Zoey's voice cracked on the second syllable. The name hung in the small apartment, louder than she'd meant it to be, rawer than anything she'd said since walking through the door.
In the kitchen a few meters away, the soft clink of the kettle settling onto the stove went quiet.
The child didn't react to being called. He stood directly in front of Zoey, at her eye level while she crouched beside the desk, his snow-white hair catching the dim window light. His pale eyes remained fixed on her face, and one hand rested against the edge of the desk. He didn't even blink.
Zoey's grip on the cable had gone slack. She was still crouched, staring at a four-year-old whose coloring matched Layla's so precisely that her mind kept circling the same impossible question without finding an answer.
"Layla," she tried again, quieter now but no less panicked. "There's... there's a kid. Right behind me. A little... he just..."
She couldn't finish. She wasn't even sure what she was asking for. An explanation, a warning, some reassurance that she hadn't somehow imagined a pale little boy into existence during the few seconds Layla had been looking away.
The boy tilted his head slightly, studying her with an attentiveness that reminded Zoey of the way Layla sometimes regarded her when she was struggling through an explanation. The similarity did nothing to settle her nerves. He continued watching without speaking, one hand resting against the edge of the desk, looking so much like a porcelain doll that Zoey half expected someone to pick him up and put him on a shelf.
The kettle's whistle rose sharply, filling the kitchen with the sound of escaping steam. Layla was on the other side of the counter, with the child standing well below her line of sight. Zoey's attempts to call her couldn't compete with the noise, and Layla continued preparing the tea, unaware of what was happening behind her.
Zoey was alone with him.
The resemblance to Layla was becoming harder to ignore, especially now that Zoey could observe him from so close. There was something almost unsettling about seeing those familiar features on such a small face, although she couldn't deny how adorable he was. What troubled her most, however, was how quietly he stood there, watching her without the slightest sign of discomfort.
Zoey hadn't managed a proper breath since turning around and discovering him. Her chest rose and fell in short, shallow movements, and she'd started gripping the cable again without noticing, tightening her fingers until the tips turned white.
The boy seemed to study her face as Zoey tried to speak.
"Hey, little, um. Where did you... where did you come from?"
Her voice was barely above a whisper. The question felt stupid as soon as she asked it, but her brain wasn't producing anything more useful.
The boy raised one hand and pointed behind himself.
Zoey followed his finger toward the apartment door, then looked back at him. Of course. The door had opened and closed while she'd been occupied with the cables, and she hadn't bothered to check who had come in. He'd simply entered the apartment while Layla was in the kitchen and the kettle was drowning out every other sound.
"...Right."
She rubbed her forehead.
"Door. Obviously. Excellent question, Zoey."
Her grip on the cable loosened a little, though she was nowhere near calm. A pale little boy with white hair had walked into Layla's apartment through the front door as if he belonged there.
Which, she realized with another surge of panic, he might.
Zoey knew almost nothing about Layla's personal life. The boy could be her younger brother, her nephew, a child she babysat, or someone who actually lived here. The resemblance was overwhelming, but it didn't prove anything, and Zoey was hardly in a condition to draw sensible conclusions.
The boy lowered his hand without moving any closer or farther away. He seemed perfectly comfortable waiting there while she struggled to make sense of his presence.
The kettle continued shrieking.
Zoey became aware of three problems at once. She was still crouched on the floor as though hiding from a child. Layla couldn't hear her over the kettle. And the longer she remained there staring, the stranger the encounter became.
She attempted to stand, but her legs weren't cooperating. She made it halfway upright before bracing herself against the desk, the cable still wrapped around her other hand.
The boy followed her movement and tilted his head in the opposite direction. The gesture was so similar to Layla's that it made something in Zoey's chest ache.
"Okay," she breathed, mostly to herself. "Okay. You're... you're very quiet."
The boy blinked slowly, apparently considering the observation without finding any reason to respond.
From the kitchen, the whistle held its note. Layla remained beyond the counter, occupied with the tea, and none of this had reached her.
Zoey looked toward Layla's back and silently mouthed her name. Calling out hadn't worked, and she wasn't eager to hear her own panicked voice again.
Layla... Layla... Behind you... There's a whole child.
The boy followed her attention toward the kitchen, then returned it to Zoey. His expression barely changed, but one corner of his mouth moved into something resembling a smile, as though he were beginning to find her entertaining.
Zoey's already racing heart somehow managed to accelerate.
She was still considering whether to wave her arms, try calling again, or simply accept her fate when Layla took the kettle off the heat. Its piercing whistle faded, leaving the apartment quiet enough for Zoey to hear the small sounds of Layla preparing their drinks.
By then, she'd reached the uncomfortable conclusion that the boy was probably more intelligent than she was. Perhaps introducing herself would be a better approach than continuing to panic in front of him.
She tentatively extended her hand.
"S-so...i'm zoey...and you?"
The boy examined her outstretched hand with the same unhurried attention he'd given everything else. His pale eyes moved from her fingers to her face, but he didn't speak.
For a moment, Zoey thought he might ignore the question entirely. Then he lifted his own hand, bringing it toward hers without quite touching it. His fingers hovered a few centimeters above her palm, slightly curved, while he seemed to consider whether to complete the gesture.
Behind the counter, Layla moved. A drawer opened, and a spoon settled against ceramic.
Zoey glanced toward the sound. When she looked back at the child, his tiny hand was resting against hers.
Her heart accelerated again. She stared at their hands, overwhelmed by how small his fingers were against her palm, and struggled to contain the delighted panic rising in her chest.
"Oh my god..." she whispered, careful not to startle him.
"you're back shota."
Layla's voice came from the kitchen, utterly matter-of-fact, as though she'd merely noticed someone returning home.
"hmm ? oh, she is there to settle a setup to stream content."
Zoey heard a faint buzzing sound.
"i don't see a problem in that, you can ask her directly."
Another buzz followed, and Zoey realized that Layla and the child were now both paying attention to her.
The kettle had stopped screaming. Steam continued rising behind the counter, where Layla stood with a spoon and a cup, apparently unconcerned that she'd just held half a conversation Zoey couldn't hear.
Shota.
His name was Shota.
Zoey turned the name over in her mind, but the brief satisfaction of finally knowing what to call him was quickly overshadowed by a much stranger problem. Layla had apparently been holding an entire conversation with Shota, despite Zoey not having heard a single word from him.
There had been buzzing. That much she was sure of. It was almost as if he had been answering Layla telepathically, or as if Layla had somehow heard words that never reached Zoey.
Her grip tightened around the cable again.
And now both of them were looking at her.
You can ask her directly.
Layla had said that to Shota. About Zoey. As though she were the person he needed to consult regarding the equipment she'd come to install.
Zoey finally managed to straighten her legs, using the desk for balance. The cable remained looped around her fist as she stood, uncertain how to address the conversation she'd apparently missed.
"Okay," she managed, voice scraped thin, "okay, so. Um."
She glanced past Shota toward Layla, then back at the child.
"I'm, I'm not... I don't think I heard all of that. The, uh. The part where you two were talking."
The words immediately sounded wrong. She hadn't meant to accuse them of conducting a secret conversation in front of her, but she couldn't think of a better way to describe what had happened.
"I mean, he didn't say anything. Out loud. Did he?"
Her attention shifted toward Shota before she hurriedly looked back at Layla.
"Not that, not that it's my business, I just. The buzzing. I heard buzzing and then you were answering and I couldn't tell if that was, like. In here or..."
She tapped her temple, realized how absurd the gesture looked, and lowered her hand.
"...or if I'm losing it."
The boy blinked at her, slowly and deliberately, exactly as he had before.
Zoey resisted the inexplicable urge to blink back in time with him. She'd already behaved strangely enough today without adding that to the list.
Her grip loosened, allowing the cable to slip through her fingers. She scrambled to catch it before it fell, her cheeks growing hotter.
"I'm Zoey," she said again, turning toward the child. She'd already introduced herself once, but perhaps repeating it would help. "and I'm, um. Here to set up some streaming stuff? For Layla? Eventually? If that's still the plan?"
A nervous laugh escaped her.
"God, I'm asking a four-year-old to confirm my own reason for being in this apartment. Normal. This is a normal thing that is happening."
She glanced toward Layla, who remained by the counter. Someone needed to explain the child, the strange conversation, or at least the buzzing, because Zoey was rapidly running out of explanations of her own.
Then she heard the buzzing again.
This time, Zoey was looking directly at Shota when she noticed something she'd somehow missed throughout their entire encounter.
His mouth was moving.
She leaned closer, her face reddening as she brought herself almost uncomfortably near him. The buzzing gradually separated into syllables, then words, spoken in a voice so quiet that she could barely distinguish them.
"...Computer...read..."
Zoey stared at him.
He pointed toward the old laptop and the equipment spread across the desk, then looked back at her.
"watch?"
He had been talking.
The whole time.
While she'd stood there frozen, silently accusing him of being a tiny telepathic ghost, he'd apparently been speaking at a volume her own panic had drowned out.
Zoey's stomach sank. She'd missed his earlier attempts to communicate, and now that she understood what was happening, she couldn't help wondering how many questions or explanations she'd ignored.
And how the hell had Layla heard him from the kitchen?
She must have the hearing of a bat.
"Oh my god," she breathed. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I couldn't hear you, I thought you were... or that you weren't... I mean."
She flapped a hand, remembered she was still holding the cable, and dropped her arm to her side.
"I'm so rude. You were talking and I just stood there. like Hi. I'm Zoey, the cable gremlin..."
Her attempt at humor failed, leaving her cheeks burning. Talking to a camera was one thing. Apologizing to a four-year-old she'd accidentally ignored was proving considerably more difficult.
Shota watched her without interrupting. His expression remained calm, and he didn't seem particularly interested in her frantic explanation. Instead, he pointed toward the laptop again.
Zoey followed his finger.
"Okay. Okay. So you said... a computer. At home. So this is a first?"
Shota nodded.
She glanced toward the kitchen, where Layla was still attending to the tea. How she'd managed to hear him from several meters away remained a mystery, but Zoey decided against investigating it.
"Right. So you've been reading about computers. That's actually really cool. What, um. What have you read?"
Zoey crouched again, lowering herself toward his level and finally abandoning the cable beside her knee.
From this close, the resemblance to Layla was even more striking. The same white hair, pale lashes and delicate features, accompanied by a similarly patient way of regarding someone who was struggling to make sense of an otherwise ordinary conversation.
Shota looked toward the laptop, then back at her.
"Books."
Zoey blinked.
"Right... t-that's actually quite logical... i mean... nothing, leave it.."
He didn't elaborate. Instead, he brought his hands together in front of himself, then pointed toward the laptop once more.
Zoey was beginning to understand that he preferred showing her what he wanted rather than explaining it at length. And judging by how persistently his attention returned to the equipment, the computer was considerably more interesting to him than her awkward attempts at conversation.
From the kitchen, the tap ran briefly before stopping. A cup settled onto the counter, and Layla continued preparing their drinks without giving any sign that anything unusual was happening.
Zoey looked between them. The boy, calm and quiet, was waiting for her answer. Layla seemed equally unconcerned several meters away. She was surrounded by composure she couldn't begin to match.
"So," she tried, voice scraped thin, aiming it at Shota but aware that both of them could hear her now. "The plan is still streaming stuff. For Layla. Eventually. And you want to watch the setup. That's fine. That's great. I would love a supervisor. Please supervise me, I am begging to be supervised."
Shota tilted his head at the unfamiliar word. Then he nodded, apparently satisfied with the part he'd understood.
A nervous laugh escaped Zoey. She turned toward the kitchen.
"Layla? Is that, um, okay?"
She still didn't know what Shota was to Layla. A nephew, a younger brother, a child who lived here and knew the apartment better than she did. She'd learned his name, discovered that he could speak, and established that he wanted to watch her install a computer.
Everything else remained a mystery.
Layla nodded and walked toward them, carrying two mugs. She handed one to Zoey while keeping the other in her own hand.
Zoey accepted the tea carefully. It looked considerably closer to hot water than actual tea, but at that moment, she didn't particularly care.