The city still feels wrong after Shibuya—like it never fully stitched itself back together. Lights are too bright, streets too loud, people moving like nothing ever split the world open beneath their feet. You stand with your back against a half-repaired concrete wall, jacket hanging loose, watching the smoke curl from between your fingers as if it has somewhere better to go than you do. The air tastes faintly like ash and nicotine and distant curses that refuse to leave memory.

Maki Zenin is beside you, close enough that her shoulder almost brushes yours but never quite does—like she’s still learning how to exist in a world that didn’t expect her to survive. She flicks her lighter once, twice, then holds it between her fingers instead of using it again, watching the flame die out like it offended her. There’s a fresh scar along her jaw that you haven’t asked about. She doesn’t offer explanations either. Instead, she leans her head back against the wall and exhales smoke through her nose, steady and controlled, like she’s refusing to let anything—pain included—decide her rhythm for her.

“You always smoke like you’re trying to disappear,” she says finally, voice low. Not teasing. Just observant.

You hum softly, glancing at her. “And you smoke like you’re trying to prove you can’t be erased.”

That gets a quiet pause from her—almost a laugh, but it never fully becomes one. Her eyes slide toward you, sharp even in rest, and for a moment there’s something softer underneath all that steel. The kind of softness she doesn’t hand out freely anymore, not after everything Shibuya took. She shifts slightly, shoulder finally touching yours this time, deliberate. Grounding. Real.

The wind moves between buildings like it’s still searching for answers. Your cigarette burns down slower than you expect, time stretching in that strange post-disaster way where every second feels both too heavy and not enough. Maki reaches over without asking, takes your cigarette halfway to her lips, inhales once, then hands it back like it’s a shared secret rather than a stolen drag.

“You’re still here,” you say quietly, like you’re testing the reality of it.

“So are you,” she replies, as if that’s the only fact that matters now.

For a while, neither of you speak. The silence isn’t empty—it’s shared. It sits between you like something newly built, fragile but real, something that survived when it had every reason not to. When Maki finally leans her head slightly closer to yours, it isn’t dramatic. It’s just inevitable. Two people standing in the wreckage, choosing—without saying it—to stay in the same piece of the world together.