes when I speak, my words come out faster than my thoughts.”

Tobio studied him. His face was tense, but the anger was gone, replaced by sincerity. “I…” Tobio started, pausing as if each word weighed heavily. “I’m not good at… understanding people. I always look for order. Data. Without numbers, I lose my footing.”

Shoyo smiled softly, warmly, and sat across from him. “Well, maybe that’s why we’re two. I see the chaos, you see the order. One without the other makes no sense.”

For a moment, they were silent. Then, without thinking, Shoyo extended his hand across the table.
“Let’s try again, okay?”

Tobio hesitated. He looked at the hand—slightly scraped, still smudged with ink—and slowly grasped it. Held it firmly, more firmly than he realized.

In that instant, the weight in the room seemed to dissolve. The hum of the instruments, the buzzing of the lights, everything felt somehow lighter.

Shoyo grinned broadly. “Okay. Just one condition—the next time we argue, we’ll settle it with ramen. Whoever burns more, loses.”

Tobio exhaled sharply through his nose—something between a laugh and a sigh. “Idiot,” he muttered. But this time there was no chill in his voice.

*

After that night, the balance changed. The lab was no longer just a place for numbers and graphs—it now held laughter, noisy quarrels that ended with frowns, then smiles.

Tobio organized data into spreadsheets, while Shoyo filled the blank spaces with diagrams, arrows, little sketches of balls and nets. Occasionally, Shoyo would interrupt with absurd examples:

“Look, if the brain is like a playground, then death is just the referee’s whistle signaling the end of the game. But!” He raised a finger theatrically. “Maybe after that, there’s another playground, we just can’t see it.”

“That’s a metaphor,” Tobio replied dryly, though interest flickered in his eyes. “But it’s not proof.”

“The metaphor is the door!” insisted Shoyo. “You’re the one who has to walk through it with the data.”

And so they began writing together. Pages filled with his strict lines and his scattered words. Tobio wrote: “Residual consciousness. Seconds stretch into eternity.”

Beneath it, Shoyo added: “Maybe eternity is hidden in these seconds! This is after dark!”

Tobio began to notice something strange: the more he listened to Shoyo’s chaotic ideas, the deeper he thought himself. The data were no longer just numbers—they became part of a picture that couldn’t be complete without someone else’s laughter and imagination.

Sometimes they argued until exhaustion.
“This can’t be proven!” Tobio would erupt.“And what if it doesn’t need to be proven, only felt?” Shoyo countered.

And then, at the tensest moment, Shoyo would burst out laughing and throw a pen at him.

“Look at your face! You look like you’re playing the World Cup final!”

Tobio rolled his eyes, but his lips curved into something suspiciously like a smile.

Thus, amidst chaos and order, numbers and sketches, they began building their theory of after dark. Unofficial, incomplete, often contradictory—but theirs.

*

The sun was high, spilling across the courtyard where students drifted past in clusters, voices carrying on the breeze. Shoyo and Tobio walked shoulder to shoulder toward a small café just off campus—the place Shoyo always dragged him to whenever they had the chance to escape the office.

They sat at a corner table, half-hidden behind a wall of ivy. The smell of toasted bread and bitter coffee clung to the air as Shoyo leaned forward, already brimming with energy.

“Okay, hear me out, Tobio,” he said, stabbing his fork into the air for emphasis. “What if near-death visions aren’t endings, but like… warm-ups? The brain running drills before the real thing. A trial match.”

Tobio gave him a flat look. “Simulations.”

“Yes! Like the practice before the finals.” Shoyo grinned. “The brain doesn’t just stop—it gets ready for what’s after dark.”

For a second, Tobio almost smiled. A quiet laugh escaped him before he could stop it. Shoyo’s grin widened at the sound.

“That’s absurd,” Tobio muttered, straightening his expression again. “Exactly the kind of theory I’d expect from a kid.”

Shoyo gasped, hand over his chest like Tobio had struck him. “A kid? Don’t talk like that, you sound like some grandfather giving life advice.”

“I’m not old,” Tobio said flatly.

“You talk like it sometimes,” Shoyo shot back. “But come on—you do realize you’re barely older than me, right?”

Tobio frowned. “Barely? Don’t exaggerate. You act like you’re twenty at most. There’s no way you’re older than that.”

Shoyo blinked at him, then laughed so hard his shoulders shook. “Twenty? Tobio, I’m twenty-seven.”

Tobio narrowed his eyes. “Impossible. You can’t be twenty-seven. You don’t look it, you don’t act it—nothing about you says twenty-seven.”

“That’s rude!” Shoyo said, still laughing. “Or maybe flattering—I can’t tell.”

“It’s just reality,” Tobio insisted. “You’re lying. You couldn’t convince me if you tried. At best you pass for twenty.”

Shoyo leaned back in his chair, grinning so hard his eyes almost closed. “Then I’ll take it as a compliment. Congratulations, Professor—you just shaved seven years off my life. You’ve officially made me younger.”

“Idiot,” Tobio muttered, but his tone was softer this time.

Shoyo’s laughter filled the café, bright and unstoppable, carrying between them like a rhythm only they knew.

*

The evening was quiet. The office windows were fogged from their breath. Notes had piled up on the desk—half with Tobio’s precise lines, half with Shoyo’s scattered, impatient scribbles.

Yachi sat on a chair by the door, notebook clutched in her lap. She had long been used to helping with organizational tasks, but now she looked tense.

“Seriously, you two…” she whispered. “If anyone saw these notes, they’d think… you’re… maniacs.”

“Maybe we are!” Shoyo grinned, leaning toward her. “But only maniacs get further, right?”

Tobio raised an eyebrow but didn’t interrupt. Instead, he slid one of the pages toward Yachi.

“Read it.”

She took the sheet hesitantly. On it was a table: “Time dilation in cerebral hypoxia. Subjective seconds = 10x real time.” Beneath the table, in orange ink:
“What if these seconds are a new world? After dark.”

“It’s just a metaphor…” she began quietly.

“Not just!” Shoyo interrupted, eyes shining. “People who die and come back describe the same thing. Time that doesn’t end. Sometimes light, sometimes presence. Isn’t it strange that so many different people feel the same?”

Yachi looked at them, lips parting, then closing again. “But… if this is true… then death isn’t the end.”

“Exactly!” Shoyo exclaimed, as if she’d just scored the winning point.

Tobio only nodded slowly. “We’re not saying it’s proven. We’re saying there’s a trace. That it’s worth thinking about.”

Yachi clutched the notebook in her lap. Her face was tense, but in her eyes shone something else—the quiet wonder people try to hide.

“You know…” she murmured, almost reluctantly, “when I was little, I was seriously ill. I remember… for a moment, it felt like my mom was in the room, even though she wasn’t. And it was warm. Comforting. I never told anyone.”

Shoyo jumped as if her words were the biggest confirmation. “See, Tobio! We’re not alone!”

Tobio said nothing, but his eyes lingered on Yachi longer than usual. In that moment, she realized she had become part of something both of them guarded fiercely.

And for the first time, it didn’t feel “crazy.”

*

The day had stretched like rubber, weighed down by hours of calculations and endless rows in spreadsheets. The university now breathed only through its fluorescent lights—tired, flickering. Tobio and Shoyo walked side by side, notes in hand, but their silent agreement carried a strange lightness.

“If you make me input data again, I’ll die,” Shoyo groaned, stretching his arms as if trying to touch the ceiling.

“That’s not funny.” Tobio glanced at him from the side, though without true severity.

“Aha.” Shoyo nudged him with his elbow, grinning mischievously. “But you’ll pay. With ramen.”

Tobio exhaled—but did not protest.

*

Tobio’s apartment greeted them with its cold orderliness. But the moment Shoyo stepped over the threshold, the space changed—it came alive. He threw his jacket over a chair, rummaged through the cupboards as if at home, and finally lifted two packages of ramen like a victor.

“Found them!” His voice rang out. “Just don’t mess with the spices.”

“Me?” Tobio raised an eyebrow. “You always overdo it.”

Within minutes, the kitchen was alive with steam and spices. Shoyo stood dangerously close to the pot, blowing dramatically, as if he were a hero on stage.

“If I die from the steam, it’s your fault!”

“Idiot.” But in Tobio’s voice there was something like a smile.

They sat at the table, bowls of hot ramen in front of them. For a moment, there was silence: only the quiet slurping, steam fogging the air between them. In this simplicity, there was something cozy, almost domestic.

“See…” Shoyo murmured with a full mouth, “on nights like this, I think life is simple. You eat, you laugh… and that’s enough.”

Tobio watched him through the veil of steam. His eyes softened—almost imperceptibly. Then he noticed.

Shoyo’s sleeve had rolled, just enough to reveal his wrist. Not smooth skin, but scars. Fresh, not long healed.

Tobio froze.

“…Shoyo?” His voice was low, a taut string. “What is that?”

Shoyo jerked his arm back, hiding it under his sleeve. The smile vanished, as if it had never been there. “Nothing.”

“This is not ‘nothing.’” Tobio’s tone grew heavier. “Your… You said your heart stopped…”

Shoyo raised his eyes. Fear and anger flashed there at the same time. “What about it?”

Tobio hesitated, words caught in his throat. “Shoyo… did you try to…?” He swallowed. “…to kill yourself?”

Silence fell like a knife.

“You…” Shoyo whispered. “You’re crazy. Of course not.” But his voice was hollow, and his hands trembled slightly.

Tobio reached out, took his wrist, this time carefully, almost cautiously. “Shoyo…”

“Let go.” His voice was firm, but shaking.

“I can’t,” Tobio replied quietly. “Not if it’s true.”

Shoyo’s eyes flared. He pulled back sharply, yanking his hand free and almost knocking over his bowl.

“Mind your own business, Professor.” His voice was sharp now, almost cutting. “You know nothing.” He grabbed his jacket, and the door slammed shut.

The apartment was left with only the smell of spices and two untouched bowls, cooling in silence.

Tobio stood motionless, his hand still tingling with the warmth of Shoyo’s wrist. His heart pounded heavy, uncontrollably.

He sat on the couch, hunched over, elbows on his knees, fingers pressed to his temples. As if trying to hold his thoughts in place, yet they only slipped through.

Tobio squeezed his eyes shut. This wasn’t just academic curiosity, not a theoretical discussion in a university corridor. That voice, that look—he had spoken about something real. Something that had touched him.

Tobio remembered their first meeting:
In the corridor, Shoyo had been a little excited, a little uncertain, clutching his notebook like a lifeline.

“After dark,” he had said then. “I want to understand what comes after dark.”

And then… that sentence, whispered almost under his breath.

“And it was… nice. Better than anything. Death… felt better.”

Now, with the scars on his wrist before his eyes, the picture was beginning to arrange itself.

“God…” Tobio murmured, unsure if he was speaking aloud.

Could it be possible? Shoyo had tried to leave on purpose. Not hit by a car—but crossed the boundary intentionally? That bright, living laughter… that strange mix of thirst for life and flirting with death…

Tobio stood abruptly, pacing the room. His heart pounded fast, his chest tight.

If it was true—if Shoyo was on the edge again—then what? He was a scientist, a professor, not a therapist.

He stopped by the window. Outside, the streetlights glowed dimly. He leaned against the frame.

“Shoyo… what have you done?”

Silence gave no answer.

Tobio clenched his fists. For the first time in a long while, he felt all his knowledge was insufficient. No formula could calculate this pain. No theory could tell him if the boy who had laughed in his kitchen had actually tried to die.

*

The night was cool, the streets damp from the late rain. Shoyo walked fast, aimlessly, hands deep in his jacket pockets. His heart thumped not from the cold, but from tension.

The scene in the kitchen replayed in his mind over and over. Tobio’s tone—serious, insistent. His gaze, as if piercing through. And the grip on his wrist.

Shoyo raised his arm toward the light. The scars were clear. So many times he had sworn no one would see them. And now… it was him. Tobio.

“Fuck…” Shoyo muttered through his teeth.

He wasn’t ready. Not ready to say it aloud. The truth never came out whole, only in pieces. When he said he had been “hit by a car,” that was an escape. The easiest lie. No one asks further. No one wants details.

The truth… the truth was that that night, when he was left alone, everything inside him had contracted. The darkness had pressed so heavily that the only way out seemed to be his own hand. The pain, the metallic smell, the lights that flared behind his eyelids for a moment—and then that strange feeling.

It wasn’t light. It wasn’t a tunnel.
It was a presence. Warm. Close. Calm.

And it was beautiful.

So beautiful that when he opened his eyes again in the hospital, he felt… betrayed.

Now, walking down the dark street, he shivered. Even the thought of it sent a sharp longing through his chest. To go back. To reach that edge again. To return there.

But then he remembered Tobio’s gaze. How he had held his wrist. Not roughly, not in anger, but as if keeping him on the surface, preventing him from sinking.

Shoyo stopped under a streetlamp and exhaled sharply. His heart pounded in his chest like a caged animal.

“You’re an idiot…” he whispered to himself.

But deep down, he knew it wasn’t just fear. There was relief too. For the first time, someone had seen.

*

The week that followed stretched endlessly for Tobio.

Every morning, he woke with the same restless thought: I need to talk to him. Every night, he went to bed with the same silence pressing down on him, heavier than the day before.

He called—no answer.
He sent a message—no reply.
Not even the double checkmarks he used to see light up.

At first, he told himself Shoyo was busy. Then, maybe tired. But as the days ticked by, the truth settled in with an ache he couldn’t ignore: Shoyo was avoiding him.

In lectures, Tobio’s voice sounded colder, sharper. In his office, the piles of notes and folders felt emptier without that orange doodle scrawled in the margins. He wanted to apologize, to say he hadn’t meant to corner him, hadn’t meant to press so hard. He wanted—no, needed—to understand.

But Shoyo was gone.

Until fate intervened.

It was late afternoon when Tobio ducked into the small café just off campus, the one with too many plants and always the smell of roasted beans. He ordered his usual coffee and turned, ready to find a quiet corner.

And then he froze.

By the window, sunlight pooling across his hair, sat Shoyo. His back was slightly hunched, his hand wrapped around a half-empty mug. He was laughing at something on his phone—softly, the way he did when no one else was around.

For a heartbeat, Tobio didn’t move. The noise of the café blurred; the only thing clear was him. The week of silence, the slammed door, the unanswered calls—it all collapsed into this one impossible moment.

Shoyo looked up. Their eyes met.

The laughter drained from his face, replaced by something unreadable—shock, maybe, or guilt. His phone slipped onto the table with a dull sound.

Tobio’s heart pounded in his ears. Words tangled at the back of his throat, desperate, heavy. He didn’t know whether to apologize, to ask, or just to say his name.

But all he did was take a single step forward.

Tobio crossed the room, every step heavier than it should’ve been. He stopped in front of the table, his voice lower than usual. “Can I sit?”

For a moment, Shoyo didn’t answer. His fingers tapped once against the mug, then he gave the smallest nod. Tobio sat down opposite him, the chair scraping softly against the floor.

Silence stretched, thin but taut.

Finally, Tobio spoke. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t have pressed you like that. I… it wasn’t my place.”

Shoyo’s eyes flickered down at the table. His lips curved in a humorless smile. “No. It wasn’t. You really shouldn’t have.”

The words landed heavy, but Tobio didn’t flinch. He just lowered his gaze to his hands, folded tightly in front of him. “I know,” he murmured. “But I couldn’t just ignore it.”

Another pause. Shoyo stirred the remnants of his coffee, as if the swirl of liquid might give him the right words.

Tobio leaned forward, his voice steady but rough. “Can i ask you something. You don't have to answer if you don't want to, but…” His throat tightened. “Why? Why would you do that?”

Shoyo froze. His hand stilled on the mug.

Tobio’s eyes were sharp now, but not unkind. “And please—don’t tell me it was just because you were curious about what happens after dark. Don’t give me that.”

For a long moment, Shoyo didn’t breathe. The light from the window cut across his face, and he seemed smaller, quieter.

Finally, his voice broke the silence—fragile, stripped of all the usual brightness. “…It’s not that,” he whispered. “Not curiosity. Not… not really.” His fingers clenched around the mug, knuckles white. “…It’s just…”

The words died in his throat, and his shoulders shook almost imperceptibly.

“…It’s just…” Shoyo’s voice wavered, as if he were standing at the edge of something sharp. He stared into his cup, watching the dark surface tremble in his hands. “…I was tired.”

The words dropped heavy, leaving no space to breathe.

“Everything was noise,” Shoyo went on, still not looking up. “Running, thinking, smiling—noise. Like no matter how fast I went, I was still in the same place. Like I was running underwater.” He let out a short, shaky breath. “I couldn’t stand still. I couldn’t breathe. And at some point… I just wanted it to stop. Just for a second. Just silence.”

He swallowed, fingers tightening on the mug. “When I… did it, for a moment there was silence. And warmth. Not an image, not light. More like… like someone holding your hand. Like someone was there.” His voice broke slightly. “It was… nice.”

He flinched at his own words, as if ashamed. “I didn’t want to die. Not like that. I just… wanted everything to stop.”

Tobio stayed still, the ache in his chest deepening with every word.

“I felt empty,” Shoyo whispered, so quietly it almost disappeared into the clatter of the café. “Completely empty. Like there was nothing left in me to give. But then…” He hesitated, eyes flicking up to Tobio’s for the first time. “Then I met you.”

The words trembled in the space between them, raw and unpolished.

“For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like I was running alone,” he said. “I didn’t feel… empty.”

A single tear slipped down his cheek before he could stop it. He wiped it away almost violently, his jaw clenched.
“Sorry,” he muttered, bitterly, like the word itself was a curse.

Tobio’s hands tightened in his lap, nails pressing into his palms. His heart hurt with something sharp and helpless.
“…Shoyo” he said softly, the name breaking on his tongue.

Shoyo looked at him fully—no grin, no armor, only the unguarded weight of everything he’d been holding back.

Tobio’s chest ached. His hands twitched against his lap, caught between hesitation and need, until finally he reached across the table. Slowly, carefully—like one wrong move would shatter everything—he laid his hand over Shoyo’s.

Shoyo flinched. But he didn’t pull away.

“Don’t apologize,” Tobio said quietly. His voice was rough, threaded with something unsteady. “Not for this. Not to me.”

Shoyo blinked, his lashes wet, and for a moment his lips pressed together as if he wanted to laugh it off, to shove the moment aside. But no laughter came. Only silence, fragile and trembling.

“I don’t know how to fix it,” Tobio went on, the words dragging out of him like confession. “I don’t know what to say. But… I’m here. I won’t run. Not from this. Not from you.”

The café’s noise carried on, oblivious—chairs scraping, spoons clinking—but at their table the world seemed to narrow to just two hands resting together in the faint light.

Shoyo’s breath hitched. He closed his eyes for a second, shoulders loosening as if some unbearable weight had been given space, if only for a moment.

When he looked at Tobio again, it wasn’t with a smile. But there was something softer there—something closer to trust.

“…Thank you,” he whispered.

Tobio nodded, the words caught in his throat. His hand stayed over Shoyo’s, steady, refusing to let go. For the first time in days—maybe longer—he felt something anchor him. Something real.

The light from the café window spilled over Shoyo’s face, softening his edges, pulling him impossibly close. The sound of cups, voices, laughter blurred, fading until all that remained was the warmth under his hand, the weight of eyes meeting his, the quiet promise in the space between them.

And then—

The sound fractured.

The murmur of voices bent into static, cups clattered into the shriek of an alarm. The café window shattered into gray.

⸻

Tobio’s eyes flew open.

Darkness. His ceiling. The heavy, stale air of his apartment pressing down on him. His alarm clock screamed on the nightstand.

He turned it off with a single motion. The silence that followed was merciless.

The echo of Shoyo’s voice lingered in his chest, but it was just that—an echo. His hand rested against the sheets where warmth should’ve been, but wasn’t.

Tobio lay there for a long moment, staring into the dark. His heartbeat was too loud, too fast, as if it didn’t understand that nothing had changed. That he was still here, alone.

Finally, he pushed himself up. Bare feet on the cold floor. The same motions, repeated again: crossing the room, the stale air, the empty kitchen. His phone lay on the table, blank screen staring back at him.

He rubbed his face with one hand, but it didn’t stop the ache in his chest.

It was morning. And he was awake.

Tobio moved through his apartment like a machine, each movement precise and practiced. He entered the bathroom, switching on the harsh light.

He brushed his teeth methodically, the taste of mint sharp against the lingering grogginess. His hands moved with careful precision as he washed his face, then ran his fingers through his hair, straightening it just enough to feel presentable.

Dressed in his usual attire—neatly pressed shirt, blazer that hung perfectly on his shoulders—he stepped into the kitchen. The cold tiles under his feet grounded him in the routine he depended on.

He filled a glass with water, the clear liquid catching the weak morning sunlight through the window. From the cabinet above, he retrieved a small blister pack of pills.

His fingers hovered over them for a moment. Life, in all its daily grind, had caught up again. Each pill was a tether, a fragile barrier keeping him from completely unraveling. He took them, swallowing quickly with the water, and set the empty glass aside.

For a moment, he paused, staring at the scattered notes and folders on the table. The morning was ordinary. The world carried on outside. And yet, the memory of Shoyo still lingered, sharp against the dull rhythm of his routine.

He shook his head slightly, as if to clear it. The day had begun.

Tobio stepped out of his apartment, the door clicking shut behind him. The morning air was crisp, carrying a faint scent of exhaust and damp leaves from the street. He adjusted his bag over one shoulder, the weight of folders and notebooks a familiar companion.

The sidewalks were dotted with students hurrying to lectures, their chatter a muted hum around him. Tobio moved deliberately, each step measured, almost mechanical. He didn’t notice most of the passersby; his eyes were fixed ahead, focused, calculating, already shifting through the tasks the day demanded.

A few pigeons scattered at his approach, wings flapping, before settling again in the quiet corners of the pavement. He passed cafés and small shops, their windows reflecting the pale light. The city was awake, alive, but he felt removed from it, moving through it like a ghost tethered to purpose.

By the time he reached the university gates, the campus had started to fill. Students clustered in groups, books clutched to chests, laughing and bumping into one another. Tobio passed through the throng without acknowledgment, his movements fluid, controlled, almost silent despite the noise surrounding him.

He entered the psychology building, the air inside cooler, sterile, and faintly scented with paper and cleaning solution. The corridors were busier here, filled with staff and students alike. Tobio’s steps echoed lightly against the tile as he made his way toward his office, folders tucked securely under his arm.

He paused briefly at a window, watching the campus spread below, the light catching on the leaves of the trees. For a second, he let himself breathe, however lightly. Then he continued—notes to review, lectures to prepare, experiments to oversee.

The weight of routine settled over him, grounding him, even as the thought of Shōyō lingered in the background, a shadow tugging at the edges of his mind.

*

His office smelled faintly of paper and stale coffee as Tobio entered, the morning sun cutting sharp lines across the cluttered desk. He moved with his usual precision, setting down his folders one by one, aligning the edges with mechanical care.

But then his eyes caught something.

A folder. One, he'd sworn he had trown away. Bright orange ink. Familiar, messy, impossibly energetic handwriting.

Tobio’s chest tightened. He picked it up with deliberate care, as though any sudden movement might tear the paper or break something fragile in the words themselves.

“With this kind of drug, we can temporarily stop the heart. See what comes after dark. Then return the person safely. Enough trials and we’ll know.”

His pulse jumped. The air seemed to thicken around him.

He flipped through the rest of the notes. Diagrams of the heart, chemical formulas, precise timings. Observations. Contingency plans. Every possibility considered, every risk measured.

“A few successful experiments should be enough to understand what after dark really is.”

Then at the very bottom of the sheet, in smaller letters, almost tender against the chaos of calculations and diagrams:

Trust me, Tobio

A tiny heart drawn next to it.

Tobio froze, staring at the note. His fingers hovered over it, trembling slightly. The room seemed to close in around him, the air thick with the weight of both brilliance and recklessness.

Idiot.

The word wasn’t just thought, it roared inside him. He grabbed the folder, and hurled it across the room. The papers hit the far wall and slid across the floor in a scatter of chaos, like leaves caught in a storm.

The folder lay open on the floor, papers scattered, Shoyo’s handwriting bright against the pale sheets—a single, quiet declaration hidden among madness and method.

*

The room was stifling with silence. Papers still lay scattered on the floor, fragments of thoughts that should never have seen the light of day. Tobio stood by his desk, his hands trembling ever so slightly.

knock – knock

“Professor Kageyama?” came a quiet, hesitant voice.

Tobio flinched. The voice was familiar. He blinked a few times, drew in a breath, and walked toward the door. He opened it.

Standing there was Yamaguchi, a backpack slung over one shoulder, notebooks pressed to his chest. A slightly embarrassed smile tugged at his lips.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” the student said. “But… I wanted to ask about last week’s assignment. Some of us weren’t sure how to structure the analysis, and… I thought it’d be better to hear it straight from you.”

Tobio nodded slowly. His voice was slightly huskier than intended. “Yes. I understand. I can show you an example after lectures.”

“Thank you, Professor.” Yamaguchi seemed relieved, as if Tobio’s very presence brought him calm.

He was already about to turn and leave when his eyes fell to the floor. Sheets, diagrams, sharp lines in bright orange ink, scattered against the wall. Among them—an open folder, oddly smudged at the corners, as if it had been crumpled.

“Uh… Professor?” His voice trembled faintly. “Are you… okay?”

Tobio froze. Yamaguchi’s gaze—attentive, honest, far too transparent—fell on the chaos on the floor.

For a moment, the air grew heavy, as if someone had pulled a secret from his chest and left it exposed.

Tobio pressed his lips together. “I’m fine.” The answer was quick, firmer than necessary. “These are… just old notes. Nothing important.”

Yamaguchi didn’t seem fully convinced, but he nodded slowly. “I see. Sorry.”

He stepped back toward the door. “Thanks again for your help, Professor. I’ll… see you in class.”

Tobio only nodded, holding his gaze on him a moment too long, until the door quietly closed.

Silence returned to the room. Only the papers on the floor remained, silent witnesses.

Tobio bent down and picked up the top sheet. The orange lines seemed to burn in his eyes.

“Trust me, Tobio.”

He swallowed hard.

*

After lectures, Tobio walked slowly toward home. The streets were half-empty—only the shop lights and the muted hum of cars. The bag of folders dragged him down, but his mind felt even heavier.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. He glanced at the screen.

Natsu.

Tobio answered immediately, without thinking.

“Natsu.” His voice sounded soft, softer than usual.

“Hey, Tobio. How are you?” Her voice was warm, but there was something careful in it, as if she were walking on thin ice.

“Good.” Tobio swallowed. “Did something happen?”

A brief pause on the other end. A slight shuffle of the phone, a breath.

“No. I was… just thinking about the anniversary.” Her voice lowered, barely audible. “You’ll be there, right?”

Tobio’s chest tightened. The Anniversary. Two years had passed, yet it felt like yesterday.

He closed his eyes for a moment. “Yes. I’ll be there.”

*

The evening air was cold, damp, seeping into his bones as Tobio stood in front of his apartment door. The conversation with Natsu still echoed in his ears—her quiet voice, careful, as if every word could hurt him.

He placed his hand on the handle but didn’t turn it. Instead, he closed his eyes.

And the memory hit him.

Sunlight reflected off the windows of the laboratory, flooding the room with an orange glow. The noise of the university had already died down, the corridors outside empty. But inside, there was an unusual liveliness—Shoyo, bent over the table, waving papers and sketches covered with heart diagrams, formulas, calculations.

“Look, Tobio!” His eyes were bright. “This is it! If we use this drug… we can stop the heart for a few seconds. Just enough to peek beyond. ‘After dark.’ And then—”

“Stop!” Tobio’s voice cut through the air, sharp, abrupt. He grabbed one of the papers and slammed it back onto the table. “Are you insane?!”

Shoyo blinked, seemingly surprised. “Insane? No, Tobio, listen—this is our chance. A real chance! We’re so close, we can—”

“This isn’t a game!” Tobio slammed his hand on the desk, the papers jumping. ''We’re talking about a heart. About life. Your life!”

Shoyo laughed, but in the laughter there was a tremor, almost desperation. “So what? Isn’t that what we’re studying anyway? Life. Death. The boundary. If someone has to take the risk, let it be me. I want to understand.”

“No!” Tobio stepped forward, his fingers curling into fists. “You don’t understand what you’re saying. This isn’t curiosity. This is recklessness.”

Shoyo straightened too, his face burning. “You’re always thinking in boxes, Tobio! Tables, percentages, data! But what if the answer is beyond that? What if the meaning is there?”

“What if you don’t come back?!” Tobio shouted, his voice breaking. “What if I lose you forever?”

Silence fell. Heavy, suffocating. Only the sound of their breathing, fast and uneven.

Shoyo stared straight into his eyes—and for the first time, his enthusiasm faltered. Something darker flashed in his gaze.

“Maybe then… it would just be better.”

Tobio’s chest tightened painfully. The words hung in the air between them, an invisible chasm no formula could bridge...

...Tobio opened his eyes sharply, as if someone had struck him. His chest constricted, his breathing shallow. The door before him seemed distant, like the backdrop of a nightmare.

He stepped inside. Silence greeted him with its empty weight. He slipped off his shoes mechanically, left his bag on the floor, but didn’t turn on the light. Instead, he sank into the chair by the table and buried his face in his hands.

“Shoyo…” he whispered. His voice was so quiet it probably wouldn’t even echo off the apartment walls.

In the darkness, the memory burned brighter than any lamp.

That night, Tobio didn’t remember when he had fallen asleep. He had lain in bed, inhaling the heavy air of the room, letting his thoughts drag him down.

And then sleep embraced him.

⸻

It was morning. Light filtered softly through the curtain, warm and orange. Tobio felt weight on him, cozy, gentle, different from the usual emptiness.

He opened his eyes.

Shoyo was sleeping peacefully on his chest. His breathing was even, lips slightly parted. His hair—messy, scattered in rays that caught the morning sun. His warmth was real. Unwavering.

Tobio didn’t move. He didn’t even breathe for a moment, as if any motion could shatter the scene before him. His heart beat slowly, strangely quiet—as if trying not to wake Shoyo.

His fingers lightly, almost unconsciously, touched his shoulder. The skin was warm.

He looked at his face. At the softness of his features, the calm his sleep carried. It should always be like this, Tobio thought. No noise, no pain. Only this.

Shoyo stirred slightly. His eyes fluttered beneath his eyelids, then slowly opened.

“Mmm…” he murmured sleepily and yawned, his voice low, softer than usual. “Tobio?”

Tobio swallowed. His heart thumped harder. “I’m here.”

Shoyo smiled drowsily, like a child not fully awake. “Good.”

He snuggled closer, pressing his ear to Tobio’s chest. “I can hear.”

“Hear what?” Tobio’s voice trembled.

“Your heart.” Shoyo laughed quietly, almost soundlessly. “It sounds so… strong.”

Tobio couldn’t respond. Words stuck somewhere in his throat, where pain and tenderness mingled into one.

Shoyo lifted his head and looked him straight in the eyes. His usual teasing glance was gone—it was pure, soft, as if he could see right through him.

“Promise me something, Tobio.”

“What?” he whispered.

“That… if anything happens to me, you won’t blame yourself.” His voice wavered, but he continued. “You won’t think it’s your fault. Ever.”

Tobio’s heart pounded painfully. “Don’t talk like that.”

“Promise.” Shoyo’s eyes were wide, almost desperate in his plea.

Tobio bit his lip, his throat tight. Finally, he nodded, with effort. “I promise.”

Shoyo smiled again, faintly, and lay back against him. “Good. Then I can sleep a little longer.”

And the light remained, soft and warm, like a promise that would never fade—even when the memory hit him in the darkness.

*

The day was quiet—too quiet for everything that was about to happen. The room smelled of alcohol and cold metal—an improvised laboratory prepared with needles, vials, and piles of notes scattered across the table.

Shoyo sat in the chair with his arm bare, the yellow light of the lamp highlighting his pale skin. He was smiling, his eyes shone too brightly—not just from excitement.

“It’s fine,” he said softly, as if to convince himself more than anyone else. “We’ve thought about this for weeks. We’ve prepared for so long. Now we just… do it.”

Tobio stood opposite him, his hands trembling, barely noticeable. The vial felt heavier in his palm than it should.

“Shoyo…” His voice was low, tense. “Promise me. Promise me you’ll come back.”

Shoyo smiled wider, but the smile was sad. He took Tobio’s hand, cold against his warmth. “I promise.”

Tobio inhaled sharply, but before he could respond, Shoyo leaned forward. His lips brushed against his, brief and gentle, as if time had stopped for a moment.

“I love you,” he whispered, so close the words seemed to melt into his skin.

Tobio closed his eyes, pressing his forehead to his, and replied almost inaudibly. “…I love you too.”

Then he administered the injection.

And the seconds began to stretch into eternity.

The first moments after the injection were tense, but under control. Shoyo breathed heavily, his eyelids fluttering. A smile flickered across his face, as if to say, see? Nothing to fear.

But then his pulse began to fade.
Thump.
Thump.
…silence.

Tobio’s fingers pressed his wrist with desperate precision. Again. Nothing. “No…” he whispered, his voice already breaking. “No, no, no, not yet.”

With shaking hands, he grabbed the other vial—the antidote, the substance meant to bring Shoyo back. The needle pierced the skin, the plunger pushed to the end. Tobio watched every twitch, every movement of his chest.

Breathe. Please, breathe.

Seconds passed. Shoyo’s chest didn’t move. His eyes were closed, his face serene, almost beautiful in its lifeless stillness.

“Shoyo!” Tobio’s voice erupted, desperate and shattered. He began compressions on his chest, rhythmic, rough, almost with force, as if he could make the heart beat again with pure fury. “Get up! Come back! You promised me! You promised!”

Tears fell onto Shoyo’s face, smearing over his skin. Every drop was a scream, every movement was panic.

Tobio alternated compressions with mouth-to-mouth breaths, his hands slipping from sweat and tears. “Not like this! No! No!!” he screamed, his voice cracking, turning into a wail.

But the body beneath him remained still. Warm, but lifeless.

And then the strength left him. His arms slackened. Tobio collapsed onto him, clutching him in an embrace, his face buried in Shoyo’s neck.

“Please…” he whispered, now voiceless. ''Please, come back…”

His sobs shook his entire body. His fingers dug into Shoyo’s back, as if sheer will, sheer desperation, could keep him in this world.

The room was silent—too silent. Only the sounds of his crying, desperate and suffocated.

And amidst this abyss of helplessness, Tobio simply held the cold body of the one he loved more than anything. And the world collapsed around him.

⸻

Tobio woke with chest pain, his heart pounding too hard, as if the horror of the dream had not yet left him. He sat on the edge of the bed, arms wrapped around his knees, and let the tears flow freely. He didn’t try to stop them—all the pain, all the despair of that night with Shoyo poured out in every drop.

“Shoyo…” he whispered, his voice hoarse and choked.

The tears left tracks on his face, mixing with the residual sweat of sleep, but Tobio didn’t move. With each breath, he felt the weight of absence, of a loss that would never wash away.

After long minutes, when his crying began to subside, Tobio stood. In the mirror, he saw his red, puffy eyes, his lips pressed tight. He dressed slowly, methodically—a black shirt, gray jacket, trousers, shoes. Every movement was routine, almost mechanical, but the lingering pain pulsed within him.

He put away the notebooks and folders, every sheet, every orange notebook, arranged so nothing would shift. Then he looked at his phone—open chat with Natsu. His breathing quickened, but he didn’t open the message yet.

After a short pause, he left the apartment. The cold street air enveloped him, clearing some of the tears on his face.

“Today… I will be there.”

*

The sky was gray, clouds hanging low, and the air carried that damp chill that seeped through clothing.

He walked slowly down the familiar street, hands buried deep in his coat pockets. With each step, the tension thickened, an invisible weight pressing on his chest.

Shoyo’s family home stood as before—small, warm, with a front garden that seemed quieter than usual. The flowers had mostly wilted, but a few pots still held life.

Tobio paused at the gate. He swallowed. Then he entered.

The door opened almost immediately. Natsu was there—grown, but still with that light in her eyes that reminded him so much of her brother.

“Tobio.” Her smile was soft, quiet, almost hesitant. “I’m glad you came.”

“Of course.” His voice was low but steady.

She led him inside. The house smelled of tea and warm sweets. In the living room were her mother and a few close relatives. All spoke quietly, as if the house itself demanded silence.

On the table was a photo. Shoyo, smiling from ear to ear, eyes sparkling as if laughing even in the frozen frame. Next to the photo—a small bouquet of fresh flowers and a candle burning calmly.

Tobio froze before it. The flame flickered, making the photo seem alive. As if any moment he could hear that laughter again.

“Mom made his favorite sweets,” Natsu whispered beside him. “Maybe… you’d like to try?”

Tobio nodded slowly, but his eyes did not leave the photo. In his chest burned the same feeling—a mixture of guilt, pain, and longing.

He whispered barely audibly, only to himself. “Shoyo…”

The flame flickered, as if in reply.

In the end, none of them kept their promise.

Shoyo had died. He didn’t return.

And Tobio… Tobio had blamed himself every day for the past two years.

*

The room around the table was soft with candlelight. The Hinata family spoke quietly, their words blending with the smell of tea and sweets. Outside, the gray sky pressed against the windows, inside, everything was muted — grief worn smooth by time.

Tobio sat among them, hands folded in his lap, head slightly bowed. The picture of Shoyo on the table burned at the edge of his vision, the smile frozen forever in bright orange hair and gleaming eyes. He tried to listen to Nattsu’s voice, to the clinking of cups, but everything felt distant, muffled.

And then, for a heartbeat, the air shifted.
He felt it before he saw it — a warmth against his side, a flicker of color.

He turned.

There, sitting on the chair right next to him, was Shoyo. Not the photograph — but him. The same messy hair, the same bright eyes, the same weightless energy, except now softer, calmer. His hands rested on his knees. His smile was quiet, almost shy.

Tobio froze, breath caught in his throat. The sounds of the room dulled until there was only that vision.

Shoyo tilted his head slightly, eyes warm. “Tobio.” he said softly, “I’m happy.”

The words rippled through Tobio like light through water.

“Please…” Shoyo’s voice trembled, but the smile stayed. “I want you to be happy too.”

He stood, moving with a weightless grace, and leaned down toward Tobio. Fingers brushed his hair back gently.

His lips pressed against Tobio’s forehead — warm, real, fleeting.

And then he was gone.

Tobio blinked. The chair was empty. The room was the same: Nattsu pouring tea, someone shifting a plate, the quiet murmur of voices. Only the photograph of Shoyo remained, candlelight flickering against the glass.

Tobio’s heart thudded once, heavy and aching. His hand rose slowly, almost unconsciously, to touch the spot where Shoyo’s lips had been.

He exhaled slowly. The tightness in his chest eased, just a little, as if the world had shifted imperceptibly, leaving a small space where hope could seep in. He looked around the room and let himself finally feel the day, the moment, without the crushing weight of blame.

Outside, the sky lightened. The wind carried the faint scent of leaves and earth, a reminder that life moved forward, inexorable and unyielding. Tobio closed his eyes for a second, letting the sound of distant laughter, the murmur of life, fill the space Shoyo had left behind.

He opened them again, and for the first time in years, he allowed a small, fragile smile. It wasn’t complete. It wasn’t unbroken. But it was enough.

Because even in the shadow of loss, even after dark, life — his life — still moved forward.

And Tobio… Tobio would move with it.