Chapter 9: Exposure

I didn’t tell Yomikawa what I was trying to do.

I don’t think she would’ve stopped me—but saying it out loud would’ve made it real in a way I wasn’t ready for.

So instead, I just followed her.

The first few days were small.

Short walks. Early mornings. Routes with wide sidewalks and predictable traffic. She let me set the pace without ever calling attention to it. If I slowed, she slowed. If I stopped, she stopped.

No questions.

The city was still loud.

AIM fields brushed against me constantly—background noise that never quite faded. Most were dull, unfocused, barely worth noticing. Others spiked briefly when someone got emotional or distracted.

Each contact still made my skin prickle.

But I didn’t freeze.

Not completely.

I focused on what Yomikawa had taught me without teaching it.

Breathing steady. Eyes forward. Shoulders loose.

Don’t track every frequency.

Don’t analyze.

Let them pass.

Sometimes it worked.

Sometimes it didn’t.

The first time someone’s AIM field surged unexpectedly—sharp, kinetic—I flinched hard enough to stumble. My heart slammed painfully as instinct screamed threat, even though my eyes told me there wasn’t one.

Yomikawa didn’t reach for me.

She just shifted closer.

Blocked my left side.

Anchored my right.

“You’re still here,” she said calmly. “Nothing’s grabbing you.”

I nodded, even though my hands were shaking.

“I know,” I said.

Knowing didn’t make it stop.

But it made it manageable.

We sat on a bench after that. Not because I asked—but because she noticed my breathing hadn’t slowed yet.

People passed by in clusters.

Students. Office workers. Espers with power signatures strong enough to itch against my awareness.

I kept my gaze on the pavement.

Every instinct told me to withdraw—to fold inward, cut off sensory input, retreat into myself the way I’d learned to survive.

Instead, I stayed.

It hurt.

But I stayed.

That night, back in the apartment, I realized something unsettling.

I was exhausted in a different way.

Not the bone-deep fatigue of experimentation.

Not the hollow emptiness that followed pain.

This was… effort.

The kind that comes from choosing not to run.

I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and wondered how many times I could do this before it broke me again.

And whether breaking was inevitable—or just another thing I could learn to survive.

The next outing was harder.

Midday.

More people.

Less control.

I hadn’t planned for it, but Yomikawa had a meeting she couldn’t postpone, and I didn’t want to be left alone with my thoughts for that long.

So I went with her.

The crowd outside the building hit me like a wall.

AIM fields layered thick enough to feel textured—like wading through fog with static buzzing under my skin. My vision blurred as my senses tried to keep up, instinctively sorting, categorizing, matching.

Don’t.

I stopped myself hard.

Matching was dangerous.

Matching was what they’d trained me to do.

I clenched my fists and focused on my breathing instead.

In.

Out.

One step at a time.

Yomikawa glanced down at me.

“You good?”

I hesitated.

Then nodded.

“Yeah,” I lied.

She didn’t call me on it.

She just adjusted her stride so I didn’t have to stretch to keep up.

I wondered, briefly, if she could tell what I was building toward.

If she knew that every step through the city felt like practice for something bigger.

A place with crowded hallways.

Uniforms.

Classrooms full of espers.

A place I hadn’t said out loud yet.

That night, I almost told her.

The words sat heavy in my chest as we ate dinner in silence, the TV murmuring low in the background.

I want to go back to school.

I want to go to Tokiwadai.

I swallowed them down.

Not yet.

I needed to know I could stand first.

So the next morning, when Yomikawa grabbed her jacket and keys, I was already by the door.

She raised an eyebrow.

“…You coming again?”

I nodded.

She huffed quietly. Not annoyed. Not surprised.

“Alright then.”

The door opened.

The city waited.

And this time, when the AIM fields brushed against me—

I didn’t step back.

It came out on a night I wasn’t planning to say anything.

We were back at the apartment, the city noise muffled by glass and distance. Yomikawa was at the counter, half-focused on reheating something that smelled vaguely edible. I sat at the table, legs pulled in, fingers wrapped around a mug I hadn’t actually drunk from yet.

My head still buzzed faintly.

Not pain.

Just… residue. Like static that hadn’t fully drained.

Yomikawa set the plate down and glanced at me.

“You held up better today,” she said. Not praise. Just an observation.

“I almost didn’t,” I replied.

She hummed, accepting that without comment.

We ate in silence for a bit. The TV murmured in the background, some late-night news segment neither of us was watching.

I stared into my mug.

The words were sitting there again.

Heavy.

Uncomfortable.

I hadn’t planned this. I wasn’t ready. But if I waited until I felt ready, I knew I’d never say it at all.

“…Yomikawa,” I said quietly.

She looked up immediately.

“Yeah?”

I hesitated.

My throat tightened—not with panic this time, but something closer to shame. Like admitting a want I wasn’t sure I deserved.

“I’ve been thinking about… after,” I said.

She didn’t rush me.

“After what?” she asked calmly.

“After I’m… better,” I said, then frowned. “Or—stable. Or whatever word we’re supposed to use.”

She leaned back against the counter, arms crossed, attention fully on me now.

“Okay.”

I swallowed.

“I don’t want to just… exist,” I said. “I don’t want to spend forever learning how not to panic and calling that a life.”

Her expression didn’t change.

That helped.

“I want to go back to school,” I said.

The sentence landed between us.

Solid.

Unavoidable.

Yomikawa didn’t react right away.

When she did, it wasn’t with surprise.

It was with caution.

“…That’s a big step,” she said.

“I know.”

“Crowds. Schedules. Expectations.”

“I know,” I repeated, more firmly.

She studied me for a long moment, eyes sharp but not unkind.

“Which school?” she asked.

There it was.

The point of no return.

I stared at the surface of the table, tracing an old scratch with my thumb.

“…Tokiwadai,” I said.

The word felt dangerous in my mouth.

Like a challenge.

Like a promise.

Yomikawa exhaled slowly.

“That place is full of espers,” she said carefully. “Strong ones.”

“I know,” I said again. Then, quieter: “That’s why.”

She tilted her head.

“Explain.”

I clenched my hands in my lap.

“Running from AIM fields won’t make them stop existing,” I said. “And hiding from them won’t teach me how to live with them.” My voice wavered, but I didn’t stop. “If I’m going to learn… I need to do it somewhere real.”

Somewhere that mattered.

Somewhere she was.

“I’m scared,” I admitted. “I don’t know if I can handle it. I don’t even know if I’ll last a week.”

I finally looked up.

“But I want to try.”

The room was quiet again.

Not tense.

Just thoughtful.

Yomikawa pushed off the counter and walked over, stopping a few steps away instead of right in front of me.

“That’s not something I can decide for you,” she said.

“I know.”

“And I won’t promise it’ll be easy.”

“I know that too.”

She watched me for another moment, then nodded once.

“Alright,” she said. “Then here’s how this works.”

My heart jumped.

“We don’t rush it,” she continued. “We don’t pretend you’re fine when you’re not. And if at any point you say stop—we stop.”

She met my eyes.

“But if you want to aim for Tokiwadai,” she added, “then everything we’re doing now? The walking. The exposure. The pacing?”

She tapped the table lightly.

“That becomes training.”

Something in my chest loosened.

Not relief.

Not yet.

But direction.

“…Thank you,” I said.

Yomikawa snorted softly. “Don’t thank me yet, kid.”

She turned back toward the counter.

“You still gotta survive the city first.”

I wrapped my hands around the mug again, warmth seeping into my palms.

Outside, Academy City buzzed on—alive, overwhelming, unavoidable.

For the first time, I didn’t see it as something to escape.

Just something to face.

One step at a time.

Training didn’t look like training.

There were no drills. No timers. No instructions shouted across a room.

It started with shoes by the door.

Yomikawa stood there, jacket already on, keys in hand. Casual. Like this was just another errand.

“You ready?” she asked.

I stared at the handle.

My pulse spiked immediately.

The city was right there. Just beyond the door. I could already feel it—layers of AIM fields bleeding through the walls like static through thin insulation. Dozens. Hundreds. Overlapping, brushing against each other, never quite touching.

“I think so,” I said.

Yomikawa didn’t open the door yet.

“Rule’s the same,” she said. “You lead. I follow.”

I nodded once and reached out.

The handle was cold.

The door opened.

Sound hit first—distant traffic, footsteps, voices, the low mechanical hum Academy City never shut off. Then came the pressure.

AIM fields surged into awareness like a tide.

My breath caught.

Not panic. Not yet.

Just data.

I froze on the threshold, eyes unfocused, and something strange happened.

The noise… separated.

Not vanished—but sorted.

Instead of a single overwhelming mass, the AIM fields resolved into patterns. Flows. Densities. Currents sliding past one another like invisible weather systems.

I swallowed.

“…That’s new,” I muttered.

Yomikawa glanced at me sideways. “What is?”

“I can—” I stopped, searching for the right words. “I can tell them apart now.”

She didn’t interrupt.

I stepped outside.

The pressure increased, but it didn’t crush me.

A student passed by on the sidewalk to our left. Her AIM field was light—diffuse, unfocused, like mist barely holding shape.

Level 1. Maybe 2.

Two boys crossed the street laughing, their fields sharper, more coherent. Not powerful, but stable.

Level 2s.

Further down, near the station entrance, something heavier rolled through the air. Controlled. Dense. The kind of presence that didn’t spill unless it wanted to.

I flinched instinctively, then steadied.

“…Level 4,” I said quietly.

Yomikawa stopped walking.

“You didn’t look at anyone,” she said.

“I didn’t need to.”

I exhaled slowly.

“It’s not just strength,” I continued, more to myself now. “It’s… flow. How tight it is. How much leaks out. Strong espers don’t just have more AIM—they waste less of it.”

Yomikawa studied me with a look I’d seen before.

The this is above my pay grade look.

“Huh,” she said. “That useful?”

“It’s terrifying,” I replied honestly. Then, after a pause: “But yeah. Probably useful.”

We walked.

Not far. Just around the block at first.

My shoulders stayed tense, but I didn’t bolt. Every step sent ripples through the AIM around me, my own field brushing others whether I wanted it to or not.

Sometimes a stronger presence would pass too close and my vision would blur for half a second.

Sometimes my chest would tighten and I’d have to stop, fingers digging into my sleeves.

Each time, Yomikawa stopped with me.

Didn’t rush.

Didn’t touch unless I asked.

“Name three things you can see,” she said once, when my breathing went shallow.

“Streetlight,” I said. “Vending machine. Your stupid jacket.”

“Hey.”

“That’s three” I added weakly.

She snorted. “Good. Keep walking.”

By the time we got back, my legs were shaking.

But I was upright.

Inside the apartment again, I leaned back against the door and slid down until I was sitting on the floor.

My head buzzed.

Not panic.

Exertion.

“…I didn’t break,” I said, half surprised.

“No,” Yomikawa agreed. “You didn’t.”

I closed my eyes.

In the quiet, the AIM faded back to a distant hum.

Still there.

But no longer clawing at me.

I thought of Tokiwadai.

Of halls full of espers. Of Misaki’s familiar resonance—distinct, controlled, unmistakable. Strong, but never sharp enough to hurt.

I could learn to recognize that.

I could learn to stand in it.

Slowly, painfully, step by step—

I was already training again.

But for the first time, I knew what I was training for.