When I reached the foyer, only Mr. Toshihiro was there.

  And now that my senses had finally come back into focus, my eyes locked onto him automatically—on his sheer size. Towering. Almost unreal. Well over six feet… closer to seven.

  His presence altered the air.

  It felt like the space adjusted itself around him, as if the room recognized his authority before my mind could catch up. Every step carried a hidden purpose, a cadence that felt less like movement and more like ritual.

  For a second, I could’ve sworn time itself tightened around him.

  The floorboards beneath his feet creaked with a rhythm that sounded almost musical, and each creak had the solemn weight of a note in an invisible symphony.

  Even Zenhaff—usually smug and untouchable—went still, watching him with something like respect… and resignation.

  He wore an immaculate black suit, sharply cut and restrained, with a faint gothic edge that wrapped him in an enigmatic aura. Dark as a moonless night. The buttons at his collar and on his jacket were finely worked silver, gleaming like stars in a deep sky.

  A medallion hung at his throat, stamped with a strange, cryptic symbol. Its very presence felt like a secret. The surface breathed with its own faint light—almost imperceptible—pulsing as if it matched the heart of Nebenbei itself.

  And like Akuma…

  his face was guarded by an extravagant pug mask.

  It was grotesque at first glance, but it carried a solemnity that made my skin prickle. It wasn’t a simple covering. It felt alive. The empty eyeholes caught the light in a disturbing way, as if something inside was watching with infinite patience.

  Then I noticed the smell.

  Old books. Exotic spices. Herbs from half the world—woven together with a hundred other scents rising in strange harmony from the main display in the foyer.

  The air was thick and shifting. With each breath I caught different notes: clove, sandalwood, myrrh, papyrus dust… and the quiet echo of time itself.

  It made me feel like I was breathing inside a story that hadn’t been written yet.

  On the display sat objects that looked like they’d been stolen from ancient myths and bedtime legends.

  Petrified feathers. Glass jars filled with dancing mist. Others that seemed to hold tiny fairies—or something close enough to make my stomach flip. And at the center of it all, a massive red leather book drew my attention.

  Everything on that table looked like it belonged to a different tale. A different world.

  A faint draft slipped through the room, and I could’ve sworn one of the objects sighed.

  It was so soft I might’ve imagined it.

  But a chill crawled down my spine.

  Not because it felt threatening—

  because it felt like the objects knew I was looking at them.

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  I curled my hands into fists, trying not to look impressed. But something in me recognized the truth: this place was full of sleeping life, and one wrong word could wake it.

  There would be time for that later.

  Right now, I needed to focus on the owner of this place.

  He cleared his throat, pulling me out of my trance.

  “Sorry,” I blurted, pointing toward the display. “I’ve just… never seen anything like that.”

  “That’s for another time.” His voice was deep but not harsh, filling the space like a bronze bell. “I see the outfit fits. Good. Follow me.”

  He lifted one hand with the calm of someone who commanded the incomprehensible—and traced a gesture in the air, like an infinity symbol hanging in midair.

  It was so fluid I almost missed it. No dramatic flash. No crack of thunder.

  Just… the space itself yielding.

  In front of my eyes, nothingness began to tear—thread by glowing thread, incandescent strands appearing like fibers drawn from a cosmic loom, slowly outlining the shape of a door.

  The air vibrated with a low, heavy sound—almost underwater—and for a moment I felt as if I stood inside a ringing bell. The luminous filaments wove themselves together with the precision of a divine spider.

  No thread too many.

  No thread too few.

  In a blink, the strands multiplied, crossing into impossible patterns, as if each one obeyed a different law of the universe. Light spilled across the walls, staining the bazaar in a color that belonged somewhere between dawn and a storm.

  The door that emerged looked ancient, carved from wood so old it carried a solemn presence of its own. Across its planks gleamed a star-shaped symbol, vibrant—made of every color I could imagine.

  Each flicker was subtle but deep, bathing the surface with something almost sacred, as if a buried truth lived inside that light. Three boards, bound by austere bands of iron—more than matter.

  A relic.

  A threshold.

  Breathing with the dignity of a temple forgotten by humans…

  but not by gods.

  For a moment, I thought that if I stepped too close, my heart would fall into rhythm with the door’s pulse.

  “It’s wood from a Hippomane mancinella,” Mr. Toshihiro said, as calmly as if he were stating the weather.

  “What is that?” I asked, unable to tear my eyes away.

  “Death apple,” he replied, his calm suddenly edged with something dangerous. “And I’ve managed to preserve all of its… particular attributes in that door.”

  The words punched through me.

  Death apple.

  It didn’t sound poetic.

  It sounded like a warning.

  And yet I didn’t feel fear.

  I felt fascination.

  I drifted closer, hypnotized, my body moving on the pull of something I couldn’t name.

  As I approached, the air grew heavier, and a gentle warmth climbed from my feet into my hands. I didn’t know if it was magic or madness, but something on the other side was calling to me.

  I reached out—

  “Careful.” Toshihiro’s voice sharpened, stopping me seconds before my fingers could touch the knob. “It’s better if I open it for you.”

  He didn’t raise his voice.

  He didn’t need to.

  There was a warning in it that required no explanation.

  My hand froze midair. Even with his words, I felt the silent tug from the other side. Soft. Persistent.

  The silence thickened, expectant.

  Even Zenhaff stopped flicking her tail.

  The lights hanging in the air seemed to hold their breath with us.

  Toshihiro set his palm on the knob with ritual solemnity.

  The symbol on his medallion began to glow faintly, reflecting along the door’s grain.

  The threshold answered with a soft click.

  “Everything in this place has memory,” he said without looking at me. “Including this door. And it doesn’t forget who touches it.”

  The words went straight through me, and I understood he wasn’t only talking about wood.

  The door opened with a deep groan—an old sound, like it came from a time before language.

  The air that spilled out was different: cold, perfumed, threaded with a faint murmur, as if the wind spoke in its sleep.

  I crossed the threshold.

  And I was surprised that, despite expecting something grand and impossible, I found myself facing something… almost ordinary.

  But “ordinary” had a different texture here.

  The floor gleamed as if it had been polished by the passage of hundreds of souls. The walls were draped in rich blue velvet.

  And even though there were no lamps, the room was filled with a steady light with no visible source—as if the wood itself had been carved from brightness.

  I wanted to turn back to Toshihiro.

  I didn’t.

  I was afraid that if I did, the magic would vanish.

  The door closed behind me, and in the silence that followed, I knew I’d crossed more than a physical threshold.

  It was an invisible border between curiosity and fate.

  And though my body still trembled, my mind understood for the first time:

  Nebenbei wasn’t a place made for careless visitors or accidental curiosity.

  Nebenbei demanded respect.

  And commitment.