Scene 1: The First Meeting
Johnny was eight when winter named Ryu Shiku walked into his life. When he first saw the girl who drew fire. Her name sounded like winter wind—soft, biting, and sharp.
She sat alone, as usual—knees tucked under her chin, fingers stained with chalk dust. The other kids called her Ghost, but Johnny noticed three things:
Her braid looked like it had survived a windstorm.
She hummed under her breath (a warped little tune no one else knew).
When she thought no one was looking, she drew a dragon devouring the sun on her math worksheet.
One day, he summoned the courage and offered her a piece of chalk.
She said nothing.
The next morning, a dragon curled in the corner of the blackboard—bold and fierce, its tail flicking with silent fire.
Johnny stared at it, heart fluttering with a strange mix of wonder and fear.
Scene 2: The Bathroom and the Blood
Johnny's house didn't scream. It whispered.
At ten, he discovered the first stain, the blood—not on skin, not from cries or bruises...
It was about the money.
Blood-soaked bills folded neatly inside his father's coat pocket.
He found them by accident, reaching for gum, not guilt.
His father came home late. Silent. Mechanical. Never drunk, but never fully there.
"Don't touch my things," his father said calmly—too calmly.
Johnny never asked questions—not out loud.
That night, the bathroom sink ran pink for hours. Johnny watched through the crack in the door as his father scrubbed—not skin, but the spaces between skin. The tiles wept red.
Johnny stepped back, heart pounding.
He shut his door and sat in the dark, holding his breath until dawn.
He didn't know what scared him more—the blood, or how normal it all seemed.
Scene 3: The Interview
The police came. No sirens. Just calm knocks and tense voices. The woman who stepped inside wore a badge and exhaustion in her eyes. Her hair was pulled tight into a black bun.
Her sharp gaze missed nothing.
Her hands were steady—too steady, Johnny thought, for someone who'd held both corpses and crying children.
Her badge says Shiku.
He stared at her hands and wondered:
Would they bleed too?
Would someone like his father hurt her the way he hurt others?
Her hands were clean. Firm. Steady. Johnny hoped no one ever made them bleed.
She questioned him gently, allowing silence to fill the gaps.
Johnny answered what he could.
Through the door, Ryu watched. Their eyes met.
A moment stretched, fragile and charged.
She gave the smallest nod.
Scene 4: The Start of Something Quiet
Johnny testified again. And again.
Ryu was always there. They spoke in relics:
- A paper dragon folded from a candy wrapper
- An eraser shaped like a skull
- The space between them on the witness bench, exactly two inches wide
Scene 5: Closer
Time passed like a slow, heavy river.
Johnny watched her house change.
Her mother's voice was now replaced by the click of a deadbolt. Notebooks filled with creatures that had too many eyes and not enough skin.
Her mother worked longer hours.
The windows stayed dark later into the night.
Her eyes looked hollow, like she hadn't slept in weeks.
She never complained.
But sadness clung to her like a cold fog, invisible but heavy.
Scene 6: Disappearance
The hospital smelled like pretending. He felt hollow—like every step down the sterile hallway pulled pieces from inside him.
Ryu lay small under the sheets, her notebook clutched to her chest. Johnny recognized the monsters on the pages—they had his father's eyes.
The sharp scent of antiseptic clawed at his throat.
"You didn't have to come," she whispered, voice thin and brittle as cracked glass.
He took the chair beside her. Outside, the moon was a bone fragment lodged in the sky.
"I know," he said, swallowing the lump in his throat.
Her eyes, sunken but fierce, met his. They held pain that no one spoke aloud.
In that moment, it was as if the whole world had shrunk to this one room—two broken souls holding the shards of their lives together.
Johnny's heart ached with helplessness, and yet, somehow, he stayed.
Scene 7: The Split
She was seventeen, and he was nineteen. Sometimes when the grief screamed louder than words. They would step outside—for air, for silence, for a moment untouched by loss.
The night was cold, biting through their thin jackets.
Streetlights flickered uncertainly, casting long shadows that danced like ghosts.
Johnny's breath hung in the air, shallow and fast.
Then—footsteps. Four sets, fast and deliberate.
Four figures emerged, faces hidden beneath dark hoods, blades catching the dull glow of the streetlamps.
Time slowed.
His heart pounded, each beat thudding like a war drum in his chest.
The metallic scent of fear filled his nostrils.
Without thinking, he grabbed Ryu's wrist and shoved her behind a rusty trash bin, the cold metal pressing sharply against her skin.
"RUN," he growled, voice cracked but fierce.
She hit the ground with a sharp gasp, eyes wide and wild.
Johnny turned, fists tight enough to shake.
The first punch landed—fire exploding across his ribs.
A blade flashed.
Ryu scrambled up, reaching for him, desperation raw in her eyes.
"Ryu, don't. Just run back!" he shouted, voice ragged and breaking.
She froze, not from fear, but understanding.
This wasn't just a fight.
This was a choice.
That night, Johnny learned "some stains never wash out."
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