The morning when sunlight failed to reach the cracked walls of a town forgotten by its own country. Fog dragged itself through the alleyways like a tired stray. Rooftops bled rust, sidewalks buckled, and somewhere beneath the surface, the earth itself might've sighed.
People still moved. They always did.
Some woke beside warmth—a lover's breath on their neck, a murmured "good morning" that almost sounded like "i love you." Others sat across from empty chairs, sipping bitter instant coffee from chipped mugs while the news droned in the background, saying nothing new. Then there were the night-shift ghosts, already trudging home, their faces pale as moth wings, clothes reeking of factory smoke, stale alcohol, or the salty tang of overtime.
The town didn't care who you were — only that you followed the rhythm.
Work. Eat. Repeat.
That was the rule. It didn't matter if you loved it or loathed it. If you were a sinner or a saint. If you still had dreams or had long since given up.
Some found solace in small things: the barista who remembered your order, the neighbor who still nodded at you even after all these years. Others clung to vices—cigarettes smoked in alley shadows, petty arguments with spouses they no longer recognized, the hollow comfort of a stranger's bed.
Laughter flickered and died like a match in the wind.
No one really asked if you were happy. You either kept going or you didn't. And if you disappeared?
Well... the world would swallow your place, and life would carry on.
And in one small apartment, pressed hardest against the window by the decay, Raizo sat in the dark, somewhere among these cracked streets where the greyness hadn't lifted and the clocks ticked louder than voices.
"Another day goes by, huh?"
The disheveled young man muttered, more to the dust than the room, a frown etched itself into his face. Unlike the others, he hadn't woken up that morning.
He hadn't slept. He'd been awake since yesterday, staring at the water-stained ceiling.
The ceiling offered no answers, just water stains that mapped out constellations of neglect. His bed—a nest of tangled sheets long since kicked to the floor—stood abandoned. Rest felt like a con, something for people who still believed in renewal. His body disagreed; every muscle ached, limbs heavy. With a grunt, he dragged himself upright, not to greet the day, but to glare at the clock on his dresser.
He looked again. 7:46 AM. Blinked. 7:53 AM
Seven minutes gone, dissolved like breath on glass. Seven minutes he'd never get back, wasted on nothing worth remembering.
Outside, a shift worker trudged past, the faint reek of factory smoke seeping under the door. He hated that smell. It smelled like unfinished arguments.
Like sea salt.
Always sea salt…
He forced himself up. No stretching. No fresh clothes. Just the same black T-shirt and sweatpants he'd worn the last two days.
Tap. Tap. Tap
Each step on the familiar hallway felt like a stab into the soles of his feet. The smooth cold on the tiles was the only response.
Numbness had become his baseline. One more thing.
Nayumi's door stood at the end of the hall like a question he'd never had the courage to ask.
He stopped. Stared. Silence pressed, muffling the world, until it carried the faint, imagined echo of waves.
(...Not this again.)
For years he had struggled to face the sea—yet ironically, his work chained him to the western edge of Namizato, where the horizon stretched wide and merciless. Every morning he rose to the laughter of seagulls and the smell of salt, reminders of something he could never escape.
The scent clung to him like a memory, sharp and briny, and he could almost feel the chill of the waves against his skin, the endless stretch of water reflecting everything he had failed to hold onto.
He exhaled. His forehead met the door. His gaze sank into the handle—a key to something he no longer believed himself worthy of.
The faint creak of the hinges felt like the distant crash of surf against rocks, insistent and unforgiving. He could almost taste the salt on his tongue, and it stung.
"Should I wake her up or...?" A mumble,half-lost to the stillness. Not that it mattered—if she was awake, she'd hear him. It wasn't guilt that made him hesitate.
Not exactly.
They rarely fought. She forgave too quickly, and he'd stopped resisting long ago. No, this was something else—a weariness that made even love feel like a weight.
He just didn't know what to do first on a day like this — the kind that punished you for not being ready.
"Nayumi. Can I come in?"
He waited. Unmoving.
A statue carved from guilt.
Breathing. Barely.
A rustle of sheets. A slow creak. Then—
"No-o-o, password required Rai-Rai!" The nickname should've made him scowl. Instead, something in his chest pierced—a ghost of a reflex, like a muscle remembering a forgotten motion.
…Because this childish game — it mirrored moments from years ago, frame for frame.
He felt suddenly too old for games that echoed a simpler, lost time. The thought soured in his mind as he stared at his hands, stiff and foreign in the dim light.
He rapped the door with the side of his scarred knuckles — not to be let in, but to be acknowledged.
It had always been open; the 'password' was just her game.
"Nayumi. Can I come in?"
Silence, broken by her giggle — light and expectant.
"...Please?" He grunted. His exasperation only seemed to amuse her further.
Before he could push the door, it flew inward and Nayumi launched herself out, already smiling.
To anyone else, she'd just be... bright. But to him...
Her grin was a rebellion against the gloom, her amber eyes so warm they made his own seem like smudged charcoal in comparison. Today's armor: dinosaur pajamas, the T-Rex on her shirt locked in eternal, goofy battle with a pancake—fitting for her age.
"Second try! Not bad for a grumpy-pants!" Teasing him this lightly,as if he were her Robin — only Nayumi was a weird kind of Batman. Dinosaur pajamas don't exactly sell brooding.
Then, without warning—
She hugged him.
Her small arms barely reached around his waist. He held his breath until his ribs ached. Touch was a lit match dropped on dry grass, she held on like it was effortless. Like she didn't know—or maybe didn't care—what those arms had done under the name she called him.
He flinched. Tension spiderwebbed up his spine, sharp and unwelcome. But then his hand settled on her head, ruffling her hair until she squealed with delight.
His eyes settled on the top of her head with something close to longing. The warmth of her felt like something already slipping away, even though it didn't have to.
"You're up for breakfast?" His voice was softer now, sanded down by her presence.
"I'm up for anything! Except eggs. Unless they're not runny. Ew."
She marched past him like mornings had never hurt. Like the world wasn't broken.
He envied that.
But maybe—just maybe—it was okay to follow her.
He blinked as she skipped down the hall, her dinosaur-clad feet tapping in an erratic, joyful rhythm against the floorboards. The sound bounced off the walls and filled the space that usually swallowed him whole. Maybe the world wasn't broken. Not for her.
—
As he followed, his gaze drifted to a small mirror set beside a cluttered desk, framed by scattered papers and stray pens. A sketch was taped to its edge. Nayumi's drawing. Two figures—one tall and haphazardly sketched, the other smaller, colored in with a careful, warm red—holding hands around what she imagined to be a human heart. The lines were shaky, uneven, but the smiles were earnest.
He stepped back from the drawing, his breath hitching, a sudden chill crawling down his spine. Something colder than fear, something unnameable, licked at the back of his neck. The innocence of the lines, the warmth of the small figure, it all stabbed at something buried deep, a reminder of a tenderness he had long rejected.
Then came the irritation. Sharp, familiar, grounding. A protective shell snapping back into place.
Raizo muttered under his breath, low and rough, a practiced tone he had perfected for coworkers who lingered too long. "Go haunt someone else, bastard." The words cut through the uneasy quiet, a wall against feelings he didn't want to feel. Yet, even as he spoke them, he couldn't tear his eyes away from the red figure.
The smell of toasted bread drifted toward him, sharp and comforting.
He realized he hadn't moved since seeing the drawing. And maybe that was the point—maybe it was enough that she existed, that she moved through her mornings as though nothing was broken, and he, stubborn and rigid, could simply follow.
By the time he reached the kitchen, Nayumi was already there, moving in quick, unpolished bursts—rinsing her hands…
The hallway stretched ahead, longer than it had any right to be—not because the house was large, but because it had learned the trick of holding its breath. Every step he took landed softer than it ought to, swallowed by the kind of quiet that comes from too many nights of tiptoeing around ghosts. Nothing creaked anymore. Not out of repair, but resignation.
By the time he reached the kitchen, Nayumi was already there, moving in quick, unpolished bursts—rinsing her hands with the clumsy precision of a child who'd only recently learned how to do it without splashing water everywhere.
He didn't greet her.
She didn't expect him to
The lights were too warm. The plates clattered onto the counter, cups set down with a little more force than necessary.
Her presence filled the room like steam from a kettle—warm, but not quite reaching the corners. She was a blur of mismatched socks and flyaway hair, Familiar. Not comforting.
His feet stopped at the threshold of the kitchen.
Her voice cut through the quiet.
"Coffee's there Raizo," she said, already sitting, already pretending not to look at whether he would drink it or not.
Didn't answer. He scratched at his arm, a motion too quick and forced to be a real itch.
A flicker crossed his face. Not indifference. Just... something else trying not to be seen.
Then he moved, like someone slipping into clothes that didn't quite belong to him.
Two mugs sat on the counter. The darker one was lately his—the one with the handle chipped near the base, the one she always filled first, though she'd never admit to noticing the difference. Steam curled lazily from the rim, twisting into shapes that dissolved before he could name them.
His hands moved—puppeted by some stale, muscle-memory ghost. Fridge open. Eggs, butter, bread—simple things, light in his grip, as if the house had hollowed them out when he wasn't looking.
The pan hissed as it heated. In that pause, he finally pulled out a chair and sat. The wood groaned under his weight, a sound so ordinary it felt like an accusation.
Across from him, Nayumi swung her legs beneath the table. Not wildly, not like she used to—just a steady, absentminded rhythm, the heels of her socks brushing the floor with every pass.
"Did you dream again?" she asked softly.
He blinked, the words skimming past him like background noise. But he still felt her gaze behind his back—like she regretted asking, like she'd done something wrong.
That part stuck. That part bothered.
"Didn't sleep," he murmured after a pause.
"Oh."
That was all she said. But her smile flickered—just for a breath, just enough for someone who wasn't looking to miss it entirely. A shadow, old and familiar, passed behind her eyes before the brightness rushed back accompanied with the type of awkward giggle that chirried in his ears.
Then she reached across the table, snatched his mug, and dumped a splash of milk into it without asking. Pushed it back toward him with the solemnity of a priest offering communion.
"Too bitter makes you more bitter," she declared, wrinkling her nose like she'd heard it from somewhere else.
He didn't react. His fingers tapped the edge of the table—once, twice—a staccato beat without a song.
In the pan, the eggs began to hiss.
Raizo stood again. His joints cracked... The fridge's weak light flickered as he reached back in – for cheese?
He grimaced at it like it might attack.
Behind him, Nayumi said something—a joke, probably, or a nonsense rhyme that she heard from school. He didn't catch it. His head tilted slightly, but his body stayed frozen, shoulders tense as the spatula clacked against the pan.
The yolk broke too soon. He didn't curse, but his jaw tightened, his movements turning sharp and methodical as he scraped the eggs into something edible.
Nayumi leaned forward, elbows on the table.
"You're doing that frowny face again," she said, chin resting on her palm, eyes narrowing on his betraying hands.
He didn't turn.
The eggs were done. He plated them with the precision of a man assembling a bomb—neat, deliberate, exhausted by the performance of care.
The toast was singed at the edges, surely enough he trimmed the blackened bits before sliding it onto her plate. One careful spoonful of jelly, smeared across the center in a haphazard heart shape.
Her plate.
Not his.
She grabbed it with both hands, grinning like he'd handed her a trophy instead of yesterday's reheated grief.
"Still the best cook!" she announced, mouth full, kicking her feet harder now, as if joy had to go somewhere. "Even if you're a little grumpy."
He sat back down. His plate stayed empty. His coffee untouched. His gaze drifted—not to her, to the way the fragile sunlight caught the rim of her glass, the smear of jelly at the corner of her lip, the way her shoulders hunched slightly when she chewed, like she was trying to make herself smaller.
He didn't comment. Didn't smile. Just watched.
Or endured.
She ate with a gusto he hadn't seen in months. Not messy anymore, but the little 'mm!' after the first bite remained. The way she hooked one foot around the chair leg, as if anchoring herself to the moment.
Then she noticed his empty plate.
"Your stomach's gonna get lonely," she said, voice light but eyes darting to his hands, checking for tremors he hadn't had in years.
"I'll write it a letter later," he muttered flatly.
She snorted, juice nearly escaping her nose.
But he didn't move.
Her gaze lingered. Then, with the solemnity of a peace offering, she broke off a corner of her toast—the part with the most jelly—and nudged it toward him. No words. Just a glance that said, See? It's not for you. It's just extra.
He stared at it.
The toast sat there, innocuous as a landmine.
A dull pressure built behind his eyes. Familiar. Annoying.
He could refuse.
She wouldn't push.
With the silence stretching, thin and nagging.
He picked it up. Slow. Studied the jelly like it might hold answers.
He opened his mouth to say thanks and found nothing there.
"I…"
The toast was awfully sweet, cloying. It stuck in his throat.
A breath caught. His jaw flexed—tightened—like he was biting something back. He glanced away, just for a second.
So instead—
"...It tastes like floor," he grumbled after a bite, thumb swiping the corner of his mouth, wiping away nothing.
She gasped, half-laughing as she shot a quick glance at his cheeks, then gave his arm a playful smack with the back of her fork. "Yeah, but clean floor!"
He almost smiled. Almost.
Instinctively his hand shifted back to his lips, thumb pressing lightly against the edge, as if holding something back — not a grin, not really. Just… a slip.
She noticed.
But didn't name it.
He watched her from across the table, still chewing with a smile that didn't need a reason. Like just having breakfast with him was the high point of her day. Like he didn't still check the locks four times before bed just in case something he couldn't see slipped through the cracks.
Raizo bit at the edge of his pinky nail, pretending to study the cold, discarded toast on his plate, willing himself not to look at it again.
Nayumi looked so proud of herself... radiant with that small triumph only she could own, as though toast and pouring juice were feats worthy of a medal. And he sat there, motionless, the plate before him a battlefield of crumbs he didn't want, in a house too quiet to ever be called home. His eyes lingered on her face—the softness, the warmth, the hope—and every part of him screamed that she deserved more. Someone whole. Someone real. Not the husk that wore his skin.
("He was lucky,") he whispered, like a man afraid the words would shatter if spoken too loud.
And behind it—stood a murderer. A murderer who had no idea how to hold something good… …without watching it decay in his hands.