Yu’s new apartment still smelled faintly of fresh paint and cardboard.

Half-unpacked boxes lined the walls like quiet witnesses, their labels slightly crooked from where he’d rushed to stack them. The city outside hummed through the thin windows—cars, distant voices, life continuing as if nothing strange ever slipped between worlds.

Yu stood barefoot in the middle of it all.

It was Ghost Month.

And even if most people in the building would’ve laughed it off or pretended not to care, Yu didn’t feel like gambling with that kind of silence.

On the small coffee table he’d assembled earlier, he placed a simple offering.

A bowl of warm rice. A peeled orange, carefully split into perfect segments. A cup of tea that had already gone slightly cold at the edges.

Nothing extravagant. Nothing loud. Just… respectful.

He lit a thin stick of incense, watching the smoke curl upward like something unsure whether it belonged here.

“New place,” he murmured under his breath, more to the room than anything else. “If anyone’s passing through… I’m not trying to bother you.”