A day goes by. A bond trembles. A world begins to change.
Snow had long since melted in the months after the Uki twins left the Hukitaske Pharmacy. But something of that cold—unseen, unshakeable—lingered inside them, still curling around their bones. It wasn't winter anymore, but the world still felt frozen.
The days turned into weeks, then into months.
Their time within Akio's walls had been brief, only a handful of nights by the standards of seasons, but to two children who had never been sheltered by anything warmer than cardboard or caution, it had meant something. It had been a world.
They sometimes wondered if it had been a dream. Because dreams don't last. And—in their case—neither did kindness.
The Return
It was Bradzi who said it first, in his quiet way. "Let's go back," he murmured.
Yatsumiya, the older, said nothing. Just tugged the frayed sleeve of his brother's sweater and nodded. They didn't need to say it aloud. They both knew what he meant.
And so they walked. Their small shoes scuffed the edges of the pavement, now too small on their feet after a winter's worth of growing bones and blisters. Their steps fell into rhythm—not quite in time, but in unison.
The world had not become kinder during those months, but the memory of Akio had stitched something back into them. Not quite hope, but its shadow.
The pharmacy was just like they remembered it, squat and comforting, its chubby windows and white-painted frame like something out of a book the Uki brothers had never been read from. The hanging sign with the bowl and pestle creaked softly in the breeze. A small potted herb still sat on the window sill, the earth inside dry but not dead.
But something was wrong. The door was locked. And the lights were off. The bell above it did not ring. The pharmacy was closed.
Silence, Glass, and Dust
Yatsumiya pressed his hand against the pane of the door. The glass was colder than he expected. Colder than the air around them.
He peered inside. Dust pooled at the edges of the shelves. A fallen bottle lay on its side on the counter—blue glass, half-full, its contents dried to a line. The herbs Akio always kept so fresh in little hanging bundles were now brown and brittle, swaying gently as if still waiting... but no hand came to gather them.
Bradzi stood still beside him, eyes searching. "Maybe he's inside," he said, almost too softly to hear. Yatsumiya shook his head. No. He could sense absence. The way a child who has lost everything can.
This place was empty. Abandoned. Their hearts beat in the quiet like fists against their ribs. The Headlines That Hurt to Read
A figure walked by. Middle-aged. Umbrella hooked into the crook of his arm even though the sky was clear. He paused at the sight of the two children staring into the pharmacy window. The unease etched onto their faces made him speak.
"You been looking for someone?" he asked.
The kids didn't answer. They didn't know how. The person sighed. "You heard the news?"
Again, nothing. The kids stared up through matted bangs and hollow eyes, silent. The figure scratched the back of his neck, uneasy. "They say the pharmacist went missing. Poor pharmacist. Popular one. Always helped the local people around here. Shame..."
Yatsumiya's breath caught.
Bradzi's hands curled into fists.
"M-Missing?" Yatsumiya asked.
"Few months now. Police haven't found him. Some folks said they heard shouting in the alley one night. After that… nothing." The words lingered. Incomplete, but enough to drown them. The persons eyes hardened with a kind of bitter sympathy. "You kids shouldn't be out here on your own. World's full of teeth these days."
He walked away, leaving a hush in his wake.
The twins said nothing.
They didn't have words for what was happening inside them. No metaphor for the way a small light—one they had only just begun to believe in—was being tugged away into darkness again.
Yatsumiya put his forehead against the glass and whispered: "…He's not dead." Bradzi nodded firmly. "He's not."
It wasn't denial.
It was instinct.
Because if Akio was dead, then everything meant nothing. The winter never ended. You never got warm, even if the world let you into a house. But if Akio was alive—That was enough.
Enough to keep breathing. Enough to keep moving.
And so, two kids aged seven who had learned to survive death and cold and emptiness decided they would find the only person who'd ever shown them warmth.
Even if the world had swallowed him whole.
The First Search
They didn't sleep that night.
Instead, under the dusky orange of a streetlamp whose bulb buzzed like a dying bee, the twins began to plan. Well—plan was too generous a word.
They followed where clues took them.
They began at the alley where they first met him. Nothing there but stacked wooden crates, rotting cardboard, and a forgotten bicycle frame. They checked the park bench where Akio sometimes sat eating an onigiri on lunch break. Its metal bars were cold.
They even tried the police station.
But police officers asked questions the kids didn't know how to answer, and their silence made the adults shift uneasily and shoo them away.
So they took to the streets. Little silhouettes against the neon of the train stations and closed shopfronts, watching the world pass, hoping to see one face among the thousands.
In their pockets they carried the only things of value to them: The watch. The receipt. And a fading memory of a white coat and a smile.
The Breaking
The third day of wandering arrived with no answers. Their feet were blistered. Their stomachs growled with such hunger that the ache felt hopeful by comparison.
That morning, they came back to the pharmacy again, just to be near the place. Snow didn't cover the ground anymore, but cold no longer required ice. The world could go frigid inside you.
Yatsumiya sat on the curb. Bradzi leaned against the door, head bowed.
It was a terrible truth: Even when you survive this long, grief is a second death. "If we don't find him…" Bradzi's voice trembled. Yatsumiya's swallowed. Voice tiny, broken glass in sound: "…We will."
But belief without reason becomes a burden. It weighs the soul heavier than failure. That night, Yatsumiya dreamed of warmth that turned into fire. Bradzi dreamed of blood in snow. They both woke up with tears frozen to their eyelashes.
The World Darkens
Something in the city seemed to shift after the fourth day. Maybe it was only the Uki twins who shifted. Maybe the world had always been this way: Cold. Unforgiving. Veins of cruelty running under the pavements like veins in skin.
They came back to the pharmacy one last time at dusk—when the sky was still violet, but the streetlights were flickering to life.
And that's when they noticed something strange. A shadow on the side of the building. Tall. Indecipherable. The shadow dissolved as it stepped out from darkness, emerging fully into the half-light.
A elder—if he could be called that—stood before them. Tall, imposing, dressed in a long coat the color of spilled ink. His hair was white like frost. Eyes unreadable.
He did not appear startled to find them there. As though he had been expecting them. "You've been searching," he said simply. Neither kid spoke.
The figure smirked—not with his mouth, but with his eyes. A thin up-tilt of understanding that felt both empathetic… and dangerous. "You're not the only ones." Yatsumiya blinked. His voice was barely sound when it came: "You know where Akio is." The gramps tilted his head. Backlit by the dim pharmacy sign, she looked almost ghostlike.
"We don't lose people," he said. "Not truly. Only the world loses them." Ren stepped forward instinctively, silent but sharp. "What do you want?" The figure looked down at them with something like respect.
"To give you an offer," he said. "To stop being lost." A nameless wind stirred. And in that moment the Uki twins didn't see the coat or the face or the icy gaze. They saw possibility. Hazardous, tempting possibility.
The gramps gestured behind him. An alleyway. Darker than night. "Come," he said. "There's a place for people like you." The name he gave was nothing more than a whisper. But it was enough to change everything.
"The Yaka Organization."
TO BE CONTINUED...