The campus was more agitated than usual.
It wasn't the usual bustle of students rushing between classes or the murmur of groups discussing last-minute projects. It was something different. Something in the way people clustered around their phones, in how conversations dropped to a whisper when an outsider approached, in the furtive glances toward the exits as if expecting something—or someone—to appear at any moment.
I noticed it the moment I set foot in the main building.
In the hallway, two girls were checking their phones with poorly concealed expressions of worry. A group of upperclassmen was discussing something in low voices near the lockers, their faces serious. I caught fragments: "...fifteen already..." "...they say it happened in the south district again..." "...my cousin lives there and she says the police have no leads..."
Mysterious attacks. Disappearances. The news that had been haunting the city for weeks like a ghost no one wanted to name out loud but everyone felt lurking around every corner.
I tightened the strap of my backpack and kept walking. It wasn't my problem. My problem was the cybersecurity presentation I had in less than an hour, which I'd finished preparing in a love motel with a view of a mirror on the ceiling. Priorities.
"They're talking about it again," whispered a voice from the backpack.
Rory. Of course. Even from inside the front pocket, she was paying attention to everything.
"The attacks," she continued.
"There are more than last time. People are scared."
"I know."
"Doesn't it worry you?"
"It worries me to be late for the presentation."
" So .....Evasive."
"Survival strategy."
A small snort from the backpack. Tamamo, probably, listening in silence as always. I'd gotten used to her silent presence, to feeling the almost imperceptible weight of two tiny bodies on my back. They were my invisible escort, my pocket-sized Praetorian Guard.
I arrived at the classroom ten minutes early. The professor was already setting up the projector. My groupmates—a guy I didn't remember seeing at any meeting and a girl who had "researched" by sending exactly one Wikipedia link to the group chat—were sitting in the corner, reviewing their last-minute notes. Or whatever they had on their screens.
I sat in my usual spot, in the back, and took out my laptop. The presentation was ready. I'd reviewed it three times during breakfast—well, during the watery coffee from the vending machine that passed for breakfast—and I was confident that at least I wouldn't make a fool of myself.
What I wasn't expecting was for someone to sit next to me.
"You look horrible."
I looked up. Luna Hoshikawa was standing next to my desk, her back straight, her uniform impeccable as always, her blonde hair perfectly styled in those exaggerated curls that seemed to defy the laws of physics—drills at this point, they must have cost a fortune to maintain and required frequent salon visits, they surely must weigh a lot, they were unnecessarily enormous.
"Good morning to you too," I replied, turning back to my screen.
"That wasn't a compliment." She sat in the adjacent seat, placing her leather briefcase on the table.
"You have dark circles. You're pale. And your shirt is wrinkled like you slept in it."
Because I had slept in it. In a motel. But that wasn't something I was going to share with the heiress of a corporate empire.
"Are you ready for the presentation?"
"More or less. Three hours of sleep, but coffee works wonders."
Luna looked at me more closely than I would have liked. Her blue eyes, normally assessing, stopped on the dark circles I undoubtedly had, on the way my fingers nervously drummed on the keyboard, on the tension in my shoulders.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," I said, on the usual autopilot.
"You don't seem fine."
"I didn't sleep much. That's all."
Luna didn't seem convinced, but she didn't insist. She took out her laptop from her leather briefcase—probably more expensive than my monthly rent—and placed it on the table. For a moment, we worked in silence. She reviewed her notes. I pretended to review mine.
"The presentation," I said, changing the subject.
"Are you ready for yours?"
Luna smiled. It was a different smile from the ones I'd seen before. Smaller. More real.
"My presentation is next week. Today I'm just an observer." She paused.
"And I wanted to talk to you."
"About?"
"Our next session." She leaned forward a little, lowering her voice.
"I've been thinking about what you said about generic werewolves. You were right. So I've been researching. Dragons. Elves. Magic systems." Her eyes shone with an enthusiasm I hadn't seen in her before.
"Did you know there's a whole category of fantasy based on reverse-engineering spells? Like magic were a science. It's fascinating."
"I'm glad you're exploring."
"And I need your help structuring my novel's system." She took out her planner, a leather thing with gold edges that probably cost more than my rent.
"I thought we could meet on Friday. At my apartment. It's quieter than—"
"No."
The word came out louder than I intended. A couple of nearby students looked at us.
"No," I repeated, quieter.
"Not at your apartment."
Luna frowned.
"Why not? It's spacious, we have privacy, I can order food for both of us..."
"No."
"But..."
"Luna." I looked directly at her.
"I'm not going to be alone with you in a private space."
The confusion on her face was genuine.
"I don't understand. Did I do something wrong?"
"No. You didn't do anything wrong." I sighed.
"It's... complicated."
"Complicated how?"
But my mind wasn't on the immediate conversation.
Rather, on what had happened yesterday, on what I knew I had to change if I wanted to protect the peace that had cost me so much pain and blood.
On what had happened to me, on what my sister did, on my capital crime of being a man........
And now Luna was here. Sitting next to me. In an almost empty classroom.
What if someone saw us? What if someone misinterpreted? What if...?
"César."
Luna's voice pulled me from my thoughts.
"Yes?"
"You're shaking."
I looked at my hands. She was right. My fingers on the keyboard were trembling slightly, as if I were cold even though the classroom was perfectly climate-controlled.
"It's the coffee," I said.
"Too much caffeine."
"César." Her voice was firm but not hard.
"What's going on?"
I looked at her. Really looked at her. Luna Hoshikawa, heiress of a corporate empire, the girl who had everything planned since the day she was born, the person who paid me to teach her how to invent stories. What right did I have to tell her my problems? What was the point?
But also: what right did she have to ask?
"Nothing you can fix," I finally said.
"That's not what I asked."
"Luna..."
"You don't have to tell me." Her tone softened, just a little.
"But don't lie to me saying you're fine. I know you well enough to know when you're lying."
Did she know me? Really? We'd spent a few hours together, mostly talking about dragons in aprons and sniper bunny girls. That wasn't knowing someone. That was... whatever it was we were doing.
But something in her expression made me hesitate.
"I had a problem," I said, choosing my words carefully.
"With my family. Last night."
"Something serious?"
"Serious enough not to sleep at home."
Luna nodded slowly, as if processing the information. She didn't ask for details. She didn't insist. She just... nodded.
"If you need a place..."
"No." The word came out faster than I intended.
"No. I'm fine. I already fixed it."
The words hung in the air between us. Luna opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again.
"I don't understand," she finally said.
How to explain? How to explain to the girl who lived in a mansion with bodyguards that my own sister had threatened to use my history against me? That every interaction with a woman was a minefield? That one accusation, one single misplaced word, was enough to destroy what little I had built?
"You don't have to understand," I said.
"Just... if we're going to continue with the classes, they have to be in public spaces. The library. A café. Where there are people. Witnesses."
Luna looked at me as if I had gone crazy.
"Witnesses." She repeated the word as if it were foreign to her vocabulary.
"César, what exactly are you afraid of?"
"That someone might misinterpret."
"Misinterpret what?"
"This." I gestured between us.
"You and me. Alone. In a private space."
The silence that followed was different from the previous ones. It wasn't uncomfortable. It was... strange. As if Luna were seeing something that had always been there but she'd never noticed.
"My whole life," she said slowly,
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
"Important things have happened in private. Business meetings. Family decisions. Conversations that shouldn't be overheard. Privacy is... a luxury. Something my family pays to have."
"Privacy is a risk," I replied.
"For someone like me."
"Someone like you?"
Luna fell silent. Her expression was hard to read. It wasn't pity—she didn't seem capable of pity—but something more like perplexity. As if I were a math problem she couldn't solve.
"Okay."
"I don't understand, but if you want a public space, then that will be. I don't have a problem either"
And after some minutes later, the presentation went well. Or at least, it wasn't a disaster.
My part was covered. Encryption fundamentals, types of malware, best security practices for corporate networks. The basics. My groupmates—the same ones who had done almost nothing—nodded at the right moments and pretended the work was collective. The professor seemed satisfied. No one asked difficult questions.
I gathered my things and left the classroom. Luna had left earlier, with her driver waiting for her at the entrance. She had sent me a message: "The café near the library. Thursday. 4 PM. Don't be late."
It wasn't a question. It never was with her.
In the end, he gave me an acceptable grade and I left the classroom with the feeling of having survived another battle.
In the hallway, conversations about the attacks continued. Now there was a larger group gathered around a phone, and I could hear the word "seventeen" before I walked away.
"Seventeen," Rory murmured from the backpack.
"That's more than yesterday."
"I know."
"And they're happening closer."
"I know that too."
"Don't you think we should—?"
"No."
"You don't even know what I was going to say."
"You were going to say we should investigate. That that's what a goddess of war would do. That we can't just stand by while—"
"Well, yes, exactly that."
"Rory." I stopped in an empty corner of the hallway.
"We're a guy with two anime figures in his backpack. We're not heroes. We're not detectives. We're just... us."
Silence.
"Besides," Tamamo added from the other compartment,
"if something is attacking people at night, the smartest thing is not to go out at night. That includes not investigating."
"But—!"
"Rory," Tamamo said, with that infinite patience of hers.
"For now, it's better to listen to César. Even if it's just so he feels better after what happened yesterday with his sister."
Rory fell silent. Then, a small sigh.
"Fine. Fine. We won't investigate. But if something appears in front of us, I'm not going to promise I won't punch its face in."
"That's fair," I conceded.
The bus ride was less hellish than usual. I'd found a seat by the window, and yesterday's rain had given way to a cloudy but dry sky. Rory, now awake, had poked her head out of the backpack just enough to speak without being seen.
"That girl, Luna... She was really worried about you."
"I know."
"And you still didn't trust her."
"It's not that I don't trust her, it's that—" I stopped, searching for the right words.
"I'm not going to assume the best-case scenario. Not after yesterday."
Rory was silent for a moment. Then, with that surgical precision she had for reading my thoughts, she said:
"Your sister threatened to use your history against you. And now you're afraid any woman could do the same."
"People would believe any woman before they'd believe me," I replied, eyes fixed on the window.
"It's that simple. Luna is rich, powerful, respected. If she decided to accuse me of something, I'd be finished. She wouldn't need proof. Just her word."
"But she wouldn't do that."
"My sister shouldn't have either. And she did."
Rory didn't argue. Instead, she slipped out of the backpack and sat on my shoulder, her small body resting against my neck. It was her way of saying "I'm here" without needing words.
It was Tamamo who spoke from inside the backpack, her voice soft and measured:
"Rory, for now it's better to listen to him. Even if it's just so he feels better after what happened yesterday."
Rory sighed.
"I know, I know. I'm not arguing." She paused.
"I'm just saying Luna seems trustworthy to me. But I understand why César doesn't want to take the risk."
"Thanks," I murmured.
"Don't thank me yet. This isn't over."
My apartment was exactly as I'd left it.
Well, not exactly.
I opened the door with the spare key—the original was still in María's possession, a loose end I'd have to deal with—and entered cautiously. The living room was empty. The console turned off. The kitchen intact. My bedroom...
My bedroom was in order. The figures on their shelves. The bed made—Tamamo, probably, before María arrived. The desk with my things as I remembered them.
But there was something new.
A note. On the kitchen table. Written in clumsy handwriting on a piece of paper torn from some notebook.
"I'm sorry."
That was it. Two words. No signature. No explanation.
I stared at the paper for a long minute.
"Is it from your sister?" Tamamo asked, peeking out from the backpack.
"Yeah."
"Do you think she means it?"
I folded the note in half, then again, and threw it in the trash.
"No. It's probably one of those empty 'I'm sorrys.' The kind that mean nothing. The kind people say to feel better about themselves without having to change anything."
"But..."
"I've seen this movie before, Tamamo." My voice came out more bitter than I intended.
"My parents did the same thing. After every hit, after every punishment, an 'I'm sorry' and a 'it won't happen again.' And it always happened again. Always." I pointed at the note in the trash.
"That's not an apology. It's permission to do it again."
Rory jumped out of the backpack, landing on the table with her usual agility.
"Then," she said, and her voice had that edge that appeared when she was about to declare something important.
"We're going to make sure she can't do it again."
"What do you mean?"
"The lock. The key. Everything." She crossed her arms, her small figure projecting an authority that belied her twelve centimeters.
You're going to talk to the landlord. You're going to change the locks. And from now on, NOBODY enters this place without your permission. Is that clear?"
"Rory, that costs money..."
"I know. And I know you don't have much to spare. But this is important, César. This is our home. Yours. Mine. Tamamo's. We can't let just anyone walk in whenever they want."
I looked at her. Her red eyes shone with fierce determination. It wasn't the look of someone making a suggestion. It was the look of someone giving an order.
"Okay," I said.
"I'll go talk to the landlord right now."
"Good." She nodded, satisfied.
"I'm coming with you."
"Me too," Tamamo added.
"Then all three of us go."
"But don't come out of the backpack and don't say anything."
The landlord, was an older man of few words and fewer smiles. He received me at the door of his ground-floor apartment with his usual expression of annoyance, but when I explained the situation—my sister, the key, the unexpected visit—his attitude changed.
"That can't be," he said, frowning.
"No one should have keys to an apartment that isn't theirs without the tenant's authorization."
"I know. That's why I want to change the locks."
"I'll cover the cost of changing one," he said after a moment."But if you want to install an additional one, that's on you."
"Deal."
An hour later, the locks were changed. The main one, covered by the landlord. An additional security one, which I installed myself with a YouTube tutorial and supervision from Rory, with helpful comments like: "No, the screw goes on the other side, are you blind? I once saw a paladin lose an eye like that."
When we finished, I stood looking at the door with a strange feeling in my chest.
"It's done," Rory said from my shoulder.
"No one enters without permission. No one."
"No one," Tamamo said.
"No one," I repeated.
And for the first time in a long time, I felt a little safer.
Night fell with its usual silence, but this time it was a different silence. Not the silence of loneliness. It was the silence of tranquility. Of knowing that the walls around us were ours.
Tamamo made dinner with the few ingredients left in the fridge—rice, vegetables, a little soy sauce—and we ate together at the kitchen table. Well, I ate. They accompanied me, as always, nibbling small pieces of food from my plate with delicacy.
"Excuse me, but can I ask you something?"
"Sure." The goddess of war was busy trying to peel a grain of rice off her dress.
"Shoot."
"Exactly how old are you, César?" Tamamo said, looking me straight in the eyes with curiosity.
"Over thirty......"—I replied, with no much passion.
"Thirty?" she repeated.
"That's..."
"Young for a human," Rory interrupted.
"Old for an anime character. He's right at the limit where he can be a protagonist without being called an old geezer."
"Rory..."
"It's true. Past twenty-five and you're already an old man in anime terms. At thirty you're retired. At forty you're the mentor who dies in the third chapter."
"Thanks for helping with my depression, Rory."
"And you?" Tamamo asked, turning to Rory.
"How old are you?"
Rory straightened up, clearly delighted with the question.
"I'm a thousand years old!" she announced, chest puffed with pride.
"I'm the goddess of war and death, and I've been alive for a THOUSAND years!"
There was a silence.
"It's your fault for asking," I told Tamamo.
"......."
"Yes, my fault for asking indeed," she accepted.
"What do you mean 'fault'?! It's a THOUSAND years!"
"Yes, Rory. We know."Tamamo sighed.
"You can't go five minutes without mentioning it."
"Literally"—I added—. Five minutes. I timed it once.
"Because it's important! A thousand years don't happen every day!"
"Actually, they do," Tamamo said with a barely perceptible smile.
"Every day you turn a thousand years and a day. That's how numbers work."
"Tamamo, don't come at me with logic right now. I'm celebrating my legacy."
"Your legacy of mentioning your age every five minutes."
"Exactly! It's my legacy! My hobby!"
"I thought your hobby was annoying me."
"That too. I have multiple hobbies. I'm a multifaceted goddess."
I leaned back in my chair, letting them continue their argument. It was strange. A month ago, my room was a silent place where you could only hear the tapping of my computer and the hum of the lava lamp. Now it was full of voices. Absurd arguments. Laughter.
"That's not..." Rory looked at me indignantly.
"I don't mention it THAT often."
"You mentioned it yesterday at the motel," Tamamo said.
"When you found the pink bathtub. You said: 'In a thousand years I've never seen anything so ridiculous!'"
"That was... contextually relevant."
"You mentioned it the day before," I added.
"When you tried strawberry ice cream. You said: 'In a thousand years of divine existence, this is the closest thing to nectar I've ever tasted!'"
"Because it was delicious! It was an objective assessment!"
"You mention it every five minutes, Rory," Tamamo concluded with a smile.
"It's adorable, really."
"It's not adorable. It's... it's..." Rory searched for the word.
"It's historical accuracy!"
Tamamo and I exchanged a glance.
"Well," the fox said with studied calm
"if we're going to talk about ages, there's something that catches my attention."
"What?" Rory asked, still defensive.
"That you're a thousand years old, yes. An ancient and wise goddess, agreed." Tamamo paused.
"But your body..."
"What about my body?"
"It's that of a twelve-year-old girl."
The silence that followed was so dense it could have been cut with Rory's halberd.
"It's not—" Rory started.
"I mean," Tamamo continued with the same relentless calm
"If this were a novel, the audience would be quite upset about the relationship between you, a minor in appearance, and César, an adult man."
Rory's face went through at least three different shades of red before she could articulate a response.
"That's not...! I don't...! I'm not a girl! I'm a THOUSAND YEARS OLD!"
"We know," Tamamo and I said in unison.
"Then I don't understand what the problem is!"
"The problem," Tamamo continued, clearly enjoying the situation, "is that from the outside, without context, you look like a girl. And Cesar looks like an adult. And people judge without asking."
"I DON'T CARE IF THIS IS A NOVEL!"
"But if it were."
"But it's NOT!"
"But if it were," I intervened, joining the game
"Readers would be very concerned."
"CESAR! WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?!"
"The side of narrative logic."
"THERE IS NO NARRATIVE LOGIC! THIS IS REAL LIFE!"
"Rory," Tamamo said, with absolutely irritating calm,
"Calm down. You're going to wake the neighbors."
"THERE ARE NO NEIGHBORS! ONLY THE LANDLORD AND HE'S DEAF!"
"......."
"Look," she said, pointing an accusing finger at Tamamo.
"My age is my business. My body is my business. And my relationship with this idiot—she pointed at me with her thumb—is our business." "Not third parties. Not the audience. Not the hypothetical readers of a novel that nobody reads anyway."
"Besides,"
"Since we're on uncomfortable questions... what about you?"
"Me?"
"Yes. You said you were a real goddess. A moon goddess. How old are you exactly?"
Tamamo stood still. Her fox ears flattened slightly against her head.
"As a real moon goddess," she said, "my existence dates back to the very beginning. Before humans. Before beasts. Before almost everything. So... too many billions of years. I'm not sure exactly how many. You lose count after the first hundred million."
Rory froze.
"Millions."
"Yes."
"Like... millions? With an M?"
"Capital M, yes."
The silence that followed was glorious.
And then, Rory smiled. Not her usual "I'm going to annoy you" smile. It was a new smile. A "got you" smile.
"Old bag."
Tamamo blinked.
"What?"
"Old la-dy."—Rory savored each syllable.—You're an old lady. An old woman. A grandmother. A...
"I'm not an old bag!."
"GRANDMA FOX!"
"Rory!"
"GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT GRANDMA FOX!"
"Millions of years, Tamamo. MILLIONS. That's way more than a thousand. I'm young. You're..."
"I'm a goddess in the fullness of my existence."
"You're a relic. A fossil. A heritage of humanity."
"Rory..."
"We should donate you to a museum. 'Tamamo-no-Mae, fox goddess from the period... what was it called? The period where there was nothing?"
"There were stars," Tamamo said, visibly annoyed.
"And planets. And void. It was very pretty."
"Sure, Grandma. Whatever you say."
"I'm not your grandma!"
"You're right. My grandma was younger."
"You're older than the ground you walk on!"
"RORY!" the kitsune shouted.
And I could do nothing but laugh a little.