The sunlight was clean and gold, spilling over the narrow Amsterdam canal like something freshly washed. Tourists clattered past on rented bikes. A tram bell chimed somewhere behind them. The world felt alive.

  Kazou walked beside Zawisza, hands in his pockets, head low. His eyes flickered restlessly, window reflections, passing faces, familiar silhouettes that weren’t there. He felt strangely suspended, as if reality were a thin sheet of glass he hadn’t quite stepped through yet.

  Zawisza, meanwhile, walked with a spring in his stride, the afternoon light turning his hair a brighter brown. He hummed faintly under his breath—some forgotten Polish tune—and Kazou would’ve said it was annoyingly cheerful if it weren’t so… grounding.

  They’d arrived in Amsterdam by sunrise only a few hours ago.

  Just as they turned a corner near the Bloemenmarkt, a young man, barely twenty, with light brown hair, a suit, oddly formal for his age, rushed past in a half-jog. He wasn’t watching where he was going and slammed shoulder-first into an older man coming the other way.

  “Whoa—!” the young man yelped, slipping backward.

  For a split second, Kazou thought he was going to hit the pavement.

  "Uhm!" Kazou yelps.

  But then—

  A hand shot out.

  Zawisza caught the young man by the wrist in one smooth, instinctive movement, steady but gentle. He pulled him upright with practiced ease.

  “Easy,” Zawisza said, smiling like the sun itself. “Got you.”

  The young man blinked, stunned, then laughed breathlessly.

  “God, thanks, man. I really thought I was going down.” He pushed his bangs out of his face, cheeks pink from embarrassment. "It's kind of embarrassing... especially as a junior detective. I should be the one helping others."

  Kazou instinctively flinched at the word detective

  “No worries, kid. Anytime,” Zawisza replied, releasing his wrist with a small pat. "Don't let one mistake get to you."

  The young man grinned, wide and bright. There was something boyish in it, something trusting, something that reminded Kazou painfully of a life before blood and manipulation and Casimir-shaped shadows.

  “Seriously, you saved me,” the stranger said. “I owe you one.”

  Zawisza waved it off, his grin softening.

  “Just watch your step next time. City’s slippery.”

  The young man laughed again, nodded, and jogged off, raising a hand in farewell.

  Zawisza lifted his own in response—cheerfully, openly.

  Kazou watched the whole exchange with an unreadable stare.

  Only once the stranger had disappeared around the corner did Kazou speak.

  “…You know,” Kazou muttered, eyes narrowing at Zawisza’s smile, “not many people… do that. Grab someone like that. React like that. You seem immune to the bystander effect.”

  Zawisza shrugged lightly.

  “I saw he was falling.”

  “That fast?” Kazou asked. “You moved like you expected it.”

  Zawisza looked forward again, hands tugging the straps of his backpack as they resumed walking.

  “I used to help my peers from falling over the traps when I was a kid, just so we could escape that place...” he said simply. “You learn to catch people quickly.”

  Kazou said nothing.

  Place?

  Kazou's eyes lowered, and something in his chest tightened with an uncomfortable warmth, a tug he didn’t like. He just wanted to know what Mr. Zawisza meant.

  They walked in silence for a few seconds, the canal glittering beside them.

  Zawisza turned his head slightly, smiling as if to reassure him, even though Kazou hadn’t said he needed it.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Amsterdam’s nice, isn’t it?” Zawisza asked lightly, his wide smile never fading.

  Kazou didn’t answer immediately.

  He watched a cluster of young cyclists glide by, laughing. He watched the sunlight ripple over the water, felt Dutch air fill his lungs—it didn’t smell like Warsaw or Tokyo or anywhere he knew. It was unfamiliar, clean, and disorienting.

  “…It’s fine,” Kazou muttered.

  “‘Fine,’” Zawisza repeated, amused. “We’ll get you to ‘nice’ one day.”

  Kazou shot him a sideways glare.

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

  Zawisza laughed under his breath, warm and genuine.

  They crossed the bridge, the tram rattling in the distance, and Kazou’s mind began to drift—darkly, sharply—to the reasons they were here. To the shadows they followed. To Casimir. To the danger already crawling under his skin.

  But for a moment—for just one bright moment—Zawisza’s laughter pushed the darkness back.

  Just a little.

  The canal narrowed into a quieter street, the city softening into gentle noises, bicycle wheels ticking, distant chatter, a dog barking somewhere behind rows of crooked townhouses.

  Kazou walked half a step behind Zawisza, watching him, watching the ease in his stride, the lightness that seemed unnatural for someone who had spoken so casually about “escaping.” The word throbbed in Kazou's head.

  Eventually, the curiosity, the need, pushed past his hesitation.

  “…What did you mean,” Kazou asked, voice low, “by ‘helping your peers escape that place’? When you were kids.”

  Zawisza slowed. Not dramatically, just enough that Kazou knew he had heard him.

  Then he looked back with a soft, almost apologetic smile.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  Kazou blinked.

  Zawisza held the rail of the bridge loosely, leaning against it as the wind tousled his hair. He looked out over the glimmering water, eyes distant, but not empty. Searching.

  “That’s exactly why I’m in Amsterdam too,” he continued, his tone calm, almost playful, but underneath it lay something old and bruised. “I’m… a writer, sort of. I write research papers. Not for a big audience, just a tiny group of people curious enough to care.”

  Kazou watched him carefully.

  Zawisza exhaled softly, his breath fogging faintly in the cool afternoon air.

  “I came here hoping to find out more about my childhood. Not just for myself, but for the rest of the kids who were with me back then.”

  Kazou’s chest tightened.

  “You don’t remember any of it?” he asked.

  Zawisza shook his head gently.

  “Not fully.” His fingers drummed lightly on the railing. “I remember… a dark space. Vast. Cold. Not like a room, more like an endless hall with no walls. We were running. So many of us. Bare feet slapping the ground, breath shaking.” His voice softened. “We were running toward a bright door. A real door, light pouring from it like daylight. As if it were the gates to heaven."

  Kazou’s stomach dropped.

  Zawisza continued, gaze still fixed on the canal.

  “We all knew—somehow—that once we reached it, we’d be free. And then—everything else is… a smear. A haze.... And the story,” He sighed and added, as if remembering something suddenly. “There was a story I watched and read every day. The same story. Over and over. For so long that I… don’t know how long.” His brows tightened for the first time—a flicker of strain. “I don’t know where it came from. Or who gave it to me. But it was always the same.”

  Kazou swallowed.

  “Did all of that… happen in Amsterdam?” he asked carefully.

  Zawisza finally turned to him again. His expression was soft, almost apologetic, like he wished he could give Kazou a better answer.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But it was in the Netherlands. That much I… feel, not remember.”

  Kazou’s hands tightened in his pockets.

  There was silence for a moment, wind brushing past them, rippling the canal.

  Then Zawisza looked at him with a small, gentle grin.

  “You know,” he said lightly, “something about you is familiar. In a good way.”

  Kazou froze.

  “Familiar?” he repeated, his voice a little too sharp.

  Zawisza nodded, smiling faintly.

  “You remind me of someone I used to know. Or… maybe someone I saw...” His eyes softened. “A better version of someone else.”

  Kazou’s breath caught.

  “…Who?” he whispered.

  Zawisza blinked once, slowly.

  Then, with the same calm, honest smile—

  “I don’t know.”

  Kazou felt something cold crack down his spine. The sunlight seemed to shift, shadows stretching long beneath their feet.

  And yet Zawisza’s smile never faltered.

  Warm.

  Bright.

  Oblivious.

  Zawisza drifted closer to the edge of the bridge, the afternoon sun breaking over him like a second skin. He rested his palms lightly on the railing, leaning forward just enough that the light caught in his hair and made it shine a softer brown-gold.

  For a moment, he just breathed.

  Then he lifted his face toward the sky, eyes closing, lashes brushing against his cheeks, as if he were letting the warmth seep into places inside him that had been cold too long.

  His smile changed.

  It wasn’t the cheerful grin he'd been flashing around all morning. It was small, exhausted, and honest.

  There was something in it, something fragile. Something that looked like a man savoring beauty because he’d gone most of his life without knowing he was allowed to.

  A breeze picked up, lifting the ends of Zawisza’s hair. The canal glittered beneath them like broken glass mended back together.

  Kazou found himself slowing to a stop, watching silently.

  He didn’t understand this man—not at all. Zawisza smiled like someone who had seen hell and decided to pretend it was a childhood fairy tale. He spoke like trauma was a distant thing, not something coiled inside him. He acted like saving a stranger from falling was the most natural thing in the world.

  Kazou felt something warm crawl unexpectedly into his chest.

  Zawisza inhaled deeply, his chest rising, shoulders relaxing. When he exhaled, it came out as a soft, peaceful hum, barely audible under the murmur of the canal.

  Kazou realized, almost with a start, that the man looked… content.

  Simply standing there in the sun was a victory.

  Kazou felt the corners of his own mouth tug upward—slowly, involuntarily.

  A small smile.

  The first real one he’d felt in days.

  It surprised him.

  Zawisza didn’t see it—his eyes still closed, face basking in the quiet warmth of Amsterdam—but somehow, Kazou was grateful for that.

  Because smiling at someone like Zawisza felt like revealing a part of himself he’d spent years hiding.