The sky above their house in the outskirts of Tokyo was the color of clean paper—white and empty and waiting to be written on. Fifteen-year-old Takeshi Kirā stood at his bedroom window, watching his father tend the garden below with movements so practiced they'd become ritual. Each plant received exactly the right attention, the right amount of water, the right words of encouragement his father thought no one could hear.
It was Tuesday. Seven days before the world would end, though Takeshi didn't know this yet. Seven days before his mother's love—or whatever twisted thing wore love's name in her heart—would turn their home into an abattoir.
He was not like other kids, but in different ways than he would become.
"Onii-chan!" His younger brother's voice pierced through his thoughts like sunlight through paper—bright, pure, uncomplicated. Kaito was five years old and believed the world was fundamentally good, that their parents loved each other, that big brothers could fix anything with a smile.
Takeshi turned from the window and manufactured that smile now—the one that cost him nothing because it meant everything to Kaito. "What's wrong, little sprout?"
"Nothing's wrong!" Kaito bounced into the room, his hair still messy from sleep, his pajamas decorated with cartoon rabbits that were missing ears because he'd picked at the stitching. "Mama's making pancakes! The special ones with red bean paste! She said to get you before they get cold!"
Special pancakes. Tuesday tradition. Their mother performed domesticity like an actress performing a role she'd studied but never understood. Every gesture precise. Every word calculated. Every smile a careful construction that fooled everyone except the people who lived in her house.
Takeshi had always known something was wrong with her. The way you know a photograph is slightly off-center even if you can't articulate why. The way certain silences feel different from other silences. The way love, when performed rather than felt, has a kind of hollow quality—like knocking on a door and hearing the echo of an empty room beyond.
But knowing something was wrong and knowing what to do about it were different calculations entirely.
"Race you downstairs!" Kaito declared, already running, and Takeshi let him win because that's what he does to make his brother happy. He counted Kaito's footsteps—twelve to reach the stairs, eighteen more down them, each one slightly uneven because his little brother hadn't quite mastered the rhythm of descent yet.
Twenty-nine more footsteps until Kaito would stop believing the world was safe.
But that was next week. Today was Tuesday. Today was pancakes and garden work and the careful performance they all participated in, pretending they were a normal family in a normal house in a normal corner of Japan where nothing bad ever happened.
The kitchen smelled like vanilla and lies.
Their mother stood at the stove, her back perfectly straight, her movements efficient as she flipped pancakes with mechanical precision. Takeshi had seen the photographs, back when her eyes held something that might have been genuine emotion. Now she was just... maintained. Like a house that was cleaned regularly but never lived in.
"Good morning, Takeshi," she said without turning around. Her voice had that particular quality it always had—flat affect masked by performance of warmth. Like an AI learning to simulate human speech patterns. "Did you sleep well?"
"Yes, Mother." The lie came easily. He'd learned young that truth was overrated in this house. Truth was for families who could handle it. They were not that family.
His father entered through the back door, bringing the smell of earth and morning dew. Hideaki Kirā was a father who had built his entire existence around maintaining appearances. Middle management at a forgettable company. Average height, average father, average everything. Except for the secrets he kept, which were spectacular in their ordinary cruelty.
"Ah, my kids!" His voice boomed with false enthusiasm. "Ready for breakfast?"
Takeshi watched his mother's shoulders tense—microscopic movement, barely visible, but there. She knew. She'd always known. Known about the other person. Known about the second family. Known about every lie Hideaki had constructed over fifteen years of marriage.
And she'd said nothing. Done nothing. Just continued performing domesticity while something inside her slowly calcified into hate. "Sit, sit!" Hideaki commanded, already pulling out chairs. "Your mother has made something special!"
They sat. The table was set perfectly—plates aligned, chopsticks parallel, everything in its designated place. Grandmother was staying with them this week, Hideaki's mother, and she presided over breakfast like a gentle dictator, smiling her soft smile that suggested she saw only what she wanted to see.
"Takeshi-kun," Grandmother said warmly, "your father tells me you scored top marks in mathematics again. You make us so proud!"
Pride. The word landed on the table like a stone. Takeshi manufactured another smile—this one for Grandmother, who deserved better than the truth but would never receive it.
"Thank you, Grandmother."
Across the table, his grandfather—his mother's father, visiting for the week—sat in deliberate silence. Hiroshi Tanaka was a person carved from disappointment and regret. He looked at his daughter the way one might look at a failed experiment. With clinical interest and buried sorrow.
He knew too. About the drinking. About the pills she thought she hid so well. About the way her hands shook when she thought no one was watching. About the something dark and vast that lived inside her, waiting.
They all knew everything. And they all said nothing. That was the family's true tradition. "Pancakes!" Kaito announced unnecessarily, as their mother distributed plates with mechanical efficiency. "The special ones!"
"Yes, darling," their mother said, and her hand lingered on Kaito's hair for just a moment—the only gesture of affection she seemed capable of. Something about Kaito's innocence penetrated whatever armor she'd built around herself. He was five. He still believed she was good.
In seven days, he would fade believing she was good. That was either mercy or the cruelest thing of all. Takeshi hadn't decided yet.
Breakfast proceeded with the usual performance. His father told jokes that weren't funny. Grandmother laughed anyway. Grandfather ate in silence. Mother smiled her hollow smile. Kaito chattered about kindergarten, about his friends, about the picture he was drawing for Papa's birthday next month.
Papa wouldn't live to see his birthday. None of them would.
But that was next week. Today was Tuesday. Today was family breakfast and the comfortable fiction that they all bought into because the alternative—acknowledging the rot at the center of everything—was too terrible to contemplate.
"Takeshi," his father said suddenly, "could you help me with the garden after school? The tomatoes need staking." "Of course, Father."
Another lie. Takeshi hated gardening. Hated the feel of dirt under his fingernails, the smell of plants, the pointless repetition of caring for things that would grow and die regardless. But he said yes because that's what good kids did.
Good people performed obedience. Good people smiled. Good people participated in the elaborate theater of normalcy even when everyone in the audience knew the play was fiction.
"Such a good kiddo," Grandmother murmured. "So responsible." Responsible. As if responsibility was a virtue in a house built on lies.
Takeshi caught his mother watching him then—really watching, not the distant observation she usually employed. Her eyes were dark and somehow desperate, like someone drowning in shallow water, unable to figure out which way was up.
"Takeshi understands," she said quietly, and the statement hung in the air like smoke. "He's always understood. Haven't you, my Sakura?" It wasn't a question. It was an accusation. An acknowledgment. A confession of some kind.
"I understand, Mother," he said, though he didn't. Didn't understand why she stayed. Didn't understand why she suffered. Didn't understand what was building inside her—the pressure, the rage, the love she'd spent her whole life trying to feel and failing.
She nodded slowly, then returned to her pancakes. The moment passed. Life continued. The performance resumed.
After breakfast, Takeshi walked to school through streets that knew nothing of the disaster approaching. Tokyo sprawled around him—not the Tokyo of his distant future, the one he would die remembering without remembering, but 2027 Tokyo, all gleaming technology and careful order. Autonomous vehicles hummed past. Digital advertisements shifted on every surface. People moved through their lives with the confidence of a society that believed it had solved all the important problems.
They were wrong, but they'd only learn that later. After the earthquakes. After the wars. After everything collapsed. But that was years away. Today was Tuesday. Today was school.
Shinjuku High School existed in a building that tried too hard to look futuristic. All glass and steel and promises of excellence. Takeshi entered through gates that suggested you were passing into somewhere significant, somewhere that would shape your future.
His future would be shaped elsewhere. In a basement. In a war. In the impossible journey from one death to another.
"Kirā-kun!" His friend—he had friends then, before—waved from across the courtyard. Daichi was everything Takeshi wasn't: naturally cheerful, genuinely kind, incapable of recognizing the darkness in other people because he had none himself.
"Morning," Takeshi responded, sliding into the social protocols he'd mastered. Smile. Make eye contact. Demonstrate appropriate enthusiasm. "Ready for the math test?"
"I'm going to fail so hard," Daichi laughed. "You'll have to tutor me again. Third time this month!" "That's what friends are for."
Friends. The word felt strange in his mouth. He liked Daichi—genuinely liked him, which was unusual for Takeshi, who found most people exhausting in their demands for authenticity he couldn't provide. But liking and trusting were different calculations.
Trusting meant vulnerability. Vulnerability meant pain. Pain was something to be avoided.
(Later, much later, pain would be something to be survived. Then something to be weaponized. Then something to be forgotten. Then something to be relearned. But that was years and lifetimes away.)
The school day progressed in its usual rhythm. Classes. Lunch. More classes. Takeshi performed studenthood with the same precision he performed childhood—adequately but not exceptionally, maintaining the careful balance of being noticed but not too noticed, successful but not threatening, present but not really there.
"You're quiet today," his teacher observed during English class. "Everything alright, Kirā-kun?" "Yes, sensei. Just tired."
Another lie. He wasn't tired. He was observing. Calculating. Trying to solve an equation that didn't have numbers: How do you fix a family that was broken before you were born? How do you save people who don't want to be saved? How do you survive in a house where everyone is drowning slowly and no one admits water is rising?
After school, he kept his promise to his father. They worked in the garden together, Hideaki explaining plant care with the same false enthusiasm he applied to everything. Tomatoes needed support. Peppers needed space. Carrots needed patience.
"You're good at this," his father said, and the compliment felt like accusation. "You take care of things. That's an important quality."
Take care of things. As if Takeshi could take care of the disaster his father had created. As if supporting tomato plants would somehow translate into supporting a collapsing family.
"Thank you, Father."
His father looked at him then—really looked—and something complicated happened to his face. Guilt, maybe. Or recognition. Or the belated realization that his son knew everything and had chosen mercy over honesty.
"Takeshi," his father said carefully, "if something ever happened to me... you'd take care of your mother and brother, wouldn't you?"
The question arrived like prophecy. Like foreshadowing. Like his father somehow knew that next week he'd be dead and his son would fail to save anyone.
"Of course, Father." The lie tasted like dirt and blood and the future he couldn't see coming.
That evening, dinner was quieter than usual. Grandmother had gone to bed early. Grandfather read his newspaper with methodical precision, turning pages like he was searching for something he'd never find. Kaito chattered less, sensing perhaps the strange tension that had settled over the house like humidity before rain.
Their mother cooked with unusual intensity—meal after meal, far more food than they needed. Miso soup. Grilled fish. Pickled vegetables. Rice seasoned perfectly. Each dish a small masterpiece of domestic competence.
"You're feeding an army, dear," Hideaki joked, and Takeshi watched his mother's hand tighten on the knife she was holding. Just for a second. Just enough to count.
"I want everything to be perfect," she said softly. "Is that so wrong? Wanting things to be perfect?"
No one answered. The question didn't want an answer. It wanted acknowledgment of the impossible standards she'd been holding herself to for fifteen years. The performance of love. The simulation of happiness. The elaborate fiction that was eating her alive from the inside.
After dinner, Takeshi helped Kaito with his homework—basic reading, simple addition. His little brother struggled with kanji, tongue poking out in concentration as he traced characters over and over.
"I don't understand this one, onii-chan," Kaito said, pointing to the character for "family." "Why is the roof over a pig? We don't have pigs in our house!" Takeshi stared at the character. Family. A roof over a pig. Protection of something domestic. The symbol suddenly felt like mockery.
"It's an old character," he explained gently. "From when families lived on farms and kept animals. It means... it means family is about protecting what's yours."
"Like how you protect me?" Kaito asked, with the absolute faith only a five-year-old could have. "Yeah," Takeshi said, and the word felt like promise and lie simultaneously. "Like how I protect you."
In seven days, he would try. In seven days, he would fail. In seven days, his younger brother's final words would be "Onii-chan, why—" before their mother's knife found him.
But that was next week. Today was Tuesday. Today was homework and bedtime stories and the comfortable fiction that big brothers were invincible.
Later, after Kaito was asleep, Takeshi stood in the hallway outside his parents' bedroom. Their door was slightly ajar, and voices filtered through—his mother's, soft and desperate; his father's, defensive and afraid.
"I can't do this anymore," his mother was saying. "I can't pretend. I can't smile. I can't—" "What do you want me to do?" His father's voice, sharp now. "You want me to what? Tell the truth? Destroy everything?"
"Everything is already destroyed! Can't you see that? Can't you feel it? This house is a zoo and we're all corpses pretending to breathe!" "You're being dramatic—"
"I'm being honest! For the first time in fifteen years, I'm being honest! I don't love you. I've never loved you. I don't even know what love is supposed to feel like. My parents beat it out of me and you—you took advantage of someone who was broken and now I'm—I'm—"
"You're what?" Silence. Long and terrible.
"I'm going insane," his mother whispered finally. "I think I've been going insane for years and nobody noticed. Or maybe they noticed and didn't care. Maybe I don't care. Maybe I just want it all to stop. The pretending. The performance. The endless, endless, endless acting like I'm something I'm not."
Takeshi stood frozen in the hallway. His heart was beating too fast. His hands felt cold. Something vast and terrible was opening beneath him, and he didn't have words for it yet, wouldn't have words for it until much later, wouldn't understand what he'd heard until he'd been reborn and broken again and taught to kill.
He should go in. Should say something. Should intervene. Instead, he went to his room. Closed his door. Pressed his hands against the wood as if he could physically hold back what was coming.
Seven days, the universe whispered. Seven days until everything you know ends.
Takeshi climbed into bed. Stared at his ceiling. Calculated nothing because there was nothing to calculate. Just darkness. Just waiting. Just the inevitable disaster approaching on schedule.
Outside his window, Tokyo glittered with ten thousand lights. Inside his house, something was breaking that had never been whole.
And in seven days, his mother would remember she'd never wanted to love anyone. Would remember her parents beating emotions out of her. Would remember every lie, every performance, every moment of pretending to be human when humanity felt like a language she'd never learned.
Would remember all of it at once. And would try to make it stop the only way she knew how. But that was next week. Today was Tuesday. Today was normal. Today was safe.
Today was the last normal day of Takeshi Kirā's first life, though he didn't know it yet. The sky above Tokyo remained the color of clean paper—white and empty and waiting to be written on. In seven days, it would be written in blood.
TO BE CONTINUED...