For the first time since the portal spat us back out, we sit on the bed back to back and try to cultivate.

  I say try because it doesn’t go the way it’s supposed to.

  At first, everything feels familiar. Breathing slows. Muscles loosen. The quiet settles in the way it always has, that inward turning where the noise of the world drops away and what’s left is just me. My weight. My center. The place I’ve learned to return to over years of practice.

  Then something shifts. It isn’t pain. It isn’t resistance. It’s… presence.

  I feel Kai.

  Not his body. Not his warmth at my back. Something closer. Near my center, close enough that my focus wavers instinctively, like I’ve leaned too far toward a ledge I didn’t know was there. He’s not in it. I’m sure of that. But he’s close. Close enough that the boundary I’ve always taken for granted suddenly feels thin.

  My eyes snap open. Kai turns at the exact same moment.

  We both scramble to our feet, hearts racing as we face each other in the narrow space between the bed and the table.

  “Did you feel that,” he asks immediately.

  “Yes,” I say, just as fast. My hands are shaking. Not fear. Not exactly. Something tighter. Sharper. “It felt like you were cultivating with me. Like… inside my core. Not in it. Near it.”

  His expression mirrors my own confusion and unease. “I felt you too,” he says quietly. “Like you were right there.”

  We stand there for a long moment, breathing hard, neither of us touching, both of us very aware of the distance between us in a way we haven’t been since the infirmary.

  “This isn’t normal,” I say.

  “No,” he agrees. “But it didn’t feel wrong.”

  That almost makes it worse. We don’t try again. Neither of us suggests it. We don’t need to. Whatever that was, it deserves daylight and someone with more experience than us. Someone who knows how cultivation is supposed to feel when it starts changing.

  “We should talk to someone in the morning,” Kai says.

  “Yeah,” I reply. “Instructor Jin. Or someone higher.”

  We get ready for bed without ceremony, exhaustion settling in now that the adrenaline has nowhere to go. Training took more out of us than we realized, and whatever happened just now didn’t help.

  When we lie down, it’s quiet again. Familiar. Back to back, a small line of contact grounding us both.

  Sleep comes easily enough.

  But even as I drift off, I can’t quite shake the memory of that sensation. Not fear. Not pain.

  Just the unsettling certainty that something fundamental has shifted, and we’ve only just noticed.

  I wake up choking on toes.

  Not metaphorically. Kai’s foot is wedged right under my chin, warm and solid and entirely uninvited. For a few seconds I just lie there, blinking up at the ceiling, trying to decide if this is worth responding to or if I should simply accept it as punishment for something I did in a past life.

  I consider tickling him. It’s tempting. The kind of tempting that promises consequences. Very immediate, very physical consequences. I picture a half-asleep kick to the face and decide I value my teeth.

  Instead, I roll. Which means rolling over him.

  It’s not graceful. It never is. My knee catches him square in the stomach as I go, and he lets out a sharp, startled grunt, half pain, half offense. I’m almost clear when a hand shoves my shoulder and I hit the floor with a quiet thump.

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  Kai curls back in on himself instantly, reclaiming the bed like nothing happened.

  I lie there for a second, staring at the underside of the mattress, weighing my life choices.

  “Sorry,” I whisper, not even sure he’s awake enough to hear it.

  He isn’t. His breathing evens out again, slow and familiar.

  I push myself up carefully, joints protesting more than they used to. That’s been happening a lot lately. Everything takes a beat longer. Strength feels… thinner. Like it’s stretched instead of gone.

  Still, something has changed.

  I notice it when I stand on the far side of the room to pull on my vest. There’s no spike of pressure in my chest. No crawling panic. Just a faint awareness, like knowing where someone is without looking.

  We’ve been able to be farther apart during training too. Across the room now. Even farther, sometimes. Before, if one of us needed the bathroom, the other would have to hover just outside the door like a worried mother.

  And listen.

  Which is a deeply humbling experience, no matter how mature you think you are.

  There is a difference between sharing space with someone, sleeping beside them, trading quiet contact when the world gets loud, and standing three feet away from a closed door, desperately trying to pretend you can’t hear something very human happening on the other side.

  I snort before I can stop myself, I bite down on a laugh and fail. He groans, face shoved into the pillow.

  “Don’t,” he mutters.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  Such is life.

  It’s been two nights since we tried to cultivate and very deliberately didn’t try again. The memory still sits weirdly in my chest, not painful, not frightening. Just… close. Too close. Like discovering a door where there shouldn’t be one.

  We have an appointment this morning. Senior cultivation instructor. Someone who’s seen things bend without breaking. Someone who knows how cultivation is supposed to feel when it starts changing.

  Hopefully.

  I glance back at Kai. He’s awake now, one eye cracked open, watching me.

  “You ready?” I ask.

  He exhales, slow and steady. “As I’ll ever be.”

  That doesn’t sound like confidence, but it sounds honest.

  I wait while Kai takes a few minutes to get ready, leaning against the wall with my arms folded and my mind already wandering. Left alone, I do what I always do when there’s too much quiet and not enough supervision.

  I sing.

  It’s off-key and unapologetic, a meandering little song about another type of bird entirely—the majestic turkey. I embellish it with dramatic pauses and a tone that suggests deep reverence for a creature that absolutely does not deserve it. By the time I reach what I decide is the triumphant final verse, I’m grinning at my own commitment.

  Kai turns to face me, still half asleep, hair rumpled, eyes barely open. He studies me for a moment with the long-suffering patience of someone who knows exactly what they’re dealing with.

  “Let me guess,” he says, voice rough with sleep. “Another supposed metaphor. And I’m the turkey.”

  I nod, pleased. “Yes. Precisely. I really appreciate that you’re able to analyze my art so early in the morning and recognize my brilliance.”

  He rolls his eyes in a way that suggests he’s heard this argument before, then fails to suppress the corner of a smile. That feels like a win.

  We leave shortly after.

  The hallways are quieter than usual, that strange, hollow quiet that only exists when everyone else is already in class. Our footsteps echo faintly against the stone, and the lamps overhead cast long, steady lines of light. We’re still on restricted duty, which means no training, no pretending we’re fine just because the day is moving on without us.

  It also reminds me, unhelpfully, that we’re two weeks late for our checkup.

  The thought slips in sideways and settles in my chest, a small knot of dread that I don’t acknowledge out loud. I let it sit there and keep walking.

  We talk as we go, about things that don’t matter and things that matter exactly because they don’t. I tell him about a drawing I’ve been working on, mostly abstract shapes and lines, trying to figure out how motion feels now that my body doesn’t quite move the way it used to. Kai listens, nodding, then mentions that he’s been thinking about learning something new. Maybe an instrument. Maybe painting.

  I stop walking.

  “You should learn the flute,” I say immediately, the idea landing fully formed before I can question it.

  He looks at me, surprised. “Why the flute?”

  “Because,” I reply, already smiling, “you can play, and I can sing.”

  The thought blooms in my chest, bright and warm. Music. Shared. Something uncomplicated and entirely ours, untouched by evaluations or grades or whatever the System decided to throw at us next. The joy it sparks is immediate and almost startling, a clean feeling I haven’t had in weeks.

  I start whistling as we walk again, the tune loose and wandering. When we pass an administrator in the central corridor, I can’t help myself. I spin once, my ornate vest flaring out around me, and bow deeply as she goes by.

  She stops, presses her hands to her chest, and laughs. “Well,” she says warmly, “good morning to you too, boys.”

  I straighten with a flourish. Kai’s face is carefully serious, his expression locked down like he wants no part of this.

  I know better.

  By the time we’re halfway down the hall, he’s humming under his breath, quiet but unmistakable.

  We reach the senior instructor’s office at last. The door is closed, the wood polished smooth and marked with old, subtle sigils worn down by time and use. We check in with the secretary, who gives us a brief, assessing look before telling us to wait.

  We sit side by side.

  I keep humming softly, feet swinging just a little, letting the sound fill the space while we wait to be called in. Whatever happens next, at least we got here like this, laughing, breathing, still ourselves.