NovelCat

2 PM. Tanaka Masahiko’s appointment time.

The sound of the door gently opening—click—travels through Mio’s spine to her brainstem.

“Excuse me.”

Tanaka’s voice is lower than expected, with a damp quality. Mio looks up and stares at him.

A man in his early thirties. Thin build. Deep dark circles under his eyes. And—Mio’s intuition sounds an alarm—something is wrong.

“Please have a seat.”

Mio’s voice wears professional calmness, but her sensory organs are already hypersensitively reacting to the existence called Tanaka. His breathing rhythm, blinking frequency, the sound of clothes rustling as he sits in the chair.

Suri… suri…

Hyu… fu… hyu… fu…

Tanaka’s breathing is irregular. Mio feels her own breathing synchronizing with his. This is one characteristic of HSP—the phenomenon of resonating with others’ physiological rhythms.

“Please tell me about your dreams.” Mio opens a new page. Sss… sara…

“I have the same dream every night,” Tanaka’s voice rasps. “A dream of walking down a hospital corridor. But that corridor continues endlessly…”

Kotsu… kotsu… kotsu…

Footsteps begin echoing in Mio’s consciousness. Is this her imagination, or is Tanaka’s memory transmitting?

“The sounds in the corridor?” Mio finds herself asking.

Tanaka’s eyes widen. “Why do you…?”

Kotsu… kotsu… kotsu…

The sound becomes clearer. Hard shoe soles striking cold linoleum, echoing directly in Mio’s inner ear. Is this an auditory hallucination, synesthesia, or—

Za… za… za…

Suddenly, white noise-like sounds fill Mio’s skull. Television static. The noise of an old radio. Or perhaps electrical noise generated in the brain?

“Excuse me, just a moment…” Mio presses her forehead.

Tanaka leans forward. “Are you alright?”

She senses a strange satisfaction mixed in his voice. As if he had anticipated this situation.

Za… za… za…

The noise intensifies. White particles begin dancing in Mio’s vision. Is this a symptom of hypersensitivity, or—

“Doctor.”

Tanaka’s voice comes from far away.

“We met in your dream, didn’t we?”

Shhh…

Complete silence.

Sound disappears from Mio’s world. The second hand, air conditioning, Tanaka’s breathing. Everything falls silent as if frozen.

She stares at Tanaka. Tanaka stares back at her.

Something flows between them. Something like invisible threads. Soundless vibrations.

“In the dream hospital,” Tanaka moves his mouth but no sound is heard. Yet Mio can understand his words. “You were wearing a white coat, walking down a long corridor.”

Kotsu… kotsu… kotsu…

The footsteps return. This time clearly. Mio’s footsteps. Her footsteps walking in the dream.

“I don’t… dream…”

Mio’s words of denial are interrupted by her own memory. Last night, she certainly had a dream. A dream of white corridors. A dream of walking endlessly through hospital corridors, searching for someone.

Kotsu… kotsu… kotsu…

“We met there, didn’t we?” Tanaka’s lips move. Sound still can’t be heard, but his words invade Mio’s interior directly. “In the dream, for the first time.”

Do… kun… do… kun…

Mio’s heartbeat echoes in her eardrums. The sound of blood flowing through vessels becomes abnormally loud. Is this reality or hallucination?

Tanaka reaches out his hand. Touches Mio’s wrist.

The moment of contact—

Zazazazaza…

A flood of information rushes into Mio’s consciousness. Tanaka’s memories, emotions, and dreams. Multi-layered fragments of reality flow through her nervous system to her brain.

Hospital corridors. White ceilings. The smell of disinfectant. And footsteps.

Kotsu… kotsu… kotsu…

Mio feels herself standing up. No, she feels her dream self standing up. The real Mio should still be sitting in the chair.

“Tonight as well,” Tanaka’s voice comes from both inside and outside Mio. “Let’s meet again.”

Pachi… pachi… pachi…

Every time Mio blinks, the world changes slightly. The counseling room walls turn white, the window disappears, the ceiling rises.

Pachi…

Hospital corridor.

Pachi…

An endless white passage.

Pachi…

And footsteps coming from far away.

Kotsu… kotsu… kotsu…

“Please wake up, Doctor.”

Tanaka’s voice echoes from the boundary between dream and reality.

“I’m waiting for you in the real world.”

Mio opens her eyes.

The counseling room. Afternoon sunlight. Patient records on the desk.

Tanaka Masahiko is nowhere to be seen.

Looking at the clock, it’s 2:05 PM. Only five minutes have passed since the appointment started.

She calls the reception desk.

“About Tanaka Masahiko?”

“He hasn’t come to the hospital today…”

Mio’s hand holding the receiver trembles.

Looking at the patient records on the desk, Tanaka Masahiko’s file remains blank.

But in Mio’s memory, his voice certainly remains.

Kotsu… kotsu… kotsu…

And the footsteps too.

That night, Mio feared sleep.

But at 2 AM, her consciousness sinks into darkness.

Kotsu… kotsu… kotsu…

White corridor.

Endless passage.

And in the distance, Tanaka Masahiko’s back.

“I was waiting for you.”

The face that turns around is one Mio doesn’t know.

Sss… sara… sss… sara…

Even in the dream, Mio holds a pen.

She continues writing something on white paper.

Looking, unknown letters are lined up there.

“Empaths lose their boundaries”

“There are those who can only exist in dreams”

“They make the dreams of the living their dwelling”

Mio’s hand moves on its own, continuing to write letters.

Sss… sara… sss… sara…

Only the sound of the pen fills the silence of the dream.