Touma noticed the man in the gray coat because the headache was already blooming.

That was the first warning.

The old transit station’s lights were too sharp. Every railing and tile seemed to have extra edges, and the hum of the vending machines was too loud. Touma was tired. He knew trouble well enough to recognize the kind he could walk away from.

Trouble outside his head could usually be outrun.

Trouble inside his skull could not.

Then came the second warning.

*Keep moving. Keep the kid quiet. Finish the handoff.*

The thought wasn’t his.

Touma slowed, then moved toward the service gate.

A man in a gray coat stood beside it, holding a boy by the wrist. The boy was a slightly built teenager with a school bag hanging from one shoulder. The man’s free hand was inside his coat.

People passed them. A few looked, then found something else to look at. Whatever was happening by the gate had already become someone else’s business.

The boy wasn’t struggling. His face held a blank terror, as though even the possibility of resistance had gone out of him.

Touma knew that look.

It was not gallantry. It was **recognition**.

He was six steps away.

Six steps were enough to keep walking, enough to decide he had misunderstood, enough to leave this to somebody less tired.

He crossed them.

“Hey.”

The man turned his head. His grip stayed tight around the boy’s wrist, and his other hand stayed inside his coat.

*Keep moving. Keep the kid quiet. Finish the handoff.*

There it was again: a thought with direction and purpose, carrying the next few seconds along with it.

Touma reached for its edge.

It was like putting a paperknife to the edge of a thought. There was almost nothing to catch, only a fine seam between an intention and the mind that believed it belonged there.

He caught it.

For an instant, the pain felt like a pin driven through the inside of the world.

Then Touma unthought it.

The man’s fingers opened.

He stared at his empty hand. His body kept moving after the intention had vanished, carrying him into a stumble, as though he had a private appointment with gravity.

The boy pulled his wrist against his chest.

For half a second, Touma felt relief.

The grip was broken. The boy was free. Something bad had stopped before it could finish happening.

Then the second half arrived.

His memory hiccupped.

The boy’s face was still in front of him. Touma could see the frightened eyes, the school bag, the place on his wrist where the man’s fingers had been.

But the familiarity was gone.

A moment earlier, something in that face had reached him. He knew it had. He could still feel the space where the recognition had been.

Now there was only a stranger.

Nothing blurred. Nothing announced the loss. It happened with a clean, quiet cruelty.

Touma stood beneath the sharp station lights, looking at the boy he had helped, unable to remember why he had known to stop.