They didn’t run to each other. Not immediately. They just stood, breathless, as the twilight drained away.

For the next few weeks, the switching came like weather. Takuya woke up as her —a girl named Mei, a university student in Tokyo who sketched constellations in the margins of her notes. And Mei woke up as him —a young carpenter in a quiet coastal town, where the sea cracked against black rocks and the only train came twice a day.

The sky, for a moment, would hold its breath.

“Look at the sky on October 4th. Don’t ask why. Just be there.”

Then, one morning, the switching stopped.