What the Body Remembers

Kazu woke up at 4:00 a.m.

Not suddenly. Not with a sharp inhale or a jolt through his spine. His eyes opened the way they always did when his sleep ran thin —slow, heavy, already aware of the ceiling before he consciously registered it. The room was dark. Not pitch-black. Just early morning dark, the kind where shapes still existed if you knew where to look. The fan hummed softly above him. 

Somewhere outside, a distant vehicle passed, tires whispering against asphalt. He stared for a second longer than usual, then reached for his phone. 4:00 a.m. He locked the screen and set it back down. Nothing else followed that moment. No rush of thoughts. No doubt. No question of where he had been or what had happened. That part of his mind stayed closed, not because it was suppressed, but because it didn’t need to be opened to function.

Kazu swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. Pain greeted him immediately. Not sharp enough to stop him. Just enough to remind him where the limits were now. His shoulder protested as he pulled his shirt straight. He adjusted his posture without thinking, shifting weight, compensating automatically.

Annoying, he thought. 

He moved into the bathroom, the tiles were cool under his feet. The light flicked on. He squinted, waited for his eyes to adjust, then leaned over the sink and turned the tap. Water splashed against porcelain. He cupped his hands, brought it to his face, and exhaled as it ran down his cheeks. The sound cut off a little sooner than expected. He frowned faintly, then shrugged it off. Probably just tired.

He straightened and reached for the towel. His arm didn’t rise all the way. He paused, tried again, slower this time. It worked. Fine. Kazu dried his face, hung the towel back, and looked at himself briefly—not searching, not inspecting. Just a glance, the way you check that you’re still there. He looked normal. That, more than anything else, bothered him. He left the bathroom and moved quietly through the apartment. Old habit. Not fear-driven. Just courtesy for sleeping neighbors and walls that carried sound too easily.

In the kitchen, he poured himself a glass of water and leaned against the counter while he drank. The coolness eased the dryness in his throat. He swallowed once, then again.

He let us walk away.

The thought surfaced without warning, as casually as remembering you forgot to lock the door earlier. Kazu stared at the far wall for a second. Then he set the glass down. He didn’t push the thought away. Didn’t chase it either. It settled somewhere behind his ribs, not heavy, just present. Like an old bruise you only notice when you move a certain way.

He opened the fridge, scanned the shelves, then closed it again. No appetite. That was normal lately. Kazu checked the time again out of habit. 4:17 a.m. He leaned back against the counter and let his head rest there. The ceiling felt farther away than it should have, but he didn’t dwell on it. His body remembered more than his mind did. That was clear enough. His shoulder twinged when he shifted. His ribs tightened when he inhaled too deeply.

Every movement came with a quiet calculation now, not fear-based, just… adjusted. Like learning a new weight distribution after carrying something heavy for too long. He wasn’t angry. That surprised him. If anything, he felt oddly calm. Not relieved. Not safe. Just steady, like the worst part had already happened and the rest was logistics.

He picked up his phone again, thumb hovering over Reina’s contact. He didn’t message her. Not because he didn’t want to. Because he didn’t need to. He knew she was awake. He knew she was handling things her way. If something was wrong, she’d reach out. Kazu trusted that. He trusted her more than the world at the moment. He pushed off the counter and headed back to his room, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

The mattress dipped slightly under his weight. Familiar. Reliable. Survival wasn’t victory. That thought came next, uninvited but quiet. He didn’t assign meaning to it yet. He lay back down, careful of his shoulder, and stared at the ceiling again. The fan continued its slow rotation. The room remained unchanged.

That was the part he hadn’t expected. The world hadn’t shifted to accommodate what he now knew. Streets would still be crowded in the morning. People would still complain about small things. Time would still move forward like it always had. And somewhere — not here, not now, but close enough to matter — someone had watched him decide.

Kazu closed his eyes. Sleep didn’t come immediately, but he didn’t fight it either.

Reina woke up before her alarm.

That wasn’t unusual. She lay still for a moment, assessing. The ceiling above her was faintly visible in the pre dawn light filtering through the curtains. Her breathing was steady. Her thoughts were clear.

She flexed her fingers. Pain registered instantly in her shoulder. Controlled. Manageable. She tested the range slowly, rotating her arm just enough to know where the line was. Still usable. Her leg protested when she swung it over the side of the bed. Reina ignored the instinctive urge to swear and stood anyway, shifting her weight carefully until the ache dulled into something tolerable.

She crossed the room and reached for the light. Click. Normal brightness flooded the space. Reina blinked once, then moved to the bathroom. She didn’t rush. There was no reason to. Whatever had happened wasn’t going to change if she moved faster. She caught her reflection as she passed the mirror and paused — not to examine her face, but to check alignment. Shoulders squared. Chin level. No visible tremor. Good.

She turned on the shower and stripped out of her clothes, rolling her injured shoulder once before stepping under the water. Heat soaked into her muscles, loosening tension she hadn’t realized she was holding. The plaza came back to her then. Not as images. As sensations. The way the air had behaved. The way pressure moved before impact. The timing between the snap of fingers and the shift in space. The restraint. Especially the restraint.

Reina tilted her head back and let the water hit her face.

Once.

She didn’t dwell on the word itself. She focused on why it had been said. Not a threat. Not a warning. A condition. She shut the water off after a few minutes and wrapped a towel around herself, stepping out and moving to the sink. She checked her shoulder again, more firmly this time. Pain flared, then settled. Still workable. She dressed efficiently, favoring loose fabric that wouldn’t pull. As she tied her hair back, her thoughts sharpened, aligning into something closer to planning.

The 25th hour wasn’t contained anymore.

That realization had come quietly, without drama. The plaza wasn’t isolated. It wasn’t a pocket separate from everything else. It was connected — threaded through the world in ways that didn’t require entry. That meant others could notice. Others could learn. Others could talk. Reina dried her hands and leaned against the counter, eyes unfocused.

The scratch. That single, shallow cut.

She hadn’t smiled then. She hadn’t celebrated it now. It hadn’t been a victory. It had been confirmation. He wasn’t untouchable. Just unreachable. Yet.

She checked her phone. No messages. No missed calls. Kazu was fine. That wasn’t optimism. It was observation. She unlocked the screen and opened a notes app, jotting down a few short lines. Not descriptions. Not emotions. Just facts. Snap timing. Pressure vectors. Response delay after injury.

She locked the phone and slipped it into her pocket. Reina glanced toward the window. The sky was beginning to lighten, that faint blue-grey that came before sunrise. Soon the city would wake. Soon everything would resume. And somewhere within it, information would start to spread. She exhaled slowly.

This wasn’t the end of anything. It was the point where things stopped being private. Reina grabbed her jacket and headed for the door, locking it behind her without hesitation.

Whatever came next, she intended to meet it standing.