Part one hundred fifty — Kenji

　He woke sometime past midnight, alone, his head considerably clearer than it had been at dinner.

　Without consciously deciding to, he activated his own teleportation.

　A moment later, he appeared at his parents' gravestone beneath a quiet, star-heavy sky.

Guess some part of me needed this tonight.

　He sat down, tracing the familiar inscription with his fingers, letting the night settle around him properly.

　"I miss Tokyo," he said quietly, to nobody. "Sometimes. Not all of it. Just — pieces. The noise. The lights. Stupid things, mostly."

　The thought arrived without warning, the way memories from that life always seemed to — a face, a name, a voice on the phone six hours before everything ended.

Kenji.

　His smile faded entirely.

　The warmth of the evening's memories soured instantly into something he genuinely hadn't braced for.

　"Oh," he said quietly, almost surprised at himself. "Kenji. I'd actually forgotten about him, for a while there."

Wonder what he's up to these days.

Wonder if he even remembers what he did, or if it just stopped mattering to him the way it never stopped mattering to me.

　He sat with that for a long while.

　The stone remained cool beneath his palm.

　The two truths of his life — the boy who'd died on a Tokyo street, and everything he'd built since — stood right here, settling side by side.

　Same as they always eventually did on nights like this.

I've got a whole family now.

A whole world, even, that somehow needs me in it.

I used to think that would fix the old wound entirely.

It doesn't, quite.

It just gives it somewhere warmer to sit.

　He heard footsteps behind him.

　Soft.

　Familiar.

　He didn't need to turn to know it was Eris.

　"You left without saying anything," she said, settling beside him, not asking why.

　"Needed air," he said. "And this, apparently."

　"Kenji again?"

　"Yeah."

　He hadn't told her the name before — hadn't needed to, somehow, for her to guess it.

　"Old life. Old ghost. Shows up sometimes when I'm not braced for it."

　She said nothing to that.

　She simply reached for his hand, steady, the same way she always did.

　"Come back inside when you're ready," she said. "No rush."

　He sat a while longer after she'd gone back in.

　The stone remained patient beneath his hand.

　The stars turned slowly overhead.

　And finally, quietly, he followed her home.