CLATTER!
The sudden, sharp noise cut through the suffocating silence like a knife.
A pair of metal chopsticks that had been resting on the edge of the wooden table suddenly slipped, rolling over the side and hitting the hard kitchen tile with a loud, ringing Bounce.
The sudden Clatter of the chopsticks seemed to snap something vital inside Mr. Kamitani's chest.
The gentle, romantic posture vanished in a single fraction of a second. He stood up tall, tearing himself away from the back of her chair as his playful energy evaporated completely into thin air.
He brought one large, trembling hand up, pressing his fingers tightly over his left eye as a heavy, dark anger rushed over his pale features.
"Yuna," Mr. Kamitani spoke straight-forward, his voice dropping all its warmth, turning incredibly cold and rigid as his lawyer instincts desperately fought against the rising panic.
"Calm down. Just stop it right now. That... what you're saying is completely impossible. You are clearly overworked at the Firm, and you are imagining things."
"Imagining things?!" Mrs. Kamitani suddenly screamed.
With a quick burst of raw emotion, she violently forced herself up from the seat.
The complete force of her sudden movement sent the heavy wooden chair crashing backward onto the hard kitchen floor with a loud, echoing THUD.
Fresh tears exploded from her green eyes, spilling down her face as she slammed one hand tightly over her heaving chest, staring at him in pure, broken betrayal.
"Ayato! Since when did you start doubting me?!" she cried out, her voice filled with a painful, desperate madness.
"Ayato! Since when did you start doubting me?!" she cried out, her voice cracking into a painful, desperate sob as she stared at him in pure, broken betrayal.
"I AM NOT BLIND!" Yuna shouted, the hot tears completely spilling over her eyelashes.
"AND I AM ABSOLUTELY NOT MAD!"
Mr. Kamitani tried to step closer, but she fiercely backed away.
"Do you honestly think I would just invent this?!" she breathed out frantically, her shoulders shaking violently as she pressed her hand harder against her chest.
"Right in the middle of our happy days... why would I ever make up something as terrible as that Curse?!"
She shook her head in pure agony, her green eyes flashing with a desperate terror.
"That mark hasn't appeared a single time in Eleven Years, Ayato!" Yuna screamed through her fingers, her voice breaking completely. "I know what I saw! I know it!"
Mr. Kamitani instantly closed his eyes, letting out a heavy, sharp sigh through his teeth.
"Yuna, please..." he whispered fiercely, leaning across the table. "Do not shout at me. Do not speak so loudly in this kitchen. The children are still upstairs. Do you want Shido to hear you?!"
"Don't... don't scold me!" Mrs. Kamitani sobbed continuously, her shoulders shaking violently as she completely refused to back down against his cold wall of denial.
"Don't you dare... hic... don't look down on me like... like I've lost my mind!" she cried out, her breath hitching sharply between the heavy tears.
Mr. Kamitani stood completely rigid, his face pale as he watched her crumble.
"I-I am not lying to you, Ayato!" Yuna screamed through her messy, wet sobs, her voice fracturing into breathless, tiny pieces. "I'm not... I'm not insane! If you don't... if you won't believe my words..."
She stepped forward, her hands shaking as she pointed a trembling finger toward the upper hallway.
"Then g-go up there... go up there yourself!" she shouted, a fresh wave of bitter tears suffocating her speech. "W-Walk into Kento's room... lift... lift his shirt, and... and check his—"
"YUNA!!!"
Mr. Kamitani screamed her name, his voice exploding through the quiet kitchen like a sudden, terrifying clap of thunder.
The complete, raw volume of his shout was so immensely loud and furious that Mrs. Kamitani's entire body instantly hitched and violently shivered in pure shock.
"Eek—!"
The words completely died in her throat, and she let out a small, terrified gasp, stepping back as she stared at her husband in wide-eyed silence.
The heavy silence crashed back into the room, suffocating them both. Mr. Kamitani slowly lowered his hand from his eye, looking down at the floor tiles as his chest heaved with a shallow, panicked breath.
When he spoke again, his voice was nothing more than a low, freezing, and absolute whisper.
"You are daydreaming." he said coldly, refusing to look into her eyes. "I will not believe this. I am not going to check anything, because there is nothing to check. Now drop it."
"W-Wahh... huuu..."
Yuna let out a sharp, breathless sob, a broken, choked-up wail ripping violently through her throat as she shook her head in utter betrayal. She didn't say a single word. She couldn't.
"H-Hic... ugh..."
She turned around violently, completely abandoning the kitchen as she ran out into the hallway, the sound of her frantic, weeping footsteps fading rapidly up the stairs.
The moment the front door of the kitchen clicked shut, the icy mask completely slipped off Mr. Kamitani's face.
BAM!!!
With a sudden, violent shout of pure, complete agony, he slammed his fist hard against the wooden kitchen table, making the remaining coffee cups rattle loudly.
"GOD DAMMIT!!!" he screamed out into the empty room, his voice cracking with a terrifying despair. He aggressively slapped his hand over his forehead, dragging it down his face as his tall body bent in absolute, bleeding defeat.
How could this be possible?
How could the universe be so incredibly cruel?
Sixteen years ago in that dark basement, he had held his weeping wife and promised her that everything would be fine.
For eleven long years, the spiral lines had remained completely dark, dead, and quiet.
He had truly, honestly thought that the ancient prayer was over. He had thought his innocent family was finally safe from the Heavens.
He let out a long, broken sigh, his eyes staring blankly into the shadows of the kitchen as the absolute terror of his late uncle's vanished mark and the cosmos settled deep into his bones.
The dawn was coming. And he was completely powerless to stop it.
SEPTEMBER 30th, 2016. TOKYO. 4:12 A.M.
The bedroom was completely drowned in a heavy, freezing darkness.
The glowing golden lights of the massive crystal chandelier hanging from the high ceiling were switched completely off, leaving the vast space to be swallowed by the deep shadows of the night.
Outside the large, floor-to-ceiling glass doors, the distant Tokyo skyline was buried under dark clouds, casting a faint blue light over the polished wooden floors.
In the center, a large, grand bed was framed by two matching nightstands, their small lamps turned dark.
High wooden bookshelves were built directly into the walls, packed tight with towering rows of heavy, thick Law Books and Legal Volumes that stretched all the way up to the ceiling.
A hallway opened up to the left, leading into a dark walk-in closet, while the heavy, dark blue curtains hung perfectly still by the windows.
A thick, suffocating silence filled every single corner, made even louder by the low, steady hum of the air conditioner, which was set to a freezing 18°C.
Right across from the massive windows, the quiet was gently broken by a single, small desk lamp shining brightly over the wide wooden study table.
Sitting right at the desk was Mrs. Kamitani, completely lost in her late-night work. She was dressed in a pair of loose, light blue-grey cotton pajamas with tiny white buttons and white borders along the short sleeves.
Her long brown hair was thrown up in a hurried, casual hairstyle, held tightly at the back of her head with a large, clear plastic claw clip, leaving a few loose strands framing her face.
A pair of thin reading spectacles sat low on the bridge of her nose, reflecting the bright glowing screen of her open laptop.
Thin white wired earphones ran down from her ears straight into the laptop side, playing a soft, low melody that kept her away from the dark room. Right next to her mouse pad, a plain white ceramic mug sat flat on the desk, a faint line of steam still rising from the hot black coffee inside.
Mrs. Kamitani leaned forward, her eyes moving rapidly across a dense corporate contract on her screen.
Her fingers tapped gently against her chin, and she began murmuring quietly to herself, her voice nothing more than a breathless whisper cutting through the soft music in her ears.
"Let's see..." she muttered to herself, looking slightly at a long legal clause on the page.
"If the third party fails to deliver the financial layouts by the weekend term... then the alliance contract becomes completely void. No, that's not right. Let's look at the previous memo again..."
Just across the vast room, directly opposite her neat workspace, stood another massive study table. Unlike hers, that desk was an absolute disaster area.
A small desk lamp cast a harsh glare over the chaos, lighting up mountains of open legal files, cardboard storage boxes stuffed with messy paperwork, and heavy law volumes stacked high on top of each other.
The bright computer monitor was wide awake, glowing with a dozen open research websites and dense legal databases. Right beside the keyboard, a lone ceramic mug sat forgotten, the dark coffee inside having gone completely cold hours ago.
---
🖋️ AUTHOR'S NOTE 🌙
Sometimes...
The hardest lie to believe...
is the one we tell ourselves.
This chapter wasn't really about the curse.
It was about denial.
Because sometimes the truth is so terrifying that the human heart would rather call it impossible than accept it.
For the first time, Ayato wasn't trying to convince Yuna.
He was trying to convince himself.
And perhaps...
that is the most frightening kind of fear.
Thank you so much for reading.
I'll see you all in the next chapter.
Until then...
Take care of yourselves. 🌙
(｡•́︿•̀｡)
----
✦ 🔮 A GLIMPSE INTO THE NEXT CHAPTER 🔮 ✦
"What awaits beyond this page...?" 🌙
(灬･◡･灬)♡
"Come out from the shadows, it's your time..."
"It's not like I care anyway."
---
🎬 BEHIND THE SCENES! 🌸
Ayato: "Everything is fine."
Author: "It was, in fact, not fine."
Yuna: "I TOLD YOU."
(￣▽￣;)
---
🌙 The stars may fade, and memories may sleep...
But the Spiral continues to turn.
Until we meet again beneath the same forgotten sky.
(◡︵◡)
— SakuraShinomiya