The buzz of the fluorescent on the counter doesn't change, no matter how hard I try to ignore it. It's always there, like a constant reminder that I'm stuck in this place. Outside, the rain hits the window with a slow, monotonous rhythm, tinting the neon lights with a gray, tired filter. It's twenty past one in the morning. The city sleeps, or so it seems.
I don't need to look at the clock to know how much is left of the shift. My body already knows it: five more hours, a routine that is repeated day after day. Then comes the cleaning, the awkward chat with the manager, and the ten past seven train, which takes me back to a place I can't call home.
I'm twenty years old, although I don't know if anyone would notice. My shirt is wrinkled, my eyes are sunken, and my hands are tucked into the pockets of my apron. Here, no one calls me by my name. But it's embroidered on the chest: Yuu.
I don't hate my life, but I don't value it either.
I dropped out of college after a year. I said it was because of economic problems, although I didn't believe it. My mother disappeared when I was eleven. My father... it is still there, but it is not there. Not really. More than a man, he is a shadow that screams and drinks in silence.
The beep of the automatic door takes me out of my thoughts.
A man in a wobbly suit enters, smelling of expensive liquor. He buys a pack of cigarettes and a soda, without looking at me. He pays with a crumpled bill and leaves without saying a word.
I return to my silence.
I have learned to live like this: without expecting anything, without desiring anything. Like another device in this store, functional and dispensable. Some regulars call me "the silent guy".
Sometimes I wonder if, when I die, someone will notice that I'm gone.
That night, as I close the box for the fifth time, I feel my hands shake a little more than usual. I think it's the cold. Or the cheap instant coffee I drink every day.
I walked through the narrow aisles of the small store, my eyes going over and over again the same products I'd been looking at for hours without really paying attention to them. Each shelf seemed to tell a silent story, but I had stopped listening.
Not far from the box was the rear compartment, where the electrical panel was. The owner insisted that leaving the switches on consumed more light than turning them off, even though the light seemed to go out on its own anyway. I didn't know if I believed in it or if I was just repeating what I heard to pass the time.
I walked over and looked at the panel, thinking about what I should do. The routine was repeated, just like these switches: on, off, on... small gestures that tried to give meaning to a meaningless day.
When I left everything as the boss ordered, I gathered my things and left the store. I locked the doors, though, to be honest, it was just a formality; sooner or later someone would come in.
I looked up at the sky. Cloudy, wanting to cry, ready to soak everything in a matter of minutes.
"Great," I murmured, wanting to throw the keys away, so far away that I would never have to see them again.
I sighed and began to walk through the dark streets of Kyoto, barely lit by street lamps and the scattered lights of cars passing by on the road.
My hands, tucked into my pockets like an automatic reflex, sweated profusely. I had to take them out to dry them against my pants.
I took out my phone and pressed the power button several times. He was dead. Without enough battery to continue working. I put my phone back in my pants pocket, annoyed. I would have liked to listen to some music, if only to pretend I wasn't alone.
After walking several streets and turning a few more corners, I finally got home. A modest house, although in the eyes of certain people it might seem elegant, even of someone with money. But nothing could be further from the truth.
I crossed the small iron door that gave access to the narrow stone path that led to the main entrance. That's when I felt it.
That weight. Unexpected. Familiar. As if someone had dropped an invisible cement sack on my shoulders.
It wasn't tiredness. It was something deeper. Like a silent warning.
I walked along the polished stone path, well maintained in spite of everything, to the front door. I inserted the key with hands still wet from sweat and slowly turned the doorknob.
As I opened it, the darkness inside enveloped me like a damp blanket. Heavy. Cold. It was as if the house itself was devouring me, little by little.
The only light on was the one in the kitchen, seeping faintly down the hallway like a distant lighthouse in a dead sea.
I entered, first one foot, then the other, as if I were completely immersed in the gloom when I crossed the threshold. A thick silence hung in the air, stuck to the walls, to the furniture, to my chest.
It was a familiar silence. The kind of silence that doesn't comfort. The one who keeps things that no one says, but everyone feels.
I walked down the aisle with slow steps, dragging my backpack along one of the straps. With each step, the light in the kitchen became more intense... and also the voices.
A voice, specifically.
My father's.
"And what am I supposed to do now, huh?" He shouted into the phone, in that tone of his that seemed to bite. Are you going to leave us stranded, just like that? As if it were my fault!
I stopped by the dining room frame, not daring to go in at all. I leaned against the wall. The ground creaked beneath my feet, but he didn't flinch.
"Of course that kid is to blame! he snapped. Do you think I wanted to stay with him? If it weren't for him, you... You wouldn't have left.
He was silent for a few seconds. Only his breathing could be heard, agitated.
"You have an obligation to send us that money. Or are you going to play worthy now? Or have you already forgotten who kept this house when you gave up?
I felt something shrink inside me.
It was not the first time I had heard him spout barbarities. But it hurt more and more. Every word of his seemed like a deaf shot. He was not screaming out of rage. He screamed out of habit.
I took a couple more steps. The ground creaked again.
He turned.
I stood on the threshold of the kitchen, watching his silhouette silhouetted under the single light bulb on. He was still holding the phone tightly, as if he wanted to break it in two.
He looked at me with half-closed eyes, tense lips.
Hung. Suddenly.
Silence.
A dry silence. Uncomfortable. As if they had just closed a door that should never have been opened.
I didn't say anything. Neither does he.
We just looked at each other, caught in a moment that neither wanted to prolong... but that none of them could avoid.
"The fucking money," he blurted out suddenly, in a surprisingly calm tone, as if he'd rehearsed it in front of the mirror. Pay me what you owe me.
I stood still. I didn't need to explain what he meant.
Ever since my mother left us—or rather, escaped—and I found that shitty job in the store, he decided that I had to pay her a kind of monthly "rent." It didn't matter if it was fair. It didn't matter if we made it to the end of the month. The only thing that mattered to him was that the money went into his pocket. Without fail.
I swallowed hard.
This month I didn't have enough. The boss had lowered our salary again, because sales in the store were going badly. He said it was temporary, but that was no comfort when you opened the fridge and there was only rice.
I knew it from the moment I got paid: I wasn't going to be enough.
But to tell him... it was something else.
"Not this month," I began, but the words stuck in my throat. They have lowered their salary. It doesn't reach me.
Silence.
A couple of seconds that seemed eternal. Just enough so that I could hear her breathing change, get deeper. More contained.
"Are you hesitating me?" He said with a crooked smile, cocking his head. It wasn't a real smile. It never was.
"No, I'm not hesitating you. It's the truth. I don't have enough. I barely have enough to...
"Don't fucking tell me stories!" He bellowed, banging his fist on the table. A glass vibrated and fell to the ground, breaking into a thousand pieces.
I reflexively took a step back. Its shadow grew larger in the kitchen light, warping against the wall.
"You're just like your fucking mother!" He snapped, his eyes shot into rage. A shithead who leaves me stranded when I need it most! On top of that, you look at me like that, with that face of pity!
"I'm not looking at you at all," I murmured, trying to stay calm, but my voice was already shaking. Only... I just want to go to sleep. Tomorrow I'll get up early.
"Sleep?" He sneered. Do you think this is a hotel? On top of that, I give you a roof!
"You don't give me anything..." he escaped me.
Too late.
He stood still. Very quiet.
Then he laughed. A dry, hollow laugh.
"What do you say?"
"You don't give me anything," I repeated, no longer strong, without thinking, as if my lips moved on their own. If it were up to you, I'd be dead long ago. You only use me to collect what Mom commands. Now that he doesn't command anything anymore, why am I here?
I saw him go around the kitchen and approach, very slowly. Every step sounded like thunder in my chest.
"Shut the fucking mouth.
"I wish you had left," I blurted out. I didn't think about it. I just said it. You are the parasite. No, Mom. Not me.
Something inside him broke. I saw it. It was like a spark.
And then he pounced.
I felt the impact first on the cheek. Then in the stomach. The air went out of my blue. I fell to the floor, the cold of the tiles digging into my back.
I couldn't see well. The lights were spinning around me. But I did hear the drawer open.
The one with the knives.
"If you get in the way so much... I'd better get you out of the way once and for all," he spat, with a contained and sick fury, as if he had been keeping that phrase for years.
I tried to get up, back up, whatever, but my legs wouldn't respond. Fear paralyzed me.
And then I saw it.
It shone for a second under the kitchen light.
The knife.
"Dad," I managed to say, my voice breaking. For. Please...
But there was no response.
Just a stabbing pain. Cold. Then another. And another.
The world turned red. Then black.
The last thing I felt was his breath on top of me. And absolute silence.