Akiro didn't open the notebook that morning.
It sat on the table where he'd left it, leather cover catching the light in a way that felt intentional, almost expectant. He avoided looking at it too long. There was a sense, vague but persistent, that the moment he began writing, something would start paying closer attention.
Instead, he made coffee.
The routine helped. Grinding the beans, waiting for the kettle, the faint bitterness in the air. Actions with predictable outcomes. Or at least, outcomes that still felt mostly predictable. He watched the steam curl upward and vanish, noting with mild unease how it lingered a heartbeat longer than it should have.
He drank slowly, eyes on the window.
Outside, the city had moved on. People hurried past, umbrellas tucked under arms, conversations blending into a low, constant murmur. The world had no visible scars from what he'd done to it, or what it had failed to do to him. That, more than anything, made the whole thing feel unreal.
Akiro checked the time and sighed. He was late again.
Work had been understanding since the stabbing. Too understanding. Lighter hours, gentler expectations, careful looks that lasted half a second longer than they should have. He didn't like it, but he accepted it. Pushing back too hard would only invite questions.
He grabbed his jacket and headed out.
The walk was uneventful until it wasn't.
Halfway down the street, a car horn blared sharply. Akiro turned just in time to see a cyclist swerve hard to avoid an opening door. The impact didn't happen right away. The bike clipped the curb, wobbled, then seemed to hang in the air for a fraction of a second too long before the rider finally hit the pavement.
People reacted instantly. Shouts, footsteps, a rush of movement.
Akiro didn't.
He felt it instead. That faint internal shift, like a page being turned somewhere behind his eyes. The delay hadn't been centered on him this time, not directly, but it had brushed against him all the same. His presence had been part of the chain.
He helped lift the bike. Checked if the rider was alright. Blood didn't appear until later, seeping through a torn sleeve while they were already talking about ambulances and insurance. No one else seemed to notice the timing.
Akiro stepped back, heart pounding.
This was new.
At work, he couldn't concentrate. Numbers blurred. Conversations drifted past him without sticking. Every movement felt like it carried weight beyond itself. He kept wondering how far the delay extended. How much of the world it touched simply because he was there.
During his break, his phone buzzed.
An unfamiliar number.
He stared at the screen longer than he should have before answering.
"Hello?"
A brief pause. Then a voice. Not Takeda's. Younger, sharper, but carrying the same careful restraint. "You're Akiro."
It wasn't a question.
He glanced around the break room. Empty. "Who is this?"
"You were discharged three days ago. Knife wound. Unusual recovery."
Akiro's grip tightened. "If this is a prank—"
"It isn't," the voice said calmly. "Takeda asked me to check in."
That name settled his pulse slightly, though not by much. "He didn't say he would."
"He rarely does."
Akiro exhaled through his nose. "So you're with him."
"Yes."
"Doing what, exactly?"
Another pause. A faint sound in the background, like pages turning. "Learning what it means when the world hesitates."
The line went dead.
Akiro lowered the phone slowly.
No instructions. No threats. No follow-up. Just confirmation that he hadn't imagined it. Whatever Takeda was part of, it wasn't a single man watching anomalies out of personal curiosity. There was a structure behind it. People. Roles. Attention.
That night, he opened the notebook.
The pen hesitated in his hand, not from any temporal effect but from doubt. He'd never been one for journaling. Writing things down made them feel fixed, harder to ignore. But the thought returned, uninvited and insistent.
Measure yourself before the world does.
He wrote the date.
Then, carefully, he described the cyclist. The delayed fall. The blood that came late. The way he'd felt the shift without being the center of it. He didn't speculate. Didn't try to explain. He just recorded.
The act grounded him.
Page by page, he noted small things. Objects that fell too slowly. Sounds that arrived a fraction late. A glass he'd nearly dropped that seemed to resist gravity for an instant before shattering. Patterns emerged, but faint ones, like constellations half-hidden by cloud.
When he finished, he realized hours had passed.
His body reminded him of that fact all at once.
The pain in his side flared suddenly, sharp and deep. Not new pain. Deferred pain. The kind that felt offended at being ignored. Akiro bit back a sound and leaned forward, elbows on knees, breathing through it as waves of discomfort rolled in.
So this was the cost.
He hadn't been injured again. He hadn't pushed himself particularly hard. And yet, reality had decided it was time to collect something.
The pain subsided slowly, leaving him drained but intact.
Akiro closed the notebook and rested his forehead against it.
"I get it," he muttered to the empty room. Not as a plea. As acknowledgment.
The next few days followed a rhythm. Work. Observation. Writing. Rest. He didn't test the boundaries. Not yet. He let the power exist around him instead of trying to pull at it. In doing so, he started noticing something else.
There were gaps.
Moments where the delay should have manifested, but didn't. Instances where events resolved cleanly and immediately, as if the world had decided not to hesitate at all. Those moments stood out now more than the delayed ones.
He wrote those down too.
On the fifth evening, someone knocked on his door.
Not a delivery. Not a neighbor.
Akiro felt it before he heard it. That same internal shift, subtle but unmistakable. He opened the door cautiously.
Takeda stood in the hallway.
No jacket this time. No pretense of casual coincidence. He looked tired, more so than before, and there was something else in his expression now. Not urgency, but concern.
"You've been busy," he said, glancing past Akiro at the notebook on the table.
"You said you wouldn't follow me."
"I said I'd notice," Takeda replied. "Those are different things."
Akiro stepped aside, letting him in.
They sat across from each other at the small table. The notebook lay between them like a third presence.
"You spoke to one of them," Akiro said.
Takeda nodded. "I needed to know if the delay was propagating."
"And is it?"
"Yes."
That single word carried weight.
Takeda leaned back slightly. "Don't misunderstand. It's subtle. Manageable. For now. But it means you're no longer just surviving anomalies. You're introducing them."
Akiro absorbed that in silence.
"There are others who would be very interested to learn that," Takeda continued. "Some out of curiosity. Some out of fear."
"And you?"
Takeda met his gaze. "Out of responsibility."
Akiro tapped the notebook lightly. "Then maybe you should start explaining."
Takeda's eyes flicked to the door, then back. "Not yet."
Akiro frowned. "You said—"
"I said timing matters," Takeda interrupted gently. "And yours is… unstable."
The word settled uncomfortably between them.
Takeda stood. "Keep writing. Keep observing. Don't force it."
"And when the world forces me?"
A faint, humorless smile crossed Takeda's face. "Then we'll have a more serious conversation."
He left without another word.
Akiro sat there long after the door closed, staring at the notebook.
Outside, the city moved on. Inside, the ledger waited.
He picked up the pen again.
Not because he wanted answers.
But because something was clearly preparing to ask questions.