Chapter 8: Contact

Yomikawa’s apartment was quieter than I expected.

Not sterile. Not empty.

Just… lived in.

The door shut behind us with a solid click, and my body reacted before my mind could catch up. My shoulders tensed, breath hitching slightly, senses flaring outward on instinct.

No alarms. No restraints. No pressure.

Just the low hum of a refrigerator, the faint ticking of a wall clock, and the smell of something like instant coffee and laundry detergent.

Yomikawa kicked off her shoes by the door and tossed her jacket over the back of a chair.

“Bathroom’s down the hall,” she said. “Spare room’s the second door. You hungry?”

I shook my head automatically.

She nodded, like she’d expected that answer.

“Alright. I’ll be around.”

She didn’t tell me to follow her. Didn’t watch to make sure I did. She just… trusted that I’d move when I was ready.

I took a step forward.

And there was no pressure of being watched.

The hallway was narrow, but not tight. The walls were warm-toned, not white. There were framed photos—old ones—slightly crooked, like no one had bothered to straighten them in a while.

A place meant to be lived in.

My chest tightened anyway.

I checked the doors as I passed them. Not opening them. Just noting where they were. Counting. Measuring the distance between them.

The spare room was exactly as promised.

A bed. A desk. A window.

I closed the door behind me.

Then froze.

My hand hovered near the handle, heart pounding, waiting for the sound of a lock engaging.

It didn’t come.

Slowly, I turned the handle.

It opened.

Unlocked.

My throat tightened.

I shut it again—gently this time—and leaned my forehead against the wood, breathing in short, careful pulls.

No one said anything.

I hated how this felt so alien to me now.

I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the window. It showed Academy City from above—lights stacked on lights, a city that never quite slept.

It looked the same as always.

I didn’t.

I hugged my knees to my chest and tried to slow my breathing.

Every instinct screamed that this was temporary. That someone would come in. That I’d been misplaced, not rescued.

That the quiet was just another phase.

A knock sounded from down the hall.

I flinched so hard my feet hit the floor.

“Hey,” Yomikawa called. Not sharp. Not loud. “Just checking in. Door stays unlocked. If you want it closed, close it. If you want it open, leave it.”

A pause.

“I’ll be in the living room.”

Her footsteps moved away.

Didn’t stop outside my door.

Didn’t linger.

I lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, fingers clenched around the Chopper keychain in my hand.

The thought of crowds made my stomach twist. The thought of hallways full of people, their AIM fields overlapping, voices piercing my ears, bodies too close—

I turned onto my side and curled in on myself.

Not hiding.

Just… smaller.

Outside the room, Yomikawa moved around, the soft sounds of someone existing without expectation.

For the first time, no one was waiting for me to fail.

Sleep came slowly.

Carefully.

Like it might break if I moved.

---

The first time I went outside, I didn’t realize what was wrong at first.

The door opened.

Light spilled out. Noise followed. Wind brushed against my face, carrying the familiar, artificial scent of Academy City—metal, ozone, something faintly sterile.

People were everywhere.

Walking. Talking. Laughing.

Normal.

I took two steps onto the sidewalk—

And froze.

It wasn’t the noise.

It wasn’t the crowd.

It was the pressure.

My chest tightened as something brushed against my awareness, soft but unmistakable. A presence. Then another. Then another, overlapping and intersecting like invisible waves crashing into each other.

AIM fields.

So many of them.

They weren’t sharp or hostile. Most were weak, unfocused—background radiation from espers who barely thought about their powers at all. Students chatting. Someone adjusting their bag. A girl tapping on her phone.

But to me, it felt like walking into deep water without warning.

Fields slid against mine, brushing, overlapping, resonating for half a second before drifting away. Each contact left a faint echo behind—static at the edge of my senses, fragments of intent, pressure without direction.

I swallowed hard.

Too close.

Someone passed behind me and their AIM field clipped mine fully.

My vision stuttered.

For a split second, my brain tried to align—instinctively matching, searching for structure the way it had been trained to.

Pain flashed behind my eyes.

I staggered.

The world tilted.

No.

No no no—

I pulled inward sharply, like slamming a door shut, but the city didn’t care. AIM fields kept flowing past me, brushing my skin, my thoughts, my nerves.

Each one was small.

Together, they were unbearable.

My breathing sped up without my permission. The edges of my vision darkened as pressure stacked on pressure, my body reacting before my mind could catch up.

It felt like being back in the lab.

Too many.

No space.

No walls—but no escape either.

My hands curled into fists, nails biting into my palms as I took an unsteady step back. Another field brushed mine—electric, unfocused—and my head rang like I’d been struck.

I gasped.

“—Mirai.”

Yomikawa’s voice cut through the haze.

She had stopped walking. I hadn’t noticed when.

I shook my head, trying to clear it, but the AIM fields didn’t stop. They never stopped. The city was alive with them, a constant hum just below the threshold of what most people could sense.

To me, it screamed.

“I—” My throat closed. “There’s too many.”

She didn’t ask what.

She just nodded once, like that answer was enough.

Without touching me, she shifted position—subtle, deliberate—placing herself slightly in front of me, blocking part of the flow. It didn’t stop the fields, but it broke their rhythm, gave my senses something solid to orient around.

“Okay,” she said calmly. “Then we don’t push it.”

I focused on her instead.

Her presence was… quiet.

Not empty—just steady. Human. Grounded.

The AIM fields around us still brushed past, but my own stopped trying to respond to every single one. I forced myself to breathe slower, counting heartbeats instead of frequencies.

One.

Two.

Three.

The pressure eased—not gone, but dulled, like turning down the volume on a radio that had been blaring too loud.

My knees felt weak.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, embarrassed by how small my voice sounded.

“For what?” Yomikawa asked.

“…For stopping.”

She snorted softly.

“Kid, if you’d passed out in the middle of the street, that would’ve been paperwork. This?” She shrugged. “This is fine.”

I let out a shaky breath.

The city was still there.

The AIM fields were still there.

But I wasn’t breaking anymore.

Not yet.

I took one careful step forward.

It hurt.

But I stayed upright.

And that was enough for today.

---

Yomikawa handed it to me like it wasn’t a big deal.

Which, coming from her, meant it absolutely was.

“Hey,” she said, holding out a rectangular shape. “Here. This is for you. For the time being.”

I looked down.

A phone.

Simple. Black. A little scuffed on the edges, like it had lived in someone else’s pocket for a while.

“…My old one?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

She shook her head. “Evidence. Your last phone’s gonna be sitting in a box with about three dozen tags on it for a while.”

Of course it was.

She nudged the phone closer when I didn’t take it right away.

“Go on.”

I wrapped my fingers around it. It felt heavier than I expected. Not because of the device itself—because of what it meant. Connection. Reach. The ability to exist outside whatever room I was currently standing in.

I turned it on.

No lock screen photo. No apps cluttering the display. Just the basics.

And a contacts list.

Two names.

Yomikawa Aiho
Shokuhou Misaki

I froze.

“…You put Misaki in here,” I said quietly.

Yomikawa scratched her cheek, eyes sliding away for half a second.

“Yeah, well. My superiors weren’t thrilled about that part.” She huffed. “Lots of talk about ‘risk’ and ‘influence’ and ‘classified individuals.’”

She glanced back at me.

“But she leaked the info that blew that place open. And you clearly trust her.” A pause. “Seemed cruel not to.”

My thumb hovered over Misaki’s name.

Just seeing it there made something tight in my chest loosen—just a little.

“She came by earlier,” Yomikawa added. “Didn’t stay long. Tried to act calm. Failed pretty badly.”

That sounded right.

“She asked if you were okay,” Yomikawa continued. “I told her you were breathing and arguing with doctors. She looked relieved enough to cry again.”

I let out a weak huff of a laugh before I could stop myself.

“…Yeah. That’s her.”

Silence settled between us—not awkward, just unhurried.

Yomikawa crossed her arms.

“Listen,” she said. “You don’t gotta use it right away. Or at all, if you don’t want to.” Her tone stayed casual, but her eyes were sharp. Watching. “Just… know it’s there.”

I nodded slowly.

The phone buzzed faintly as it finished syncing.

No messages.

No missed calls.

Just potential.

I locked the screen and held it to my chest for a second before slipping it into my pocket.

“…Thank you,” I said.

Yomikawa waved it off.

“Don’t make a big thing outta it,” she muttered. Then, after a beat: “But if you feel like you’re spiraling, you call. Doesn’t matter what time.”

I looked up at her.

“And Misaki?”

She shrugged again, smaller this time.

“That’s your call.”

For some reason, that meant more than the phone itself.

I nodded.

Not trusting myself to say anything else.

And for the first time since I’d stepped back into Academy City, I didn’t feel completely cut off from the world.

Just… cautiously reconnected.

---

I didn’t mean to call her.

That was the problem.

Yomikawa’s place was quieter than the hospital, but not by much. The walls were thin. The floors creaked when I shifted my weight. Somewhere down the hall, a TV murmured low enough to be almost comforting.

She came with me to the room—my room—then left me alone without making a big deal out of it.

That, more than anything, told me she was serious about letting me choose when to exist.

I sat on the edge of the bed, phone heavy in my pocket.

Don’t overthink it, I told myself.

So of course I did.

I pulled the phone out. The screen lit up instantly, too bright in the dim room. My thumb hovered, moving on its own before I fully caught up.

My eyes lingered on her contact—on how different it felt, standing beside her, compared to being swallowed by the crowd.

Shokuhou Misaki.

I meant to lock the screen again.

I meant to put it down.

I meant to breathe.

Instead, I tapped.

The call tone sounded once.

Twice.

My stomach dropped.

Why did I do that.

I almost hung up.

“Mirai?”

Her voice came through soft, uncertain—like she didn’t quite believe she was allowed to be hearing me right now.

I swallowed.

“…Hi.”

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end.

“Hi—! I mean—are you—” She stopped herself, then tried again. “Are you okay?”

I stared at the far wall, where the light from the window cut a pale rectangle across the paint.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I think so? Physically.”

“That’s… something,” she said, and I could hear the relief she was trying to hide behind a casual tone. “Are you were resting properly?”

“Yeah. I am. I just—” I hesitated. “I didn’t mean to call. I mean, I wanted to talk to you, but I wasn’t planning on it, and then my finger just—”

She let out a small laugh. “You sound like you’re about to apologize for existing.”

“…Sorry.”

“Mirai.”

She said my name like a warning.

“…Right. Not apologizing.”

Silence stretched between us—not uncomfortable, just… full.

Then my chest tightened.

The image came back too fast.

Glass towers. Walkways. People moving everywhere.

AIM fields brushing past me like static-charged air.

“I went outside,” I said suddenly.

Misaki went quiet.

“…Outside where?”

“Just—around. With Yomikawa.” My grip tightened around the phone. “Academy City feels louder than I remember.”

She didn’t interrupt.

So I kept going.

“There were so many people,” I said. “Espers. Everywhere. I could feel all of them at once. Different patterns, different pressures, all overlapping. It was like standing in the middle of a room where everyone’s talking at the same time, but inside my head.”

My breathing hitched.

“I knew they weren’t doing anything. I knew no one was looking at me. But it felt like they were.” My voice dropped. “Like I was back there. Like if I stopped paying attention for even a second, someone would grab me.”

Misaki exhaled slowly, deliberately—like she was doing it for both of us.

“What happened?” she asked gently.

“I froze,” I admitted. “My legs locked up. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even tell which way was ‘away’ anymore.”

I pressed my forehead against my knee.

“Yomikawa noticed,” I continued. “She didn’t touch me. Just stood in front of me a bit. Like she was blocking something I couldn’t see.”

That earned a quiet sound from Misaki. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a sigh.

“Yeah, she's kind.”

“I hate it,” I said. “I hate that I can’t tell where I end and everyone else starts sometimes.”

The words slipped out before I could stop them.

Misaki didn’t pretend she didn’t understand.

“Hey,” she said softly. “You’re not broken.”

“I didn’t say I was.”

“You didn’t have to.”

That hit harder than anything else.

I shifted on the bed, pulling my knees closer.

“The weird part is,” I said after a moment, “when you hugged me earlier this week? It didn’t hurt. Your… presence, I guess. It felt familiar. Like my head already knew where to put it.”

Her voice softened even more. “Of course it did. We’ve known each other like forever.”

“…If you don’t count the year we were apart,” I said, “we’ve actually only known each other for, like… a month. At most.”

There was a beat.

Then—

“Ugh,” Misaki groaned dramatically. “You know what I mean.”

I smiled despite myself.

She laughed, and I laughed too—quiet at first, like we were afraid it might break something.

It didn’t.

The tension loosened, just a little.

“I still get scared,” I admitted. “About being around people. About letting their… stuff leak into me.”

“That’s okay,” she said immediately. “You don’t have to be fearless. You just have to not give up.”

I stared at the ceiling.

“Yomikawa mentioned school,” I said carefully. “Eventually.”

Misaki didn’t push.

She just waited.

“She said I could chose to go anywhere” I added.

Her breath caught, just slightly.

“You don’t have to decide right now,” she said, even though hope was already sneaking into her voice.

“I know,” I said. “But…”

I thought about the street. The panic. The noise.

Then I thought about Misaki’s laugh. Her familiar resonance. The way it felt like something solid to hold onto.

“…I don’t want to keep hiding forever,” I finished. “And if I’m going to try… I want to try with you.”

She didn’t answer right away.

When she did, her voice was bright—and very carefully steady.

“Then we’ll go together,” she said. “At your pace.”

I nodded, even though she couldn’t see it.

“…Okay.”

The call ended not long after.

I lay back on the bed, phone still warm in my hand, and stared at the ceiling.

Tomorrow would still be hard.

The city wouldn’t get quieter.

The AIM fields wouldn’t disappear.

But this time—

This time, I had a direction.

And for the first time since I woke up from that dream—

I wanted to move forward.