"It has no beginning, no linear thread to follow. It moves freely—unbound, unyielding. It brings forth, and it brings to ruin. And in the end, she will witness gold unfold before her eyes."
Main Story:
-The living room was quieter than usual—too quiet for a Sunday morning.
Light from the outside bled in through the dusty blinds, casting pale shadows over the hardwood floor. The television murmured in the background, not loud enough to listen to, not soft enough to ignore. Just noise. A smokescreen. A way to pretend the house was still alive.
Zenjiro sat on the couch, elbows on knees, a cup of coffee growing cold between his palms. The mug had been chipped for weeks, and the handle wobbled slightly when he raised it. He didn't care. That kind of thing didn't matter anymore.
What mattered? He couldn't say. It all felt too distant.
The sound of the fluorescent light was the only thing filling the room that day. It needled at the back of his skull—zzzt… zzzt—steady, clinical, merciless. The day after the broadcast, and still the same air, the same hum. Zenjiro's mind was a hive of speculations, hypotheses, and branching probabilities of how he'd be found out. But it wasn't the thinking alone that kept him taut as a wire; Fujita was the catalyst.
Zenjiro's palms were damp. He sat on the bench, trying to thread his arms through the uniform sleeves, missing the holes, finding them, and missing again. The apron strap slipped twice, then a third time. Breathe. Slow. Don't look frantic.
Next to him, Fujita went about arranging his locker like it mattered: wallet to the right, keys hooked on the inside lip, phone screen down. He shut the metal door halfway, reopened it, nudged something a finger's width, and shut it again. His tie was already on, but he still lifted the collar, smoothed it, and let it fall.
Zenjiro felt every movement echo, sharper than it should've been. Too deliberate. He's buying time. Watching me, but not watching me. Don't flinch. Don't move wrong.
His throat was dry, but he didn't dare swallow. The strap of his apron burned against his palm. He adjusted it again, tugged once, twice, like the thread itself was his anchor. Act normal. Just another morning. You're not guilty. He can't know. He doesn't know.
The hum of the light throbbed in rhythm with his pulse. Fujita's locker door creaked, metallic, and Zenjiro's chest tightened. Say something—no, don't. If you talk first, he'll think you're nervous. Just wait. Don't give him a reason. Don't give him anything.
For a moment, the room was only sound and silence: the buzz of the lamp, the rattle of metal, the faint rasp of Fujita's sleeve brushing against his uniform. Every note of it felt magnified, like the walls themselves were listening.
Zenjiro pressed his knees with both palms, forcing stillness into his body. Keep breathing. One thing at a time. Shirt, tie, apron. That's all it is. Just routine.
But another thought slithered in, sharp and heavy: Routine is what breaks. Routine is how they catch you.
"Rough night?" Fujita asked, shutting his locker with a hollow clang.
Zenjiro's fingers froze mid-knot. The words sank into him like a hook, dragging his mind into the worst possible depths. Does he know? Did he see? Did someone talk?
"…Just tired," he managed, forcing the words out like he was spitting glass.
Fujita hummed, neither believing nor dismissing. He adjusted his cuffs, smooth and steady. "Well… I don't blame you. None of us have been sleeping well lately. Place is going under."
Zenjiro blinked, his brain stalling for a second. "…What?"
"The restaurant," Fujita clarified, a slight sigh in his tone. "Owner says he's pulling the plug. Numbers are bad, worse than he told us before. By next month? Gone."
A long silence stretched. Zenjiro lowered his gaze to his apron strings, twisting them hard. That's it? That's what he wanted to say? His chest loosened, just slightly, though his hands still shook.
"That's…" He swallowed, throat tight. "That's rough."
"Yeah. Rough." Fujita finally turned, leaning back against the lockers with arms folded. His eyes, steady and unreadable, lingered on Zenjiro. "Means we'll have to start looking soon. Other jobs, other places. Can't just sit and hope something falls from the sky, right?"
Zenjiro nodded, forcing himself to mimic calm. "Right. Of course."
Fujita let the silence hang again, almost too long. Then, casually—too casually—he said:
"Oh. By the way. Saw someone yesterday. Thought she looked familiar."
Zenjiro's heart jolted. "…Someone?"
"Yeah." Fujita tilted his head, eyes narrowing just slightly. "Girl with long hair. Groceries near the market. Looked like the one with you the other night."
The blood drained from Zenjiro's face. His palms went slick, his body tightening as if bracing for a blow. Ruka. He saw her. He saw her out. What was she thinking? What do I say? What do I say?
He forced his jaw to unlock. "…Maybe you've got the wrong person," he said at last, his voice dry, the words pushed out like a stone through his throat.
The silence afterward clawed at him. Too slow. Too thin. Not enough to convince. He wanted to retreat from the sound of his own voice. Don't give him anything. Don't let him see.
Fujita tilted his head, shrugging with half a smile. "Could be. Just thought she looked familiar, that's all."
"That's all," Zenjiro echoed quickly, too quickly. He let out a short laugh that carried no warmth. "Easy mistake."
He hoped it ended there. Conversation finished. Curtain down. But the silence that followed only magnified everything—the heavy and prolonged breathing, the creak of Fujita leaning against the lockers, the pounding in Zenjiro's skull.
I need out. I need air. If this goes on, I'll break. I'll slip. He'll know.
Fujita spoke again, casual as ever. "Don't get me wrong. Just… curious, you know? Didn't mean anything by it."
Curious. The word stung. Zenjiro's throat burned with dryness. His eyes flicked to Fujita's face—open, harmless, oblivious. He wasn't accusing. He wasn't interrogating. He was just being… Fujita.
And yet to Zenjiro, that innocence was the most dangerous thing in the world. Naive curiosity could topple everything. He doesn't know what he's holding. He's toying with a blade without seeing the edge.
Zenjiro managed a smile, stiff at the corners. "Curiosity's fine," he said, but his tone carried a tension beneath the surface, like a wire stretched to snapping.
Fujita chuckled, lifting a brow. "Fine, huh? You sound like you've got a story there."
Zenjiro's breath hitched. The room felt smaller, walls pressing closer. His chest heaved, breath shallow. End it. Now. Before he asks again. Before he digs.
He tied his apron tight, fingers trembling, and finally looked up at Fujita. His voice was quiet, too quiet, but it carried weight:
"…You know what they say."
Fujita tilted his head. "What's that?"
Zenjiro's gaze locked with his, steady but hollow. "…Curiosity killed the cat."
The words lingered in the stale air. Fujita laughed softly, shaking his head as if to brush it off, but Zenjiro didn't laugh with him. He only pulled at the apron strap again, as though fastening it tighter could hold his world together.
With a shallow nod, Zenjiro ended the exchange, the kind of gesture that looked like agreement but felt more like escape.
"The closing of the restaurant... it's hard to accept such a reality."
"Fujita... He'll find another eventually. I hate how he talks and his way of speaking, but... poor bastard... It was his only hope of living, the only place that he could rely on..."
"But—why don't I ever encounter such problems... Why do I always feel like we're entirely different individuals, or... totally different entities?"
"I want to be normal. I want to work like him—why is it so hard for me to be so?"
"Why is the world always against me, like it's trying to prove a truth of some sort?"
"Every time, every singular time that I tried to find a place where I could feel that sentiment, that emotion, it eventually ended..."
"It wasn't about the money, we had wealth, they provided us with such wealth..."
"It felt too good, it was too much for us, me and her, and even for such position she held before her death, the benefits were a lot..."
"The royalties that they provided were immense; when seeing it from another perspective, it seemed odd."
"…Odd, that they never told us why. Why her?"
"Was it really loyalty... or was it pity? Were they trying to comfort a grieving child with gold, thinking it'd silence the echo of what they did?"
"I hated that comfort. Every coin felt like an apology. Every gift felt like a chain."
"Fujita mourns a restaurant; I mourn a ghost that never left. Maybe I'm not even mourning her anymore. Maybe I'm mourning myself... the part of me that still believes there's a place left to belong."
"Maybe… I was never meant to live like them."
"And you Fujita-you keep asking questions… always with that look like he's trying to fix something that isn't broken."
"Why don't you understand, why can't you just ignore. Not because I hate you—well, maybe I do, but… I don't want you near this mess. You don't understand what you're walking into."
"No... I don't such thing to happen, never in a million years, I'm not that kind of individual."
"And you… Ruka."
"What did I do to deserve this? What the—what the fuck did I do?"
"I tried to save you. I dragged you out of that mess and this is what I get."
"Do you even know what happened at that apartment?"
"I killed a man."
"—for you, you bitch."
"I wish you'd stayed there. I wish you'd rot in that room. You don't deserve anything."
*Silence*
"And yet… why do I still feel sorry?"
Tap. Tap.
A faint rhythm broke through the haze.
"...Zenjiro."
The voice was distant, like a memory surfacing through water.
"Zenjiro…"
Closer now—soft, deliberate. A pull toward the surface.
His chest tightened, as if waking from somewhere far deeper than sleep.
The noise in his head—those layered voices, the friction of thought against thought—faded into silence. In its place came a thin, trembling breath. His own.
Light bled through the darkness.
He blinked once. Twice. The world shifted—shapes gaining outlines, outlines filling with color. A glint of sunlight cut through the blinds, landing across his face like a blade of warmth. He winced.
When his eyes adjusted, the first thing he saw wasn't the room—it was her.
Ruka stood by the couch, a half-worried, half-tired look softening her expression. Strands of hair caught the morning light, outlining her like a sketch unfinished.
"...You dozed off again," she said, her tone quiet but clear. There was no accusation in it—just concern, the kind that wrapped itself in understatement.
Zenjiro tried to speak, but his throat caught. He exhaled instead, a faint sound escaping—more a sigh than a word.
Ruka crossed her arms, leaning slightly forward. "You forgot to take your medicine, didn't you?"
He looked at her, dazed, as the fragments of his mind tried to realign. Her face was real, her voice was real—the tremor in her tone, the faint irritation masking care. Everything else before this... a storm that belonged to another world.
A small silence passed between them, long enough for the hum of the fluorescent light to fill the space again.
"I… guess I did," he murmured at last.
Ruka's sigh was almost a whisper. She reached for the small orange vial on the table and held it out to him.
"Guessing won't fix it," she said. "Here."
Zenjiro stared at the bottle in her hand, then at her face. For a fleeting second, her presence felt like something out of reach—like he'd conjured her out of guilt, like she wasn't supposed to be there. But the warmth of her fingers brushing his when he took it told him otherwise.
Reality had weight again.
Zenjiro blinked, eyes still heavy, the lines of the room slowly sharpening into focus. Ruka stood there, still holding the empty cup he must've been holding when he was unconscious.
"You didn't answer me at first," she said after a pause, her tone flat, almost mechanical. "Thought you'd shut yourself off again. Like last time."
He looked up slowly, unsure how to respond. The memory slipped in uninvited—the locked door, the muffled knocks, her voice faint beyond it. He hadn't said a word to her that night. Not because he was angry. Because he couldn't.
"I just… needed quiet," he murmured.
Ruka gave a small shrug, setting the cup down with a dull clink. "You always say that."
There was no judgment in her voice, only the rhythm of observation—like someone keeping notes.
Zenjiro glanced toward the window. The blinds were half-drawn, the sunlight hitting the dust motes that danced lazily in the air. "Guess I do," he said, though he didn't really mean it.
Ruka moved past him, straightening the scattered papers on the counter. Her movements were precise, almost methodical. "You talk in your sleep," she said without looking back. "It's strange."
His heart tightened slightly. "Do I?"
"Yeah. Words I don't catch. Maybe names." She turned her head just enough for him to see the faint glint in her eyes—not warmth, not coldness either, just curiosity disguised as calm. "You should record yourself sometime. Might learn something."
Zenjiro forced a chuckle, though it came out thin. "Not sure I want to know what I'm saying."
Ruka hummed in response but didn't add anything. The silence that followed wasn't heavy, just alert—the kind of quiet where two people share a space but not a world.
It lingered—gentle, but edged.
Zenjiro turned his gaze toward the window; the sunlight had changed angles, drawing thin lines across the floor. The world outside felt distant, like a painting—still, unreachable.
He spoke first, quietly—too quietly.
"So… you went out again."
No accusation in his tone. Just the weight of the words. A test.
Ruka didn't flinch. She blinked once, her expression unchanged, then answered as if she'd been expecting the question all along.
"I told you I would. You didn't answer."
Zenjiro's brow tightened. "Told me…?"
He searched her face for a hint of mockery, but there was none—just that calm, unreadable steadiness.
"I knocked," she continued, looking past him toward the half-open window. "Twice, I think. Maybe three times. You didn't open the door, so I figured you were asleep."
Asleep.
The word lingered in his mind, twisting.
Was I asleep? Did I hear her? I would've… I always hear everything.
His pulse ticked behind his eyes.
She was bluffing. She must be.
But then again—what if she wasn't?
He remembered voices in the dark, murmurs that weren't there when he woke. Maybe he did miss her voice. Maybe his mind played him again.
She turned back to him, her gaze steady. "Are you okay?"
Zenjiro forced a small breath through his nose, a mock smile forming without effort. "Yeah. Just… forgot, I guess."
"Forgot," she echoed softly.
Not judging. Not cold. Just repeating it, like testing the word.
And that silence that followed—
It wasn't empty. It listened.
Zenjiro could feel it crawling under his skin.
Her quiet had a weight.
It pressed on him harder than her words ever could.
He wanted her to say something—anything—to break the tension, to pull him out of the space between her calm and his trembling thoughts. But she didn't. She just watched him, hands folded, breath even, and eyes fixed but not piercing.
It was unbearable.
That stillness.
That indifference.
He clenched his jaw. "You shouldn't have gone alone," he muttered at last, voice barely holding together. "Not with the police looking for—" He stopped himself.
Ruka's eyes flicked toward him. "For what?"
A pause. The longest yet.
He swallowed and shook his head. "Forget it."
"Alright," she said, simply.
And that was it.
No further questions. No reaction. No curiosity.
Her silence spread like fog through the room, slow and suffocating.
Zenjiro stared at the coffee cup on the table, its surface still rippling faintly though he hadn't touched it in minutes.
He could feel the other voice, deep inside, stirring again.
You're losing control.
He blinked hard. No. Not now. Not her.
He straightened his back, forcing the tremor out of his hands. "Just… next time, let me know before you go."
Ruka nodded once. "If you're awake."
Something inside him broke a little at that—not loudly, not visibly, just a small, silent fracture.
The conversation ended there, though neither had really spoken.
And somewhere beneath that silence, history shifted—ever so slightly.
Ruka leaned back on the couch, her arms crossing loosely. The window light traced the outline of her hair, and for a moment, Zenjiro thought she might stay quiet again. But she didn't.
"You know," she began, her tone lighter than before but still sharp enough to cut through the silence, "you're always here."
Zenjiro blinked, caught off guard. "Here?"
"In this room. This house." She gestured lazily toward the blinds, where the daylight fought its way through the dust. "Even when you're off work, you don't go anywhere. You just sit. Same couch. Same cup. Same everything."
He frowned slightly. "So what?"
Ruka tilted her head. "So… don't you ever get tired of it? Of this?"
Her question hovered in the air. There was no malice in it, no mockery—just plain, brutal curiosity.
Zenjiro looked at her for a long moment, then back at his hands. "No reason to go out."
"None?" she pressed. "Not even to walk? Not even for air?"
He could hear something in her tone now—not concern exactly, but disbelief. The kind that comes from someone trying to understand a puzzle they didn't know existed.
Zenjiro forced a small breath. "The air's the same out there as it is in here."
"Right," Ruka said, leaning forward slightly, elbows on her knees. "Except it isn't."
He met her gaze, tension creeping into his jaw. "What's that supposed to mean?"
She shrugged. "Just that… most people want to see something new once in a while. You don't. You live like the world ended and no one told you."
The words hit harder than she probably meant them to.
He stiffened, his eyes narrowing, though not in anger—just defense. "You say that like it's wrong."
"I'm saying it's strange."
Strange. The word echoed inside his head like a verdict.
People used to say that too. Back then. When he tried to blend in, when he tried to smile and talk and act like them. It always came back to that same word.
He tried to steady his voice. "You wouldn't understand."
"Maybe not," she admitted, and for a brief second her tone softened. "But you make it hard for anyone to try."
Zenjiro's lips parted slightly, but no words came out.
To her, it was a simple statement.
To him, it was an accusation—a reminder of something he'd buried deep: that he'd built these walls himself and now couldn't leave them even if he wanted to.
He laughed, but it wasn't humor—it was hollow. "Even if I told you, you'd call it nonsense."
"Try me."
He looked at her, then away again. "You wouldn't get it. It's obvious."
"Obvious?" she echoed. "Because you think no one else sees the same world you do?"
Zenjiro's hands tightened around his knees. "Because they don't."
And for the first time that morning, Ruka didn't answer.
Her silence this time wasn't passive—it was heavy, contemplative.
She'd touched something she couldn't quite see, something fragile and violent beneath his calm.
She leaned back slightly, her voice losing its sharpness.
"I'm not saying it's wrong," she said after a pause. "I just think… It's a waste, you staying locked in like this. The world's out there whether you like it or not."
Zenjiro looked at her, expression unreadable. "The world's out there. And?"
"And maybe you should try to meet it halfway."
She said it simply, as if it were common sense.
He stared for a moment, unsure whether to laugh or be offended. "You make it sound easy."
Ruka gave a small shrug. "It's not easy. But it's what people do."
People. The word hit him like a flick to the skull.
He felt his jaw tighten. "You mean normal people."
"If that's how you see it," she said.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the floor. "You think I don't try? Every day, I try. But it's like something keeps pushing back."
"Maybe it's just you," she said, her tone neither cruel nor soft—only plain. "You've built too many walls."
He almost laughed. "And you think I can just tear them down?"
"You could try," she replied. Then, after a beat, "You should."
Her voice wasn't firm—it was steady, almost careful.
She wasn't lecturing him. She was trying to reach him.
Zenjiro ran a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly. "You talk like it's just fear or habit. It's not. It's something else. Something you wouldn't get."
"Then tell me."
He looked at her—really looked—and for a fleeting second, he saw something almost gentle in her eyes. A patience that wasn't pity.
But that made it worse.
He turned away, shaking his head. "You wouldn't understand even if I did."
Ruka didn't move. "You always say that."
"It's true."
"Maybe," she said, "but that's what everyone says before realizing they're not the only ones hurting."
Her words hung in the air. Calm, direct, but heavy—like truth whispered without knowing its depth.
Zenjiro didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Her sympathy, her reason, her calm—it pressed against the walls of his mind like light against closed eyes. It burned, even if it wasn't meant to.
He wanted to tell her to stop. To leave it. To let him rot in peace.
But another part of him—quieter, buried under exhaustion—wanted to believe she meant it.
He looked down, his voice low and trembling. "You shouldn't care about someone like me."
Ruka blinked. "Who said I care?"
The silence that followed wasn't cold. It was just... painfully human.
Ruka stood, brushing the wrinkles from her clothes. The light through the blinds had softened to a dull gold, the kind that made dust look like falling ash.
"I'll make something to eat," she said simply, her tone flat and routine. "You look like you could use it."
Zenjiro gave a half nod, not really hearing her. His body was there, but his thoughts were still orbiting the weight of their conversation—her words, her calm, and the echo of his own replies that didn't feel like his own.
He sank deeper into the couch. The springs groaned beneath him, and the faint smell of burnt coffee still lingered in the air.
For a moment, he closed his eyes, trying to empty the noise inside his skull.
Her footsteps faded toward the kitchen—soft, measured, and deliberate.
The sound of a pan clattering, the low hiss of heat. Domestic noise. Harmless noise.
And yet, it didn't quiet him.
It only made the silence inside feel louder.
He exhaled slowly. At last, some tranquility.
For a fleeting second, he almost believed it.
The air was warm. The world remained motionless.
If he didn't move, maybe time itself would stop.
Then—
Rrrrnnngg.
The sharp buzz of his phone tore through the calm, slicing through the air like static.
Ruka, standing near the counter, glanced over.
"You should get that," she said, wiping her hands on a towel.
She stepped forward, reaching toward the table.
Zenjiro's body moved before thought.
"Don't."
The word cracked through the room like a whip.
Ruka froze mid-step, her hand still half raised.
He was already standing—eyes wide, breathing sharp, every muscle wound tight as if preparing for a fight that wasn't there.
The phone kept ringing.
Again. And again.
Ruka blinked slowly, the only sound in the room her quiet breath. "It's just a call."
"Don't touch it," Zenjiro said again, his voice low now, hoarse, but trembling beneath the restraint.
For a moment, neither moved.
The ring filled the space between them like an alarm no one dared silence.
Finally, Ruka straightened, lowering her hand. "Alright," she said evenly, "it's yours."
Zenjiro's pulse hammered in his ears.
She wasn't supposed to touch it.
She couldn't. Who knows who's calling? Who knows who's listening?
He swallowed hard, the paranoia curling around his throat like smoke.
"Sorry," he muttered, his voice breaking the tension without softening it. "Didn't mean to yell."
Ruka watched him, her expression unreadable. "You did."
He ignored that, reaching for the phone. His thumb hovered over the answer icon, hesitation gripping him tighter than fear itself.
Then, finally, he pressed it to his ear.
"…Hello?"
A familiar voice—steady, casual, almost friendly—poured through the receiver.
"Hey, Zenjiro. It's me. Fujita."
The sound of that voice was enough to set a pulse ticking behind his temples.
But Zenjiro drew a slow breath through his nose, forcing calm into his tone.
"Yeah. I can tell."
Fujita chuckled softly. "You sound half-asleep. Hope I didn't wake you."
"No, I was just resting."
"Good. You've been working too hard, man. Listen, I was thinking—since the place is closing soon, maybe we grab a drink tonight?
Just the two of us. For old time's sake."
Zenjiro stared at the wall, the faint hum of the refrigerator filling the pause.
Every instinct in him screamed to say no.
No meant safety. Distance. Control.
But control didn't always look like refusal. Sometimes it looked like pretending nothing was wrong.
He cleared his throat. "Tonight? I'm… not sure. I've got a few things to handle."
"C'mon," Fujita said, that easy humor never leaving his voice. "You're not one to say no to a free drink. I'll even cover it."
Zenjiro hesitated, glancing toward the kitchen where Ruka stood, pretending not to listen.
The air between them was already heavy enough; one more wrong move and everything could fall apart.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Alright. Just for a bit."
"That's the spirit," Fujita said. "I'll text you the place. Seven sounds good?"
"Yeah. Seven's fine."
"Great. Glad to hear it. You could use a night out."
"Sure," Zenjiro murmured, the word barely leaving his throat.
They exchanged quick goodbyes, and the line went dead.
For a few seconds, Zenjiro just stood there, the phone still pressed to his ear.
The dial tone hummed, steady and hollow, like the sound of his own thoughts bleeding through.
He finally set it down, his reflection flickering faintly in the black glass of the screen.
Calm, controlled, unreadable—just as it should be.
But inside, something was gnawing again.
Ruka's voice cut softly through the haze. "Who was that?"
He looked up. Her face was half-hidden by the light coming through the blinds.
"Fujita," he said, keeping his tone neutral. "He wants to hang out."
Ruka nodded once, her expression giving nothing away. "You'll go?"
"Yeah."
A pause.
"Would look strange if I didn't."
Ruka studied him for a moment longer, then turned back to the stove.
"Then don't be late."
Her voice was calm, but it carried a weight he couldn't name.
He sat back on the couch, listening to the faint crackle of oil from the pan—
And for a brief moment, it almost sounded like static again.
For a moment, it almost felt safe.
Almost.
But nature, in its cruel mercy, had never meant for him to rest.
It had given him the curse of chaos—the kind that hides beneath stillness and feeds on calm.
Peace was only a lull between storms.
Her words—her quiet advice, her strange attempt to reach him—drifted away like smoke.
He'd already forgotten them.
One came to guide him, and he turned blind.
He thought himself righteous. The only righteous.
Oblivion in its finest form.