Arc 2: Whispers of the Past
Night had a way of sharpening small things into alarms. On the quiet lane behind the Hyūga house, a loose stone that the day before had been just a loose stone could mean a footstep that did not belong. Ryouji moved through that knowledge like muscle memory—slow, deliberate, tuned to the city's off-beats. He walked the perimeter again, not because he believed anything new would appear, but because pacing the same path steadied him. It kept the edge of panic from growing teeth.
The moon threw pale strips across his shoes. He checked the gate latch, fingertip to metal, then knelt to inspect the ground near the little storage shed at the corner of their yard. There—prints. Fresh, shallow, the sole pattern he had not seen in years but knew well enough to dislike. A compact tread, with a narrow cross pattern close to the heel. Not a random passerby. A watcher. Someone who had closed the distance to their house and then left, confident and careful.
He rose without sound and straightened his jacket. For a moment he let himself remember the other nights—the ones before Hana, before the children—when he had walked silent alleys for reasons that did not involve rice bills or school runs. The memory was a cold thing; it slid across his ribs and left him breathing deliberately.
Morning came on thin, gray light. Inside, the house tried to stitch itself back to normal. Hana hummed over breakfast, folding a towel as she placed steamed rice on the table. Ren was already half out the door, backpack slung over one shoulder, but he paused when Ryouji returned from sweeping the porch. The elder boy watched his father with the odd attention of a child who notices patterns.
"Why do you check the fence every morning, Dad?" Ren asked, voice casual but curious. He spoke as if it were an ordinary thing, like asking why the neighbor's cat always slept on a tire. But the question had weight.
Ryouji paused, looking down at his son. Warmth met caution in his gaze. "Habits," he said simply. "Old habits keep you safe if you let them."
Ren frowned. "What kind of habit? Like brushing your teeth?" He tried to joke, but the edges of his mouth betrayed the worry that had been growing for weeks.
"It's not a joke, Ren," Hana said gently, setting a cup of tea in front of the boy. Her voice was calm, light, purposeful. She did not want to cause alarm, but she could not let their son drift toward games with danger as if it were a riddle. "We look out for each other. That's all."
Ren nodded, not fully satisfied. He ate quickly and left for school, the normal rhythm of the day moving forward as if nothing had happened. But the rhythm never quite filled the small hollow that was the prints in the yard.
When Ryouji thought the family had turned its attention away, he went back to the shed. He crouched and followed the faint trail with his finger. The prints led to a patch of crushed grass near the side gate—an area a visitor would cross if they wanted to watch the house without being seen from the main road. Someone had stood there long enough to press the grass down. He found a small bit of foreign tape snagged on the fence wire, a strip not native to their market—black, cut clean. He did not touch it with his bare hand. He rolled it into a scrap and pocketed it.
Later, while Hana hung laundry, Ryouji checked his toolbox. He had not needed the tools for years, and his hands moved with the old accuracy, wiping dust from a blunt knife sheathing, aligning a folding saw. He did not need them to show off; he needed them to remember the measure of the threat. He closed the box and shoved it under a loose plank in the shed floor. The action was private, almost ritual: setting aside a weight he hoped never to pick up again.
At midday, Hana caught him looking at the street from the kitchen window, thumb absently tracing the rim of her teacup.
"You did another walk last night," she said without turning. Her voice was quiet—not accusing, only stating a fact she had already accepted as part of their lives.
Ryouji did not look away. "I did." He could have lied. He chose not to. The truth was a small stone in his mouth he could spit out when necessary. "There are prints by the shed. Someone's been watching closer than before."
Hana's hand paused. She swallowed. "Did they… come close to the children?"
"No." His voice was flat. He did not mean to sound cold; he meant to be honest and tactical. "Not yet."
Her face changed then—fear, yes, but not the frantic kind. Determination came in its stead. "We should tell Ren," she said, and the words surprised her: she had not expected to be the one to propose openness. "He deserves to know some things. Not all. But enough to be careful."
Ryouji's jaw tightened. He had spent years constructing silence like a fortress—small omissions that became walls. He understood why Hana wanted the wall opened, even a little. He also knew how quickly leaks could flood a house.
"All right," he agreed at last. "Careful. Small." He ran a hand along the back of his neck, tasting the tension like copper. "No panic. We teach him what he needs. And you—" he met her eyes, "'—you keep watching the market. If you see anyone, come home. Don't tail them. Just come."
Hana nodded, an unspoken plan forming between them. They were two people who had chosen a small life together and who now found themselves making small, precise decisions to protect it.
As evening slipped in, Ryouji walked their street again, not because he doubted the plan but because the watchful city demanded constancy. He kept his pace slow, ears open for the faintest scrape, eyes on every lamplight pool. He was not the only one who moved in the dark; he knew that now. The question that followed him as he walked—soft as a second shadow—was how long the hush would hold before the rest of the hunters closed in.
By the time he returned, the house stood quiet and ordinary under the lamplight, family silhouettes soft behind paper screens. He bent to check the ground once more, and the moonlight found another faint print, newly pressed—a reminder that somebody had been there after he left, or had been watching him watch. He frowned, the line between normal life and the past growing thinner with each step.
Ryouji rose, feeling the small, familiar anger in his chest—the steady kind that turned caution into action. He slipped the scrap of black tape from his pocket and folded it into a creased palm. He folded the scrap like a promise. Then he turned and went upstairs, where the soft sound of a child breathing told him what he was fighting for.
Outside, the street kept its silence, restless and watchful.