The wind carried a sharpness that hadn't been there yesterday.
Autumn had turned a corner, and the morning light filtered through the shutters with a kind of brittle clarity—like sothing waiting to crack. Shuji said nothing when I ca down. He didn't need to. I could tell by the way he stood at the counter, staring at a clock that wasn't ticking.
It was a well-mounted tipiece. Newer. Ornate. Not one of ours.
"Brought it in just now," he said finally. "she said it stopped at the exact hour her mirror shattered."
"Odd timing."
He glanced at . "That's one way to phrase it."
"Not this ti."
He taped the face of the clock with two fingers. "Thing's not broken. Spring's fine. Balance wheel's clean. Even the escapent's steady." A pause. "It just refuses to move."
I stepped closer. Its hands were frozen at 4:44.
There was a pressure to the silence. Not tension—just expectation. The longer I stared, the more I felt like sothing was staring back.
Shuji muttered sothing and walked into the back. I stood alone with the clock.
Then the second hand jerked.
Only once.
***
Later that afternoon, I passed Rin again.
She was standing by the gate of her estate, speaking softly to a servant before glancing in my direction. I hadn't ant to stop walking—but I did.
She approached slowly, sleeves drawn close around her arms. "Ren-san," she said.
I bowed. "Tachibana-sama."
"You rembered."
"Hard to forget soone who walks through your dreams."
She didn't laugh. Her eyes searched mine. "You've seen it again, haven't you?"
I nodded. "The thread. And other things."
She drew in a breath. "So have I."
***
We spoke near the riverbank. Away from the street, the shadows seed longer again—just like yesterday. As we sat beneath the wooden rail of the bridge, Rin reached into her sleeve and pulled out a thin, pale ribbon.
It shimred faintly in the light. Almost golden.
"I woke up with this," she said. "It wasn't there when I fell asleep."
I didn't know what to say. I showed her the journal instead. Let her see the pages. The marks I'd made. The things I couldn't explain.
Her hand trembled slightly as she flipped through it.
Then she said, "You're not alone."
We sat in silence for a mont, the water whispering below the bridge. A leaf drifted past on the surface, caught in the current, turning slowly as if unsure which way to face.
"How long has it been happening to you?" I asked.
She didn't look up. "I don't rember when exactly but... at first, it was only voices. Then flashes. Faces I didn't recognize. Places I'd never seen."
Her fingers tightened around her ribbon. "And recently... it's changed. There's sothing following ."
I felt it then—the sa pressure I'd felt earlier that day. Like the air had bent around us.
"Following you?"
She nodded once. "It doesn't have a shape. But I feel it. In mirrors. In still water. In my shadow when I'm walking alone."
I stared at her. "I thought I was imagining it."
"You're not." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "Sothing's watching."
***
When I returned to the shop that evening, the light was already dim. Shuji was in the back room, hunched over a table crowded with tools and open cases.
Three clocks sat before him.
All silent.
I stood in the doorway, watching. He didn't speak at first. Just pointed toward the middle one.
"Second hand twitched," he said. "Only once."
I stepped closer. "What ti?"
"4:44."
I felt my stomach tighten.
"I reset it," he continued, "and it stopped again. Sa ti. I tried the others. Sa thing. Different chanisms. Different makers."
I looked down at the clocks. Their faces glead faintly in the low light, like masks.
"What does it an?" I asked.
Shuji didn't answer. He was staring into the gears like they might open up and speak.
I was about to say more when I noticed it—the faintest motion in the corner of my eye.
Sothing shifted in the reflection of the glass clock cover.
I turned.
Nothing there.
Just the wall behind , and the faint creak of wood under my feet.
"Did you see—?"
"Don't move," Shuji said sharply.
I froze.
His eyes were fixed on sothing behind . But when I turned again, there was still nothing.
Then the air shifted. A cold draft moved through the room—without the door or windows opening.
I looked down at the glass face of the center clock.
There was a smudge on it now.
A handprint.
Faint. Small. Like it had been pressed from the inside.
***
That night, I didn't sleep.
I wrote, until the candle burned low, until the words on the page blurred and ran together. Dreams, shadows, threads, clocks.
At so point, I looked up.
The small clock near my futon had stopped.
4:44.
And outside the window, sothing moved.
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