The convenience store's fluorescent lights hummed like a swarm of mechanical insects, casting everything in that particular shade of artificial white that made 2 AM feel like existing outside of time itself.
Hazuno stood in the instant noodles aisle, three cups in his hands, doing mental arithmetic that never quite balanced. ¥340 for the noodles. ¥180 for the onigiri. ¥120 for the bottle of tea. His wallet contained ¥850—money saved from the part-time job his parents didn't know about, because explaining where the money went would mean explaining everything else.
Behind him, Kisuno waited by the magazine rack, small fingers tracing the glossy covers without really seeing them. Two days had passed since the alley, since Hazuno had made the insane decision to bring a homeless child into his life. Two days of hiding Kisuno in his room while his parents fought, of sneaking food past his mother's drunken awareness and his father's absorbed rage, of existing in a state of heightened tension that made his teeth ache.
The child hadn't spoken much. Ate mechanically when given food. Slept in Hazuno's closet because beds felt too exposed, too vulnerable. Sometimes Hazuno would wake at 3 AM to find those blue eyes watching him in the darkness, and neither would say anything, just two people drowning in their own separate oceans, close enough to see each other but unable to bridge the distance.
"Hazuno? That you?"
The voice made Hazuno's stomach drop. He turned to find Tachibana approaching, his "friend" from school, flanked by Yumi and Ren. At 2 AM. Because of course they were here, because Tokyo never truly slept and neither did people running from things they couldn't name.
"Hey!" Hazuno deployed the smile, instant and bright as the convenience store lights. "What are you guys doing out so late?"
"Karaoke ran long," Tachibana said, throwing an arm around Hazuno's shoulders with the casual entitlement of someone who'd never been told no. "You should've come! We were wondering where you disappeared to. You've been weird lately, Hazuno. More weird than usual."
"Just busy with cram school," Hazuno lied, the words smooth as glass. "You know how it is."
"Cram school at 2 AM?" Yumi laughed, but her eyes were sharp, calculating. "Or are you finally getting yourself a real friend? About time, honestly. That whole 'sad puppy' thing you do gets old."
The words hit like small caliber rounds—not enough to kill, just enough to bleed. Hazuno's smile never wavered. He'd perfected the art of taking hits while appearing untouched, of swallowing pain so thoroughly it looked like he'd never felt it at all.
"Just picking up some stuff for tomorrow," he said, lifting the noodles like evidence of normalcy. That's when Ren's gaze drifted past him, landing on Kisuno.
"Uh, Hazuno? Is that kid with you?"
Hazuno's heart stopped. He turned to see Kisuno standing there, the black cloak marking him as definitively other, those eyes watching the interaction with an intensity that seemed to see through everything. The child looked like something from a ghost story—pale, ethereal, wrong in the way that made people's brain scream warnings.
"He's..." Hazuno's mind raced, searching for a lie that would satisfy. "My cousin. From Kyoto. Visiting for a few days."
"Your cousin," Tachibana repeated, voice heavy with skepticism. "The one dressed like he's auditioning for a horror movie? At 2 AM? In a convenience store?"
"Family's complicated," Hazuno said, and at least that part was true. Yumi crouched down to Kisuno's eye level, her smile sharp in its friendliness. "Hey there, little moron. What's your name?"
Kisuno didn't respond, just stared at her with those unblinking blue eyes that had seen too much to trust easy kindness. The silence stretched uncomfortable and taut.
"He doesn't talk much," Hazuno intervened, placing himself between Yumi and Kisuno in a movement that felt more protective than he'd intended. "Shy around strangers."
"Right," Ren said slowly, exchanging glances with the others that Hazuno could read perfectly: Something's off. Something's wrong. This isn't the Hazuno we know.
And they were right, weren't they? The real Hazuno—if such a thing existed beneath all the performance—was someone they'd never met, never wanted to meet, because that version wasn't useful or entertaining or safely containable in their understanding of how he should be.
"Well," Tachibana said finally, removing his arm from Hazuno's shoulders, "we should get going. But hey, come out with us this weekend, yeah? You're no fun when you go all mysterious on us."
"Sure thing," Hazuno lied. "Sounds great."
They left, but not before Yumi glanced back one more time, her expression unreadable. Hazuno watched them go, feeling the weight of their suspicion like stones in his pockets.
"They're not your friends," Kisuno said quietly, his first words of the night.
Hazuno looked down at the child, surprised. "What?" "They hurt you. I can see it." Kisuno's blue eyes held something ancient, wisdom bought through suffering. "You smile, but you hurt. Like me."
The observation landed like a punch to the heart. Hazuno wanted to deny it, to deploy another deflection, but standing in that convenience store at 2 AM with a traumatized six-year-old who somehow saw through everything, he found he couldn't muster the energy.
"Yeah," he admitted. "Yeah, I guess they do." School the next day was a special kind of torture.
Hazuno sat in his third-period English class, listening to the teacher drone about stuff, his mind a thousand miles away. He'd left Kisuno hidden in his room again—a temporary solution that was rapidly becoming untenable. The child needed food, clothes, medical attention for that infected cut on his foot. He needed things Hazuno couldn't provide without raising questions he couldn't answer.
His phone buzzed. A message in the group chat:
Tachibana:yo hazuno that kid last night was weird af
Yumi:seriously what's going on with you lately?
Ren:you can tell us if somethings wrong
Ren:were your friends
Hazuno stared at the messages, that word—friends—feeling more like accusation than comfort. Were they? Or were they just people who enjoyed having him around because he made them feel better about themselves, because his constant availability and accommodating nature required nothing from them?
He typed and deleted three different responses before settling on: everything's fine, just stressed about exams The teacher's voice faded to white noise. Outside the window, Tokyo sprawled in its infinite complexity, millions of lives intersecting and diverging like neurons firing in some vast, incomprehensible brain. Somewhere in that city, Kisuno was alone in Hazuno's room, probably not moving, barely breathing, existing in that state of waiting that was all he knew.
The classroom door slid open.
Katsugawa Josu entered, late as always, his presence immediately shifting the room's energy. He was tall for fourteen, built like someone who'd grown up fighting, with eyes that catalogued weakness the way predators identify prey. A purple bruise colored his left cheekbone—fresh, maybe a day old—and his knuckles were scraped raw.
The teacher barely acknowledged him. Everyone knew Josu was a lost cause, a student who attended in body but never in spirit, counting days until he could drop out and fully embrace whatever violent future awaited him.
Josu's gaze swept the classroom and landed on Hazuno. For a moment, their eyes met, and Hazuno saw something flicker across the bully's face—recognition, maybe, or curiosity. Then Josu looked away, slouching to his seat in the back corner where he belonged.
The class continued. Hazuno took notes he'd never read, answered when called on with responses that satisfied but didn't excel, maintained the carefully calibrated performance of being just okay enough to avoid attention. The mask he wore had become so familiar that sometimes he forgot it was there, forgot that underneath existed someone who might be real.
When lunch period arrived, his friends found him immediately. "Come eat with us," Tachibana insisted, steering Hazuno toward the cafeteria with proprietary ease. "We barely see you anymore."
They sat at their usual table, the conversation flowing around Hazuno like water around a stone. Yumi complained about her parents. Ren showed them a viral video on his phone. Tachibana discussed weekend plans that would involve karaoke and convenience store snacks and the comfortable mediocrity of being young in Tokyo with nothing better to do.
"You're doing it again," Yumi said suddenly, pointing at Hazuno's face. "Doing what?" "That smile. The fake one. You think we can't tell?"
Hazuno's heart rate spiked, but he kept his expression neutral. "I'm not faking anything." "Sure you're not," she said, but there was something sharp underneath the playfulness, something that wanted to cut. "Hey, Hazuno, do that thing. The thing where you—"
"Not now, Yumi," Ren interrupted, but he was smiling too, like this was all a game. "Come on, just once. The face!"
They were referencing some stupid expression Hazuno had made once, months ago, that had made them laugh. Now they wanted it on command, like he was a trained animal performing tricks for treats. And the worst part? He'd do it. He always did. Because saying no meant conflict, and conflict meant they might look at him and see something other than their emotional support, and then what would he be?
He opened his mouth to comply—"Leave him alone."
The voice came from behind them. Everyone turned to find Josu standing there, lunch tray in hand, that fresh bruise on his face looking worse in the cafeteria's harsh lighting.
"What's it to you, Katsugawa?" Tachibana challenged, puffing up with borrowed courage. Josu's eyes—dark, flat, dangerous—fixed on him. "I said leave him alone."
The cafeteria had gone quiet, everyone sensing drama, violence, something to break the monotony of another Tuesday. Hazuno felt his stomach twist. This would only make things worse. Drawing Josu's attention, good or bad, was inviting chaos.
"Hey, it's fine," Hazuno said quickly, standing up, deploying maximum peace-keeping energy. "We're just joking around. Right, guys?"
But Josu was still staring at Tachibana, and something in his expression suggested he was calculating how much damage he could do before teachers intervened. His hands had curled into fists, those scraped knuckles ready to add fresh wounds.
"Josu," Hazuno said, using the bully's first name without thinking, "it's really okay. Let it go."
Finally, Josu looked at him. Their eyes met again, and Hazuno saw something unexpected in that gaze—not the predatory calculation he'd anticipated, but something closer to understanding. Like Josu had seen through the smile, past the performance, straight to the drowning kid underneath.
"You don't have to pretend with people like them," Josu said quietly. Then he turned and walked away, leaving a wake of confused silence. Tachibana laughed nervously. "What the hell was that about?"
But Hazuno couldn't answer, because he was too busy processing what had just happened. Josu—the school's terror, the teen who'd shoved Hazuno into lockers, who'd mocked his people-pleasing nature with creative cruelty—had just defended him. Why?
The rest of lunch passed in a blur. Hazuno's mind kept returning to that moment, to the look in Josu's eyes, to the strange protection he'd offered. It didn't make sense. Nothing made sense anymore, not since a six-year-old in a tattered cloak had stumbled into his life and forced him to question everything he'd built.
When school ended, Hazuno hurried home, anxiety mounting with each step. He'd been gone for hours. What if Kisuno had tried to leave? What if his parents had discovered him? What if—
He opened his bedroom door to find Kisuno exactly where he'd left him, sitting in the closet with his knees pulled to his stomach, those blue eyes watching the door like he'd never stopped.
"You came back," Kisuno whispered.
"Of course I did," Hazuno said, and realized with some surprise that he meant it. In a life of carefully constructed lies, this small promise felt like the first true thing he'd said in years.
Kisuno's expression shifted, something fragile and new crossing his face. Not quite a smile, but the shadow of what a smile might become if given time and safety to grow.
Outside, Tokyo's evening descended in shades of orange and purple, the sky performing its nightly transformation from day to night. In that liminal space between light and dark, two broken people existed together, not yet healed but no longer entirely alone.
And somewhere across the city, in a small apartment that smelled like medicine and approaching death, Katsugawa Josu sat beside his sleeping grandfather and wondered why he'd defended someone he barely knew, why seeing that fake smile on Hazuno's face had made him so angry he'd almost thrown a punch.
His grandfather coughed wetly in his sleep, and Josu held the old gramps's hand and wondered how much time they had left, how much more he could take before he broke completely.
The masks they all wore—Hazuno's smile, Josu's rage, Kisuno's silence—were cracking. And beneath them, something real and raw and terrifying was beginning to emerge.
TO BE CONTINUED... [Next Episode: "The Third Shadow"]