Mika Takamine never liked the rain.
It reminded her of the night her world first broke.
Back then, she was only thirteen old enough to understand pain, but too young to fight it. Her father, Renji Takamine, was a man of many faces. To neighbors, he was a cheerful gambler with a crooked smile. To strangers, he was a businessman who made quick money. But Mika knew the truth whispered behind closed doors: her father was part of something darker the kind of world where debts were paid in fear, not cash.
Her earliest memories of him weren't all bad. There were nights when he carried her on his shoulders to the summer festival, when the air smelled of grilled corn and fireworks painted the sky red. He'd buy her a small bell charm, promising, "As long as this rings, you'll never be alone."
But promises don't survive long in a world like his.
One night, the house felt colder than usual. Her mother was silent. Her father's laughter had vanished. And outside, black cars lined the street, engines humming like low growls.
She peeked from behind the curtain and saw men stepping out suits, dark eyes, and expressions that didn't belong in a home like hers.
Her father met them at the door. Words were exchanged she couldn't hear, but she could feel them sharp, heavy, final. When one of the men turned his gaze toward her window, she pulled the curtain shut and hid under her blanket.
The shouting started. Then the breaking. Then the silence.
After that night, her father changed. He no longer smiled or brought home festival toys. He stopped calling her "my little star." He avoided her eyes, his guilt heavy like smoke in the air. The men came often after that, sometimes just to talk, sometimes to threaten. She didn't understand all their words, but she understood the fear in her mother's trembling hands.
And then, one day, her father was gone.
He didn't die, at least not in a way she could confirm. He just disappeared.
Her mother tried to hold on for a while. But soon, she too fell apart drinking, crying, and calling out his name in her sleep. By the time Mika turned fifteen, her house was empty of warmth, filled only with echoes of arguments and debt collectors' knocks.
She learned to live quietly. To hide her eyes. To trust no one.
The world became a cold, blurry place not black and white like Yuto's, but faded, as if someone had erased all the colors that made life beautiful.
She told herself she didn't need anyone.
That it was safer to feel nothing than to hurt again.
And then came the bridge.
It was late evening, the city lights reflecting off the water like dying stars. She stood on the railing, the wind tugging at her hair, whispering her name like an invitation.
No tears came she had run out of those long ago.
She just wanted the noise inside her head to stop.
The guilt. The memories. The constant replay of her father's voice begging for something she could never understand.
So she stepped forward.
And then hands. Warm, trembling, desperate pulled her back.
She fell hard onto the pavement, breath knocked out of her lungs. She turned and saw a boy, his eyes wide with shock and confusion.
"Why… why did you stop me?" she whispered.
He didn't answer. He just looked at her like he had seen something impossible.
That boy was Yuto Manabe the boy who saw the world in black and white.
But to him, Mika wasn't gray.
For the first time in ten years, she glitched into his sight like a spark of color in a dead world.
Mika didn't know it then, but from that moment on, their fates were quietly tied
a boy who couldn't see color,
and a girl who couldn't feel warmth,
each carrying scars carved by their parents' sins.