Ayumi stepped forward. The other girl didn't move.
"Come in," she said, voice soft..almost unsure.
The real Ayumi hesitated only a moment, then crossed the threshold.
The air inside the house was thick. Heavy. As if time had gathered here like dust. She didn't sit. Something about the space didn't want her to.
She turned toward the pale girl and asked quietly,
"Do you know who I am?"
The other Ayumi blinked slowly. Then shook her head once. "No," she said. "But… you seem to know Noah very well."
Ayumi's gaze lingered on the girl's face, uncertain. Then, softly, almost like a breath, she whispered,
"Noah…?"
Yuima nodded slightly, her tone flat.
"The owner of this house. His name is Noah."
Ayumi's eyes softened with a quiet flicker of emotion. She nodded once, voice barely above a whisper.
"Yeah… I actually came to see him."
The pale girl didn't respond. Silence bloomed between them.
Then Ayumi asked, carefully, "What's your name?"
The other girl tilted her head slightly, like the question itself was foreign. Like she'd never thought to ask herself.
Ayumi spoke again, gently. "I'm Ayumi."
The other girl's eyes flicked toward her, then downward.A pause. Then, softly, like it was the first time she'd ever said it out loud:
"I'm Yuima."
The name hung in the air between them like a distorted reflection in broken glass. Ayumi felt something shift ..not in the house, but inside her. A question she didn't know how to ask. A truth she wasn't ready to hear.
Ayumi's voice came out as a whisper, barely more than breath.
"We have the same face… but different names."
Yuima didn't respond. She just stared. Ayumi took a step forward, her voice trembling.
"Noir isn't here anymore…?"
Yuima's gaze didn't move. But something behind her eyes shifted. Ayumi's heart pounded louder.
"Then… where is he?"
Yuima was silent. Ayumi's voice cracked.
"I… I killed him?"
Yuima's eyes finally lifted, quiet and expressionless.
"You saw the reflection in the mirror," she said, calm as glass. "I saw it too. That wasn't you in the blood. It was me ."
Ayumi froze. Her breath caught in her throat.
"What…?" she whispered.
Her feet stumbled back. Her entire body shook like her bones didn't belong to her anymore. Yuima looked away, her voice flat.
"He was a threat."
The words slammed into Ayumi like a wave of ice. Her hands trembled. Her mind spun. She turned...ran. Out the door.Down the steps.Into the street. Rain had begun to fall, soft and cold, blurring the world in streaks of gray. It soaked her hair, her clothes, her skin.
She didn't know where she was going. She just ran. Ran away from the house. From Yuima. From what she'd heard.
And behind her, the door creaked shut. Quietly. As if the house had swallowed its secrets again. Ayumi's breath came in ragged gasps as she ran through the rain-soaked streets. Her voice was barely a whisper, trembling through the storm:
"Why me? Why do I have to see these things?"
Her eyes barely focused on the path ahead. Suddenly, she crashed into something solid..hard and unmoving. She stumbled, falling to the wet ground. Looking up, her eyes widened in disbelief. There, standing quietly in the rain,
"Noah?" she whispered, heart skipping.
His gaze met hers steadily. His voice was calm but deep.
"I'm not Noah. I'm Noir."
He stared at her for a moment, then added softly,
"You're Ayumi. Why are you here… in this world?"
Reality crashed into her all at once. This was the real Noir. The one she had been searching for..lost among mirrors and shadows.
She scrambled to her feet, heart pounding faster than the rain around them. Without hesitation, she threw her arms around him, clutching him tightly.
Trembling, her tears mixing with the rain, she sobbed,
"Noir… I… love you, Noir."
Her cries echoed softly as the rain soaked her through. For a long moment, Noir stood still, silent. Then slowly, he wrapped his arms around her.
The world seemed to pause as she cried in his embrace, rain and tears flowing together, washing away the fear and pain.
After minutes that felt like forever, Ayumi lifted her face, rain dripping down her cheeks, mingling with the traces of her tears.
Without thinking, she leaned in and pressed a long, desperate kiss to his lips. Noir's eyes widened, stunned ..as if realizing everything had changed in that single, fragile moment.
Yuima stood a few steps away, her clothes soaked through from the relentless rain, clinging coldly to her skin. She watched Ayumi and Noir, their bodies entwined, sharing a kiss that seemed to stitch together the fragments of a shattered world.
A sharp ache twisted in her chest. She whispered, barely audible over the rain's steady fall,
"This Noir… he's not mine. My Noah is already gone."
Her voice cracked with sorrow. Slowly, her knees gave way beneath her, and she sank to the cold, wet ground. Tears blurred her vision as she buried her face in her hands, her sobs breaking the silence.
"Why did you insist, Noah? Why?"
Her pain echoed into the empty street.. raw, desperate, and utterly alone. Yuima knelt in the street, the rain pouring down around her, soaking her hair, her clothes, her skin. Cold clung to her bones, but it was nothing compared to the weight in her chest.
A few steps away, Ayumi and Noir stood wrapped in each other's arms, their kiss long and aching..an unspoken reunion that pulsed with love, with pain, with everything Yuima had lost.
Her eyes didn't leave them. Not even as her heart cracked.
Then the memory came. Clear. Brutal.
That day..
Noah had been standing in the dim light of the tower's lower hall, rain leaking through the cracked ceiling, pooling at his feet. His voice was gentle..pleading.
"Yuima… please, stop. I'm not your enemy."
But she had already stopped hearing him. The voices in the walls, the visions, the shifting truths...they had twisted everything. Convinced her he'd changed. That he was hiding something. That he was the final thread holding the nightmare in place.
She remembered the feel of the blade in her hand. Cold. Certain. The moment it sank in. The shock in his eyes.
And then... silence.
She'd killed him.
Now, soaked and trembling in the present, Yuima collapsed forward to her hands, tears spilling freely.
"Why, Noah?" she choked out. "Why did you insist on staying? Why didn't you run?"
The pain surged too sharp to hold back. She sobbed into the pavement, her cries drowned by the endless rain. Then, slowly, she lifted her face..eyes swollen, lips shaking—and looked once more toward Ayumi and Noir. A sad smile, barely there, touched her lips.
"Take care of him, Ayumi…" she whispered, voice breaking. "Don't lose him. Not like I did."
And her sobs returned, louder this time, as she wept in the street—grief, guilt, and love all tangled in the storm around her.
--------------------
Under the heavy rain, Noir gently pulled Ayumi just enough to look into her face. Her soaked hair clung to her cheeks, tears lost among the raindrops. Without saying a word, he took her trembling hand and guided her toward the nearest shop, where a large black umbrella canopy offered some shelter from the storm.
They stood beneath it, rain dripping steadily from the edges, the sound like a soft curtain around them. Noir looked at her, really looked at her..his eyes searching.
"How did you come here?" he asked quietly.
Ayumi's lips parted, breath caught in her throat.
"Noir?" she whispered again, as if still not believing.
He kept his gaze on her, eyes calm but unreadable, then slowly closed them..like something inside him was too heavy to carry in the open.Ayumi started to speak, her voice cracking with every word.
"I… I saw you, in the reflection. The mirror. And then…" She trailed off, trying to find the words, but her emotions tumbled out instead. "She killed you, Noir. I saw it. I saw everything. She.."
Noir opened his eyes, cutting through her words like a blade through fog. "Yuima didn't kill me," he said. "She killed Noah. Not me."
Ayumi's heart stopped. Her eyes widened, full of tears and confusion. "Noah... not you?"
"I'm not the same," Noir said. "I've always been different. A shadow. A mirror. A path no one followed."
Her lips trembled. "I was so scared… that you were gone. Noir, I… I can't bear losing you again. I can't…" She broke down, her voice thick with pain. "I'm sorry. But I can't forget you."
Noir stepped forward, wrapping his arms around her with a slow, grounding strength. He pulled her tight to his chest and whispered,
"Relax."
The word struck her deeper than she expected. His voice was low.
"Who is here with you?"
She sniffed, her voice shaky but steadier.
"Yona… and Mia too. Lena also came with us."
His body stiffened slightly. His brows furrowed.
"Where are they?"
"I don't know," Ayumi said. "We lost them in the crossing. Yona said he was heading somewhere... but we got separated. I've been looking for them ever since."
He took a slow breath, rain still falling just outside their little bubble of shelter.
"Tell me," he said, eyes narrowing with quiet urgency. "What exactly happened? How did you get here? And how did you discover this place?"
Ayumi looked up at him, the soft lamplight of the shop casting golden lines through the rain. Her expression shifted...fear still lingering, but something steadier rising beneath it. She opened her mouth, and began to explain.
To be continue ...