Ma En had grown a little sensitive to knocking — though he couldn't have said exactly when that had started, or where it came from. The feeling was complicated, a particular kind of tension: as if opening the door would let something inhuman come spilling through, or peering through the peephole would reveal something horrifying on the other side. He rubbed his temple. The recorded program was still running, but his ears had begun ringing faintly, the voices from the show filtering through indistinctly. Maybe he really was exhausted. Since yesterday morning he'd been hit by one bizarre thing after another, forced to keep his mind locked on collecting and processing information, on responding to dangers that lurched at him from the dark without any warning.

Only then did it occur to him: he hadn't slept in two days and a night.

The knocking paused, then started again. Voices came through the door, and from the living room Ma En caught their faint exchange:

"Is he not in?"

"He should be. We saw him come back."

— Ah. That was Hirota-san's voice.

He smacked both palms against his cheeks, reached over and hit pause on the player, then walked to the door. He peered through the peephole. Nothing strange on the other side — just Hirota-san in a white-collar dress, escorted by a staff member from the front desk. She held her bag with both hands, her whole bearing luminous and composed — radiant, bright-eyed, the kind of woman who made you wonder just by looking at her what good news she must be carrying.

Ma En opened the door. The conversation outside cut short. Their eyes met, and he watched something pass briefly across Hirota-san's face — a flicker of surprise, then a quiet, unmistakable shadow of worry.

"You all right, my dear?" she asked.

"Fine. Just been thinking too much." A pause. "About the novel."

"You look exhausted. You've got dark circles." She pressed some bills into the staff member's hand and followed Ma En inside, still talking. "Are you worried about the story? Don't be — it's already a very compelling piece. Wait until I give you some good news. Right now, though, you really should sleep."

— Good news?

He turned that over for a moment, then deliberately stopped himself from going further. His mind had to be close to overloaded. There were probably still things worth thinking about — many of them — but his body had already started sounding the alarm, and he genuinely needed to rest. The moment he acknowledged it, the mental fatigue hit in a wave he couldn't push back, and a faint, steady ache took up residence somewhere behind his skull.

"What were you watching?" Hirota-san's voice reached him. He was already half-reclined on the sofa. He didn't know why he'd gone to the sofa and not the bed — something wouldn't let him return to the bedroom, even as he told himself he needed to stop thinking and rest. A wire-taut stubbornness held him there, and a ghost of a threat sensation that couldn't quite be pinned down, both of them winding around him and refusing to let him give up the paused program.

Alongside the exhaustion lived something else — a deep, ingrained hunger for information, as stubborn as a chronic condition. He closed his eyes and tried to empty his mind, but the key points of the Room 4 Ghost Story kept drilling up through the blank: things he'd already understood, cycling back anyway, as if shouting at him — Wrong, wrong, this isn't right, that isn't right, there are still mysteries unsolved, still secrets buried, you need to think more, more, more.

Ma En didn't answer her question.

Hirota-san didn't seem to mind. She let it go the way you'd let go of something said offhandedly. Then he heard her set her bag down, felt the sofa dip as she settled beside him. And then a soft palm came to rest on his head — gentle, unhurried, a tenderness that made something in him loosen — her fingers working through his hair, pressing into his scalp at a steady rhythm. The warmth coming through her palm made him feel as though his soul had drifted free of his body and come to rest on something soft and sweet and yielding.

"You're tired, my dear. You stayed up all night, didn't you?" Her voice was low and even, impossibly clean, with a quality that was at the same time quietly magnetic — like a human voice woven into a piece of ambient music. "Don't think about anything. Just sleep. I'll stay right here."

Then she put some gentle force into it and drew him down against her. His eyes stayed closed; he couldn't see her expression. But he could feel her — the curves, the warmth, the texture, the faint scent — everything like a set of flavors in some perfect proportion, releasing something intoxicating. Under that influence his wound-tight mind began slowly to ease, his breathing went deep and even, and he drifted into that strange suspended state between sleep and waking.

The world outside himself didn't recede entirely — he could still hear sounds — but it grew hazy and indistinct in his mind, its contours like cream dispersing through coffee.

He was still aware of Hirota-san loosening his tie, undoing the buttons of his shirt and the clasp of his belt, sliding off his shoes and socks. Her hands were extraordinarily gentle, moving with the grain of bone and muscle so that bone and muscle both released. Then it was as if she herself had dissolved into warm water and wrapped around him completely. And like sunlight threading through a canopy on a winter morning — dappled and warm — he felt it: damp earth that was fertile, not muddy; seedlings slowly reaching upward; roots spreading and branching; and deep inside what appeared to be dead and withered trees, the quiet, tenacious pulse of life.

The next instant he felt himself drop — continuing to fall from that hazy half-sleep further down, the way Alice chases the rabbit and tumbles into the deep well, arriving at a world she'd never known before. He seemed to see something, and seemed to see nothing; he seemed to be dreaming, and seemed to be dreamless; only trance following trance, until he was surrounded entirely by something novel and nourishing and warm.

He felt himself moving — or perhaps it wasn't him moving at all, but something gently coiled around him. There was nothing he needed to think about, nothing he needed to force. His self simply opened in the warmth and the haze, the way a flower opens without deciding to.

Then, abruptly, he understood he was dreaming. But was this truly a dream? If it was, it was a beautiful one — the kind you don't want to leave.

And yet another voice was pulling at him, telling him to break free. Because —

— This is not the time to rest. There is still far too much to do.

He forced his eyes open. For a moment he seemed to manage it — but everything was still dark, and he wasn't sure if he was actually awake or still under. He kept forcing them open, again and again, each attempt harder than the last, until he caught the thread of something real.

The final forced opening delivered him back: a full, graceful curve close above him, and a sliver of ceiling visible at the corner of his eye. The rest of his body's sensations flooded back at once, confirming that he was still on the sofa, head pillowed on a soft, warm lap, a thin blanket drawn over him.

Ma En let out a long yawn and came more fully awake.

"You're up? Don't you want to sleep a little longer?" came the quiet voice, from just above.

"No, I'm all right. Much better." He sat up, pushing the blanket aside. The room was lit but dim, with the particular quality of deep-night quiet — so still you could imagine hearing a needle drop. He tried to release the attention that had gone dormant inside him, and after a moment the room's light seemed to sharpen. Only then did he realize that Hirota-san, who had been right beside him, had slipped away at some point without his noticing. The fact of it was clarifying — it told him just how dulled he'd become.

— That won't do.

He began drawing back what he'd been trained to do, rousing those capabilities that had been sleeping quietly somewhere inside him.

A folded towel was extended toward him from the side. He took it without looking. It was warm, at exactly the humidity he preferred. He knew there was no one in the world, not at this point, who knew these particular details and habits of his except Hirota-san. She was attentive in this way — thorough, unhurried, fluent in the small things — and he found he didn't want to search for more words to describe it. He felt that any attempt to describe it would only flatten something that shouldn't be flattened. His instinct, in this moment, was simply to feel it.

That was what he did.

He said nothing. But when he handed the towel back, Hirota Masami could see, in his deep, clear eyes, a warmth that reached her fully. She said nothing in return — only sat quietly and smiled, open and composed. She felt it deeply: something between them was gathering into a warmth and tenderness that she had no desire to disturb with any extra sound or motion.

Ma En was the one to speak first, drawing up from memory what he'd been thinking before sleep took him.

"How did today go?"

"The usual sort of thing — all routine. As for your novel, I've already contacted editors at several magazines." Hirota Masami's voice came from behind the sofa. A moment later she came around the front carrying two cups and extended one to him. Coffee, he saw when he took it, with a small flourish of milk foam on top.

"Which magazines?" Ma En asked, more or less idly — though her answer, when it came, surprised him all over again with the breadth of her connections.

"Nebula and Gems in Japan, Science Fiction World on the Mainland, Weird Tales in America, and The Messenger in Britain." (Author's note: these four magazines are references. Note that The Messenger has had its country swapped.)

Among them, Science Fiction World was the one he knew best — arguably the finest science fiction magazine in the country right now. And because Japan and the Mainland exchanged so frequently, he'd also heard of Japan's Nebula and Gems back home; it was one of the more distinguished SF magazines in Japan, and the two publications had recently partnered to establish Asia's highest-ranking science fiction literary award.

Weird Tales and The Messenger were less familiar territory — unknown quantities, though he assumed they weren't third-rate. What genuinely surprised him was these two Western publications. He'd never encountered either of them before.

"What kind of magazines are Weird Tales and The Messenger?"

"Weird Tales is the backbone of a niche American literary tradition — it specializes in strange and inventive stories. I think your piece suits its sensibility best. The Messenger runs fiction with stronger literary ambitions — it doesn't exclude mystery or suspense, but it puts a greater premium on literary quality." Hirota-san paused. "Have you heard of H.P. Lovecraft or Poe?"

"Poe? The Poe?" Of course he'd heard of Poe. Lovecraft, though — that name was unfamiliar.

"Lovecraft wrote an entire body of work — difficult life, less famous than Poe in common knowledge. But in my view, both writers have something in common with what you wrote. Lovecraft published frequently in Weird Tales, and Poe in The Messenger. I think those two are most likely to accept your story, my dear."

"So Science Fiction World and Nebula and Gems have lower odds?" That was a mild disappointment. He'd have liked to see the story published in one of the publications he knew — if it came to that at all.

"Well... results aren't in yet. Nobody can say for certain, can they?" Hirota Masami tilted her head and met his eyes with a look that held a trace of amusement. "My personal feeling? Weird Tales."

"You submitted to four magazines simultaneously?" The approach surprised him somewhat — it wasn't exactly standard practice.

"I just sent it to some editors I know. My dear, your story isn't even finished yet." She waved the concern away. "Don't worry — it's fine. This isn't a formal submission."

Ma En had no particular interest in the mechanics of industry insider operations.

"Fine. Though I still don't understand what you actually do. Magazine editor? Model's assistant? Independent writer? TV guest?" He glanced over at the television as he spoke — the program was paused, but the screen was still on, and he caught the wall clock in the same look: eight in the evening.

"Honestly, my dear — you secretly recorded this program." Hirota Masami gave his arm a reproachful tap and settled, quite naturally, against his shoulder.

"What was it like, doing that show?" he asked.

"Don't keep asking the same question." That was all she said.

— The same question?

So the earlier version of him had seen this episode too. Had apparently watched it together with Hirota-san.

"Professor Mitarai — do you know him?"

"Who?" She answered with a question of her own, which caught him slightly off guard. Then, with a dawning expression: "Oh — you mean the professor the building manager mentioned this morning?"

"..." Ma En rewound the tape to the guest entrance segment. "Professor Mitarai Sanshirou. He appeared on the show with you."

"Ah — the Mitarai the building manager mentioned is this man?" Hirota Masami sat up a little straighter, though she answered without hesitation. "Not really. Being on a show together doesn't mean you know the other guests — it's just work. I'd actually forgotten his name, come to think of it, until you said it just now."

"..." Ma En considered saying something, then thought better of it. By ordinary logic, what Hirota-san said was fair enough. But ordinary logic didn't apply to the current situation. Professor Mitarai might well be connected to the Room 4 Ghost Story — he suspected all five guests on that show had some relevance, to varying degrees, though with the evidence he had now, Mitarai was the one most worth pursuing. "How many of the guests on the show do you actually know?"

"Just Terahana-san." Hirota Masami answered straightforwardly. "The others I've either only heard of, or never encountered at all. That said, my dear — if you want to reach Professor Mitarai, that's straightforward enough. The production company keeps contact information for all guests."

He was reluctant to draw Hirota-san deeper into something she'd already stepped away from — it would only make an already complex situation more complicated. But her help was now unavoidable. He was still clearly at a disadvantage, and pulling together every available resource was the only way to break through.

So —

"Then I'll leave it to you. I'd like to speak with Professor Mitarai."