Hikari sat in the engawa, legs dangling over the edge as the wind rustled the leaves in the garden. She had been feeling strange lately—not just lonely, but hollow. There was a piece of her that felt… misplaced. Forgotten.
She was seventeen now.
Almost eighteen.
But when she tried to remember her childhood, everything before the age of seven felt like a closed book with missing pages.
No candles.No cake.No seventh birthday.
And yet, she remembered every other birthday. The eighth one with the red bean mochi. The tenth one when Sayoko gave her a hand-sewn kimono. Even the sixteenth—just the two of them, quietly sharing sukiyaki in silence.
But seven?
Nothing.
"Sayoko-san," she asked later that evening as they prepared dinner together, "what did we do for my seventh birthday?"
Sayoko, chopping green onions at the counter, didn't look up.
"It was a quiet day," she said. "Nothing special."
"But we always do something."
Sayoko smiled gently, still not meeting her eyes. "It was the year everyone left, remember? They were busy. I didn't want you to feel sad, so we stayed home."
Hikari stirred the miso too hard. Some of it splashed.
"Do you remember what you cooked?"
"Of course," Sayoko said. "Nikujaga. Your favorite."
Something tightened in Hikari's chest.
She turned off the heat and said nothing more.
That night, the house groaned louder than usual.
The wind howled, as if trying to say something—something buried beneath floorboards and old lies.
Hikari couldn't sleep. She tossed and turned, eyes staring at the ceiling, her heart refusing to calm.
At midnight, she got up.
She walked through the hallway barefoot, stopping at the storeroom Sayoko never let her enter.
But now, the door was slightly open.
She hesitated.
She pushed.
It creaked.
Inside, the smell was worse than ever—like old metal and mold, layered with something sweet and wrong.
She stepped in.
The air was thick. Dust danced in the moonlight.
Then her eyes fell on a small box, locked with a rusted latch.
She knelt down. The lock was loose.
Inside, she found:
A photograph of her family seated around the dinner table—dated one day before her seventh birthday.
Her mother's necklace.
A kitchen knife… stained brown.
A small envelope, sealed in wax.
Hands trembling, she opened it.
Inside: a birthday card.
"To my dear Hikari.Be brave.Be good.Forgive me."
It was Sayoko's handwriting.
Underneath the card… a VHS tape.
Sayoko wasn't home the next day.
She'd left early to buy ingredients in town.
Hikari rummaged through an old drawer until she found the dusty player in the back room.
She connected it. Inserted the tape. Pressed play.
The screen fuzzed.
Then:A home video.
Her family.
Laughing. Cooking. Preparing for her birthday.
Her father, pacing. Her uncle, drinking. Her aunt, whispering nervously.
Then came the words. The conversation.
Muffled at first. Then louder.
About debts. About a buyer. About "getting rid of the girl before it's too late."
About a deal with men who didn't ask questions.
About her.
The screen cut to static.
Then, a second clip.
Sayoko.
Blood on her apron. Her hands shaking.
Tears on her face.
"I had to do it," she whispered to the camera. "They were going to sell her. I heard everything. I tried the police. No one believed me. I had no choice. I had to protect her."
Her eyes looked into the camera—wild, broken, certain.
"She'll never know what they planned. She'll never know what she ate. I'll make sure she grows up happy… even if she grows up alone."
The tape stopped.
The screen went black.
Hikari stared at her reflection in the glass.
She was still holding the birthday card.
And suddenly, she could taste something in her mouth.
Not food.
Not memory.
Something… metallic.
Something that had been there all along.