Chapter 6 - One Day After Tomorrow
Scene 1: The Silence Before the Shatter
It was raining.
Not a gentle drizzle, but a relentless one, weeping sky that blurred Tokyo into gray watercolor. The streets buzzed like nothing was wrong—cars honking, umbrellas colliding, neon signs blinking their usual urgency. But inside Akio's pharmacy, there was only stillness.
Hikata stood frozen in the doorway. Rumane had gone pale, her hand slowly lowering the kettle. Raka had stopped mid-joke.
Akio had just opened the door when he saw the look on Hikata's face. A look that needed no words, yet demanded them anyway.
"What happened?" Akio asked, voice a whisper.
Hikata's lips parted, trembling.
"It's Kaede."
Something inside Akio broke before the explanation ever came. A crack that ran so deep it felt ancestral. "No. What?"
"She's dead."
The world went mute.
Hikata's voice trembled. "They found her early this morning. No signs of forced entry. Fever was the official cause. But Akio... that's not the whole story."
Akio's legs nearly buckled. Rumane caught his arm.
"No," Akio whispered again. "No, she was fine. She was strong."
"She was poisoned." Hikata added the police found official evidence, at first the evidence was wrong and now they know there were wrong before from the evidence of her death...
Scene 2: The House of Lies
The rain didn't stop as they drove to the house. Police tape flapped in the wind like warning banners. Officers stood under umbrellas, taking photos, collecting evidence.
Kaede's body had already been moved. What remained was the life she'd built—the photos, the furniture, the perfume lingering like the final note of a piano chord. Akio stepped inside and felt everything implode.
A detective approached him. "Dr. Hukitaske. We have reason to believe this wasn't an accident."
Akio didn't speak.
"We found traces of poison. Deliberate dosage. And the financial records show extensive draining of her accounts over the last year."
Akio turned to him, eyes void of warmth.
"Where is he?"
The detective hesitated. "He tried to flee. We caught him before he reached the train. He had blueprints for a North Tokyo bank. Weapons. Disguises. Her life insurance policy was cashed out two weeks ago."
Akio stared.
"The person you met—the one pretending to be her husband? He's not who he said he was. False identity. Some who has former multiple priors under different names. He took everything from her mostly her money not just her jewlery."
Akio turned and walked out into the rain.
Scene 3: The Cell
The holding room smelled of bleach and sweat.
Akio stood on one side of the glass. On the other, behind reinforced glass and chains, sat the person who had lived beside Kaede because they had finally caught him after he had ran off luckily. The person who had laughed with her, and slowly stolen everything—her money, her life.
He looked nothing like he had before. Mad, pale, nervous. The mask had cracked.
Akio picked up the phone.
The criminal hesitated, then picked up his own.
"You killed her," Akio said.
The persons eyes flickered. "It was—It wasn't supposed to—"
"You fed her poison. You watched her suffer."
"I didn't mean for her to—"
Akio slammed his hand against the glass. "You didn't mean? You watched her die. You watched the light go out of her eyes!"
The criminal shrank back.
Akio's memories surged—Kaede's laughter under the sakura trees, her hand in his, her saying goodbye as he went off to the games company. He remembered how she used to braid his hair when he was down from the games company.
"You used her. You used her grief. Her kindness. And for what?"
The criminal stammered, sweat now pouring down his face. "I just needed money—she was lonely—"
Akio dropped the phone. He stormed out of the booth.
Before anyone could stop him, he was through the adjoining door. The guards yelled. The criminal backed against the wall.
Akio grabbed him by the collar and slammed him into the concrete.
"You made her think she was cared for!" he screamed. "You made her feel protected!"
The criminal gasped. Akio's hands tightened around his neck.
The guards pulled him back—but not before the criminal saw something he would never forget: Akio's eyes. Hollow, blazing, pure anger.
"You breathe one more lie and I'll carve the truth into your bones," Akio growled.
The criminal collapsed, gasping, sobbing.
As the police dragged him away, Akio shouted after him:
"I will haunt your every dream. I will stand at the door of your soul. You stole the light of my world, and you think prison will save you?"
The criminal screamed. His heart monitor spiked. He nearly fainted.
The officers rushed him out.
Akio stood alone, fists shaking, stomach heaving.
Scene 4: Ashes in the Wind
He didn't go home.
He went straight to the cemetery.
The willow tree waited, quiet and trembling.
Now, two stones.
One for Kaede. One for their daughter. One for the future that would never be.
Akio dropped to his knees.
The rain fell heavier.
"I should've stayed," he whispered. "I should've seen it. I should've stopped it."
He clawed at the earth.
"I cared for you even if I didn't show it before we divorced. Even when I was gone. Even when you moved on. I never stopped."
He sobbed. Broken sounds from a person who had survived war, time, betrayal. But not this.
"Why wasn't I there? Why couldn't I save you? Why did let him kill you—why?"
The wind gave no answer.
Only silence.
Scene 5: The Collapse
Days passed.
Akio didn't eat.
He worked only in short bursts—enough to keep the pharmacy going. Enough to convince people he was alive. But his soul? His soul was buried beside her.
Rumane tried to talk. Raka tried to joke. Hikata brought food.
But Akio just sat in the back room, staring at the mirror.
Some nights he screamed.
Others, he just wept.
He kept her scarf beside him. And her letter. The one she never sent.
Scene 6: The Words That Were Never Said
One night, he lit incense and sat beneath the willow again.
"Kaede," he whispered. "If you can hear me, I'm sorry. I wasn't there. I let him near you. I let you believe I was gone forever."
He placed the letter beneath the stone.
"I hope you find peace. I hope you know I would've given anything—anything—to trade places with you."
A wind blew through the tree.
And for a moment, he swore he heard her voice:
"You were always my home, Akio."
Scene 7: The Fire to Come
Back in Tokyo, the criminal faced sentencing. Life in prison. No parole.
But rumors spread—Akio's words had shaken him so badly, the criminal had stopped speaking. He'd lost sleep. Lost weight. Refused food.
The legend grew.
Some said Akio had cursed him.
Others said Akio's grief had branded him like a demon mark.
Akio didn't care.
He stood by the pharmacy window one last time, watching the rain.
"I couldn't save her," he whispered. "But I'll save others."
And then he lit a candle for her.
And one for their daughter.
And one for himself.
The last ember of their family.
The first flame of vengeance.
[Next: Volume 4, Chapter 7 — The Garden Between Worlds]
Chapter 7 - One Day After Tomorrow
Scene 1: Beneath the Quiet Sky
The sun rose slowly, as if hesitant to illuminate the world Akio now inhabited. The streets of Tokyo bustled as usual—bicycles, workers, people laughing—but the colors were all desaturated in his eyes. Every step he took to the pharmacy felt heavier. Every sound was muffled, like he was submerged in a dream that refused to end.
Inside the shop, Hikata was already tidying the shelves. Rumane had left a warm thermos of barley tea at the counter. Raka was in the back, humming an old folk tune. Life was continuing around him, like a current he could no longer swim in.
He stared out the window. Across the glass, two soft handprints from his daughter's last visit long ago still lingered in the morning dew. Kaede's laughter seemed to float from behind the aisles.
Grief wasn't a thing that came and went. It built rooms in your heart. And Akio had just learned how many of those rooms were still full of ghosts.
Scene 2: A Broken Rhythm
The day passed in fragments. Customers came. Some left in tears, others in smiles. Akio treated a young kid with a scraped knee. Consulted an elder with joint pain. Refilled prescriptions.
But something had changed in him.
He moved slower. His eyes lingered longer. He began asking questions—real questions—not just about symptoms, but about lives. He found himself needing to connect, to hold onto anything real.
Mid-afternoon, Rumane pulled him aside.
"You need to take a break, Akio."
"I am taking one."
"You've been restocking the same shelf for ten hours straight in a daydream."
He looked down. Sure enough, he had arranged and rearranged the same five boxes of green tea lozenges into increasingly elaborate patterns.
"I just... need to keep moving," he said.
Rumane touched his hand gently. "It's okay to stop."
Scene 3: The Letter Kaede Never Sent
That evening, Hikata returned from the police station carrying a plain manila envelope.
"They found this in Kaede's drawer," he said quietly. "She never sent it."
Akio hesitated. Then opened it.
The handwriting was familiar—graceful and curved.
Dear Akio,
Sometimes I think we only get one true person to care about in life. And if that person leaves, we're forced to build something smaller around the crater they leave behind.
I wanted to be okay without you. I really did. And for a while, I believed I was. But some mornings, I still made your tea. Still left the window open like you liked. Still whispered your name when I lit incense at the shrine.
If you ever come back—just know this: I never stopped believing in who you were.
Love always, Kaede.
Akio folded the letter with trembling hands.
Scene 4: A Visit to Her Room
He visited her house one last time, escorted by police. The crime scene tape had been removed. Most of her belongings were packed. But her bedroom remained untouched.
He stepped inside slowly. The scent of jasmine and old books still lingered.
On the windowsill: a photo of him holding their daughter, years ago, at the summer festival one Akio never got visited as a kid, and one of the festivals he actually visited as an adult with his wife often with there daughter.
On the nightstand: an old prescription bottle, his handwriting on the label.
A single lily rested in a cup of water. It had started to wilt.
He sat on the bed and let the silence speak.
"Forgive me," he said aloud, voice willowed. "For leaving. For not seeing. For thinking time was mercy."
The wind moved through the curtains. It almost sounded like her voice.
Scene 5: The Return of the Willow
He returned to the cemetery.
The willow tree waited.
Two graves now shared the shadow.
He brought incense, three candles, and a folded crane.
"I'm not okay," he whispered. "But I'm still here. I'll keep living. For you. For her. For every day I took for granted."
He stayed for hours, speaking to them in fragments, then in memories, then in promises.
When the sun dipped low, he whispered, "One day after tomorrow... I'll see you again."
Scene 6: Light Through the Mirror
Back at the pharmacy, Akio looked into the new mirror. His reflection was tired. Worn.
But human.
Behind him, Rumane lit lanterns. Raka strung wind chimes. Hikata cleaned instruments. The world was moving forward.
He touched the mirror's frame, tracing the words he had carved there.
"I remember. I remain. I rise."
And this time, he added:
"And I forgive."
He took a breath. Not just to survive.
But to live.
[Next: Volume 4, Chapter 8 — The Garden Between Worlds]