The rain had only just started, soft and whispering as it fell through the empty streets of Yokohama. You sat alone on a bench near the harbor, the world hazy around the edges—whether from the rain or your thoughts, you couldn’t quite tell.

That’s when you felt it. A presence. Not loud, not violent—no, it was subtle, like a shadow deciding to speak.

You turned.

Fyodor Dostoevsky stood just a few paces away, an umbrella tilted against the rain and his usual faint smile gracing his lips like a secret only he understood. His gaze fixed on you—not with curiosity, but with calculation.

“How fascinating,” he said softly, voice like the cold that seeped into your bones. “You sit there as though the world does not concern you, yet everything about you screams that it does.”