That morning, Mike woke up earlier than usual, before the alarm even rang. He made tea, poured it into two cups like he always did. But he didn't ask Kuro what he'd eaten, nor did he rummage through his toolkit.
He just sat there, watching the steam rise from his cup, his eyes distant, as if listening to something that wasn't wind.
He didn't mention the sensors. Didn't bring up data charts. Didn't ask if Kuro had felt anything strange again.
"Still thinking about Mr. Than's story?" Kuro asked, softly.
Mike nodded, closing his eyes briefly. "It's not about believing. It's just... it won't leave my head."
Mike had always found comfort in science and machines, in things that could be modeled or verified through experience. But that didn't mean he blindly trusted data.
To Mike, technology was a way to approach the world, not a ruler of absolute truth.
He didn't lock himself in rigid metrics, but searched for patterns, subtle overlaps between feeling and fact.
It was Mr. Than's story, fragmented memories, vague accounts, an undefined hollow, that made Mike falter. It didn't contradict his knowledge, but it poked a hole in the map he'd built inside.
Even stranger, the tiny signals from Kuro's earlier episodes oddly aligned with the very location Mr. Than had described.
That overlap unsettled him. Part of him wanted answers. Part of him felt uneasy.
If it was real, then maybe his worldview had been missing something essential all along.
Mike came from a well-off family in the city center, while Kuro lived on the outskirts near the tech zone. His father, the chief engineer at a Luxios substation, was strict but supportive.
Mike's older sister lived on the outskirts of Luxios proper, her life unstable, changing jobs often, rarely messaging, just the occasional blurry photo of a new apartment.
His family had order, but also gaps no one ever filled.
Ezra, Mike's twin, was quiet and moody. Not strange, just... distant. No diagnosis was ever given, but everyone in the area knew he wasn't like most people.
Mike never called him a burden. Just said, "He sees the world differently. Sometimes, I wish I could too."
One evening, Mike was returning from the library when shouting erupted at home, his sister arguing with their father again. She wanted to leave the suburbs for central Luxios; he insisted she learn to settle down.
Mike didn't interfere. He stood outside the room, still holding scanned documents, listening as every word carried weight.
When silence returned, he walked toward Ezra's room, planning just a simple check-in like always.
But the room was empty.
On the desk was a fresh A3 sketch.
At first, Mike didn't understand. Cold tones. Spiral cuts and strange angles.
But looking closer, he saw it, an emotional map of the argument that just happened.
Not a blueprint. A portrait of pressure. Tightness in one corner, fractured light across the table. Tension, imbalance, space pulled inward.
Mike stood there for a long while. Later, when telling Kuro, he simply said:
"Ezra mapped the emotion in that room, down to where people paused mid-sentence. For someone like me, that drawing can't be analyzed with numbers. I didn't understand it logically, I just felt it. The tension, the misalignment, even the light felt... compressed by long-held exhaustion."
Mike began to wonder: if his trusted devices couldn't register experiences others swore were real, was he clinging to a limited system?
Was he living inside a closed model without knowing it?
That thought scared him, not like danger, but like a slow collapse of everything he'd relied on for years.
The fear was small but eroded each decision after.
In class, Mike couldn't hear the lectures.
He watched signal lights blink, as if they held cosmic answers.
In a midday nap, he dreamed of a data desert, every machine dead silent, only wind howling across static.
Mike showed up at Kuro's place carrying a cloth bag.
Not his usual gear.
He left most machines behind.
When he set the bag down, he paused, staring into the space inside his backpack.
Not relieved. Not anxious. Just... accepting.
"I want to understand, not just what silenced Mr. Than, but myself too."
That night, while Kuro stepped outside to grab a book, a sound drifted from Mike's room.
Electric guitar.
Not a rehearsal. Not a sound check.
Just loose notes, some on-key, others bending off, feeling their way toward something undefined.
Kuro froze.
He remembered when Mike first picked up the guitar, playing boldly, not to impress, but to believe in something.
Now, the notes wavered.
Something was shifting.
Not huge. Just enough to tilt old habits by a thousandth.
That night, Kuro woke suddenly.
Mike was still sitting there, unmoving, fingers resting on a Rubik's cube.
Lost in a swirl of thought.
Sensing Kuro awake, his gaze drifted to the window, toward the pale lamplight outside.
He whispered:
"Do you think... this trip is a bad idea?"
Kuro, still half-asleep, blinked.
Mike's voice was soft. But clearer than anything else that night.
"I don't know," Kuro replied.
That memory stayed with Mike.
He wasn't just anxious about the trip.
He was anxious about himself.
For the first time, Mike questioned the very framework he believed in:
What if not everything could be measured?
What if something lay beyond their current scope of perception?
Would he be brave enough to chase it?
The next morning, Mike brought a paper map, not digital, but the official planetary one they'd copied from the library.
In the center, where space had once been left blank, a small red circle had been added.
The lines were steady. Intentional.
Kuro looked at him.
"What are you planning?"
"Nothing huge," Mike said. "I just think... if something truly strange and dangerous is out there, we should at least take one real step."
They said nothing more.
But both knew.
The journey had begun.
That evening, Mike returned to Kuro's place.
In his cloth bag were no heavy tools, just a map, notebook, some wires, and a DIY sensor piece.
"No primary sensors?" Kuro asked.
Mike shook his head.
"Not this time."
It sounded light.
But to Kuro, it felt like crossing a line.
They didn't call it an expedition.
Didn't label it a mission.
Just... a trip.
To find out what's there, and why it made someone like Mr. Than stay silent for half a lifetime.
The next day, the sky was unusually clear. No clouds. No dust. No traffic.
They visited the tech market to pick up basic supplies, just backup fixes for gear.
Mike added a roll of crude sensor paper, something he'd once dismissed as "too imprecise."
"You're using unquantifiable tools now?" Kuro teased.
Mike smiled.
No answer.
Back home, he sat quietly by the window, tracing signs in his notebook.
"What if there's nothing out there?" Kuro asked.
Mike didn't look up.
"Then we treat it like a field trip. Better than standing still, guessing."
That night, Kuro stepped onto the porch.
Mike sat alone. No music. No design sketches. Just the sky.
"Do you think... a vague feeling is enough to start a journey?" Kuro asked.
Mike was silent for a while.
Then, he said:
"No... but maybe I've ignored it too long."
"I just don't want to freeze up again."
...