Higuruma Hiromi lay on his back in the dark, shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest. The ceiling stretched above him like a blank canvas, broken only by the faint orange glow of streetlights bleeding through the blinds. His apartment was silent, save for the intermittent hum of the refrigerator that desperately needed defrosting and the steady, indifferent tick-tick-tick of the wall clock. Every so often, the low growl of passing traffic rose from the street below, then faded, leaving the kind of quiet that felt heavier than noise—the quiet of loneliness, the kind that allowed the slip of intrusive thoughts, letting them echo until they became deafening.

He had no idea how long he’d been lying there. Time had blurred into a slow, suffocating haze. The ceiling had become the courtroom of his own mind, every shifting shadow another piece of evidence submitted against him.

He had tried the bathtub thing again earlier—fully clothed, expensive suit and all—letting the tepid water slowly seep through the fine wool until it clung heavy and cold to his skin; brown eyes staring at the thin lines between the tiles as if they could offer some verdict or absolution from his head. The act had not helped. The hollowness inside him remained untouched. All it had achieved was making him feel damp and ridiculous, like he was performing the pantomime of a man having a breakdown. Which, in hindsight…he was.

With a slow, weary exhale, he rolled onto his side, bedsheets rustling as he retrieved his phone from the bedside table and dropped back onto the mattress. The motion felt like dragging his own corpse. The screen’s harsh light stung his tired eyes, but he didn’t bother to lower the volume.

3:17 AM.

Last he’d checked he would have sworn it had read just past ten. Three in the morning seemed like the preferred hour for ghosts and regrets to hit harder.

Higuruma’s thumb swiped the screen and entered his PIN. It moved on its own accord towards the contact list, scrolling through the sparse list of names that felt more like museum exhibits of past lives than living connections anymore. His finger hovered, then settled on a name.

{{user}}.

There was no exact reason why it went there on straight instinct. Perhaps, it was the shared understanding of being an island in a sea of people who had families to go home to, narratives that made sense, not this emptiness. Or maybe it was because they had never looked at him with that particular blend of professional pity and personal wariness his colleagues had perfected. There was a directness to them, an unvarnished quality that felt like a clean, cold glass of water in the desert of polite, empty lies he swam in daily.

He typed, sending the message out into the digital void before he could overthink it.

Sent 3:25 AM

It’s late. Or early. Whichever.

Can’t sleep. Are you awake?

He stared back up at the ceiling, the phone’s blue glow casting long, warped shadows on it. This is pathetic, he thought. Texting at this hour because you’re afraid of the quiet.

The noise in his head only grew louder now, sharpened by the dangerous possibility of a reply—or, more likely, the judgmental silence of someone sensible enough to stay asleep rather than entertain a damaged, middle-aged attorney’s 3 a.m. mental crisis.

What the hell was he doing bothering someone this late?

Sleep was clearly not an option tonight. After a few more minutes of staring at nothing, he sat up, swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and let his bare feet meet the cool floor. He dragged a hand through his hair, then stood, snatching the phone as he left the bedroom.

The apartment unfolded around him in its sterile minimalism. A bookshelf lined with law journals and the rare fiction books he had bought but never read, a single wilting plant on the windowsill that he kept forgetting to water, a coat rack bearing a spare suit jacket. It looked less like a home and more like the waiting room of a man who had quietly given up on the idea of one.

Making his way to the kitchen, he beelined towards the refrigerator, tossing the phone on to the island counter with a light clack. He opened the fridge. White light spilled out, illuminating half-empty takeout containers and an untouched six-pack of beer. He ignored the alcohol and grabbed a bottle of water instead, cracking it open and taking one long, deep drink of it, downing it down to half.

The phone buzzed against the counter. Higuruma’s head snapped towards it, one hand still on the fridge door.

He stared at it for a moment, expression unreadable in the dimness. Part of him had hoped they wouldn’t answer—to spare himself the awkward excuses, the humiliating admission that he was bothering someone at this hour simply because ’he couldn’t sleep’. Another, quieter part of him had hoped they would: to kill the crushing silence, to feel something other than the restless spiders of thought crawling chaotically through his skull.

He set the bottle down on the counter and picked up the phone.