The grief in Hana's room was a physical weight, crushing Yuki's spirit. He stayed on the floor until his legs cramped, until the scent of dust, decay, and her fading perfume became suffocating. He finally pushed himself up, leaving the ID card where it fell. He couldn't bear to look at her smiling face. Not now. Maybe not ever.
He closed the door softly behind him, the click of the latch sounding final. Like closing a coffin.
He walked to the kitchen, needing something, anything, to anchor him. He filled a glass with water from the tap, his hands still trembling slightly. He drank it down in one go, the cool liquid doing little to wash away the foul taste in his mouth or the hollowness inside.
He leaned against the counter, staring out the kitchen window at the darkening alley. The shadow-thing wasn't there tonight. Or maybe it was, just better hidden. The thought sent a shiver down his spine.
His gaze fell on his hands. They looked pale. Too pale. The veins stood out faintly blue against his skin. As he watched, a strange flicker seemed to run beneath the surface, like heat haze rising from asphalt. He blinked, and it was gone.
He flexed his fingers. They felt stiff. Cold. He rubbed them together, trying to generate warmth. It didn't help. The cold seemed to come from within.
He thought of the gym creature. The rage that had erupted inside him. The white-hot fire that had made it flinch, that had allowed him to escape. Where had that come from? It hadn't felt like him. It had felt primal, alien. And now it was gone, leaving only this… this coldness. This emptiness.
He walked back to the living room and sank onto the sofa. The silence of the apartment pressed in. He felt adrift, untethered. The grief was still there, a constant ache, but now it was joined by a new, unsettling sensation. A restlessness. A low-level hum beneath the surface of his skin. A faint, persistent itch he couldn't scratch.
He closed his eyes, trying to focus, to understand.
And he felt it.
Not anger. Not grief. Something else. A spark. Deep in the hollow place inside him. A tiny, flickering point of… something. Heat? Energy? It was faint, almost imperceptible, but it was there.
He focused on it, trying to nurture it, to understand its nature. As he concentrated, the spark seemed to grow warmer, brighter. The low hum beneath his skin intensified. The restlessness sharpened, becoming a craving. A need.
More.
The thought surfaced unbidden. More what?
He didn't know. But the spark pulsed in response, growing hotter. The hum grew louder, vibrating in his bones. The coldness in his hands receded slightly, replaced by a strange warmth.
He opened his eyes. He held his hands up in front of his face.
Beneath the skin, along the paths of his veins, faint lines glowed. Not blue anymore. A deep, rich crimson. Like embers banked in a fire. They pulsed in time with the spark inside him, with the hum in his bones.
Yuki stared, mesmerized and horrified. This was new. This was different from the ghostly visions, the phantom blood, the chilling cold. This was… something in him. Something alive.
He clenched his fists. The crimson glow intensified, flaring brightly for a second before subsiding back to a faint pulse. As it flared, he felt a surge of… strength? Power? It was fleeting, but undeniable.
He remembered the gym creature's shriek when his rage had exploded. The way it had recoiled. Had this been the source? Was this… power? The power to hurt monsters?
The spark pulsed hotter at the thought. The hum grew louder. The craving intensified. More. More power. More strength.
A wave of dizziness washed over him. He slumped back against the sofa cushions, breathing heavily. The crimson glow faded, leaving his hands pale and cold again. The spark dimmed, retreating back into the hollow place, but it didn't go out. It waited.
Yuki stared at his hands. They looked normal again. Just the hands of a hollow boy.
But he knew what he'd seen. He knew what he'd felt.
The rage in the gym hadn't been an accident. It had been a spark. And that spark… it needed fuel.
He was the kindling.
The realization was chilling. The power he'd glimpsed, the strength he craved to fight back, to avenge Hana… it came from within him. But it wasn't free. It fed on something. On his anger? His grief? His despair? The creature had called it despair. Had it been feeding on that? Was this the same?
He thought of the hollow feeling, the coldness, the emptiness. Was that the ash left behind when the spark burned? When the power flared?
He looked at his hands again. They felt cold. Hollow. But beneath the surface, he could still feel the faintest echo of the hum. The dimmest glow of the spark.
He was kindling. And someone, or something, had lit a match.
The question was: who held the match? And what would happen when the fire finally caught hold?