The day Toku met the stranger, nothing remarkable was supposed to happen.

  He had planned a very ambitious schedule involving roasted skewers, sitting down twice in different locations, and possibly staring at a canal like a retired philosopher.

  That was when he noticed them.

  Standing in the middle of the plaza.

  Not moving.

  Just… existing very intensely.

  Toku squinted.

  “…Oh no,” he muttered.

  Even from across the square, he could tell.

  This person had the look.

  Not the “I’m lost” look.

  Not the “tourist” look.

  The other look.

  The one Toku privately called:

  Someone went absolutely feral during the customization phase.

  He approached slowly, circling once like an art critic examining an extremely expensive statue.

  The stranger was tall—taller than average, but in a way that felt… deliberate. Their hair caught the sunlight at just the right angle, each strand suspiciously well-behaved despite the breeze. Their outfit looked practical at first glance, until you noticed the subtle detailing, the clean silhouette, the way it all fit like it had been tailored by destiny itself.

  Even their posture looked calibrated.

  Like someone had adjusted it with sliders.

  Toku leaned slightly to the left.

  “…Did you,” he asked carefully, “wake up here today?”

  The stranger blinked. “Yes. How did you—”

  Toku leaned slightly to the right, inspecting.

  “…And before that, did you perhaps make a series of extremely confident aesthetic decisions?”

  The stranger froze.

  “…I may have,” they admitted.

  Toku nodded solemnly.

  “Yeah. That checks out.”

  They stared at him. “What does that mean?”

  “It means,” Toku said, gesturing vaguely at their entire existence, “you’ve got the ‘spent forty minutes making sure the eye color felt meaningful’ aura.”

  “That is alarmingly specific.”

  “You’ve also got the ‘adjusted height more than once but tried not to be weird about it’ stance.”

  The stranger looked down at themselves.

  “…I did change that twice.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “And maybe refined the hairstyle.”

  “Three passes?” Toku guessed.

  “…Four.”

  Toku sighed, the sigh of a man whose suspicions had been tragically confirmed.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Happens to the best of us. I gave myself cheekbones I absolutely did not earn.”

  That broke the tension.

  The stranger laughed.

  Not awkwardly. Not nervously.

  Just genuinely.

  “I thought I was the only one who—” They stopped. “Wait. You too?”

  “Yep. One year ago. Same confusion. Same wandering. Same ‘why does everything feel like I signed terms and conditions I didn’t read?’ energy.”

  The stranger visibly relaxed.

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  “Oh thank goodness,” they said. “I was trying to act like I understood what was happening.”

  “Bold strategy,” Toku replied. “I walked into a fountain on my first day.”

  “…On purpose?”

  “I wish.”

  The stranger asked questions.

  So many questions.

  “How does money work here?”

  “There’s an app for that.”

  “How do you find places?”

  “All-in-one app.”

  “How do you translate dialects?”

  “Same app.”

  “…There’s one app for everything?”

  Toku nodded. “I stopped asking questions after week two. It’s better for your sanity.”

  The stranger laughed—an honest, unguarded laugh. Not the nervous kind. Not the overwhelmed kind.

  Just relief.

  “I thought I’d have to figure everything out from scratch.”

  “Oh, you still will,” Toku said. “Just… emotionally. Logistically, you’re covered.”

  They sat in comfortable silence for a while, watching boats drift by.

  Then the stranger spoke again.

  “I chose this place,” they said.

  Toku blinked. “Chose?”

  “Yes.”

  They looked out over the water, hands folded like someone remembering a very long journey.

  “When I was given the option… there were many worlds.”

  Toku’s chest tightened.

  “…Option,” he repeated.

  “I was told I could step into a story. Any story that existed. Any world someone had imagined strongly enough.”

  The wind moved softly through the canal grass.

  “And you picked this one,” Toku said.

  “I did.”

  “…Why?”

  The answer came without hesitation.

  “Because it was kind.”

  Toku didn’t respond.

  “I read it before I came,” the stranger continued. “Not as an escape. Not as fantasy. But as a possibility. The people struggled, yes. The world wasn’t perfect. But it allowed small happinesses. It made room for ordinary lives.”

  They turned to him.

  “It felt like a place someone had written because they wanted others to rest.”

  Toku looked away quickly.

  “That author,” the stranger added gently, “must have believed a peaceful life was worth imagining.”

  Toku laughed.

  Too fast.

  Too forced.

  “Yeah, well,” he said, “sounds like a sentimental guy.”

  “Maybe,” the stranger said. “Or maybe someone tired. Someone who thought… if a world like this existed, it would be nice to live there.”

  Toku stared at the water.

  At the reflections of buildings he remembered designing.

  At the bridges he named.

  At the sky color he had once changed three times because it “felt wrong.”

  “…What if,” Toku said slowly, “that author didn’t expect to end up here himself?”

  The stranger smiled.

  “Then I think he deserves a break.”

  Silence again.

  Not awkward.

  Not heavy.

  Just shared.

  After a while, the stranger stood.

  “I still don’t know my way around,” they admitted.

  Toku stood too.

  “…Yeah,” he said. “I remember.”

  They began walking—no destination in mind.

  Just like Toku had, one year ago.

  But this time, he wasn’t alone.

  Halfway down the street, the stranger asked,

  “So… where should we start?”

  Toku thought about systems.

  About quests.

  About the strange invisible boundaries he still didn’t fully understand.

  Then he thought about something else.

  A bakery he liked.

  A park bench with a good view.

  A bookstore that always smelled like rain.

  He shrugged.

  “…Let’s just live here for a bit.”

  The stranger nodded.

  “That sounds like exactly why I came.”

  And somewhere—far beyond their awareness, beyond systems, beyond even the shape of the world—

  Something watched.

  Not measuring.

  Not judging.

  But waiting.

  Because this was only the first understanding.