Rain poured relentlessly over the city, washing the streets in silver light. Yumiko pulled her coat tighter around herself, wishing the storm could hide her as easily as she wanted to hide from the world.
She had come here to disappear. A new city, a new name, a new life where no one would recognize her face, her past, or the mistakes she'd tried desperately to outrun. For the first time in years, she thought she could breathe.
And then she saw him.
Jash.
Not by name—she didn't know it yet—but by presence. He stood under a flickering streetlamp across the road, umbrella in hand, watching her with an intensity that made her heart skip. He shouldn't have been here. He shouldn't have known her. And yet… something in his gaze struck too close to memory, to destiny.
Yumiko's steps faltered. She had trained herself to vanish into crowds, to be invisible, to avoid being noticed. And now, she felt every eye in the city fall on her—even though it was only him.
A flash of lightning lit his face, sharp and impossibly familiar, and Yumiko's breath caught. Her instincts screamed at her to run, to hide, but her body froze.
He tilted his head slightly, as if reading her thoughts, as if he already knew every secret she had buried in the darkest corners of her heart. Then he smiled. Not kindly. Not cruelly. Just… knowingly.
And in that instant, Yumiko realized something terrifying: she couldn't escape him. She couldn't even turn her back without feeling the weight of his gaze.
She kept walking, faster now, boots splashing through puddles, rain soaking her hair. She should have ignored it. Pretended she hadn't seen him. Pretended he was nothing.
But when she glanced back, he was gone. Like smoke in the storm. Vanished.
Her chest tightened, pulse racing. Had it been a trick of the rain? A hallucination born from her fear of being seen?
No. Deep down, she knew. He had been there for a reason. He had been waiting.
Yumiko's hand clenched the strap of her bag. She had spent years running from people who thought they knew her, from the life she wanted to forget. But somehow… she felt it in her bones.
Jash wasn't just anyone.
He was the beginning of something she hadn't realized she couldn't avoid.
And as the rain fell harder, soaking the city in silver light, Yumiko couldn't shake the feeling that her life had just changed forever.
Somewhere, deep in the storm, he was out there. Watching. Waiting. Knowing.
And she—Yumiko—was going to have to face him sooner or later.