Chapter 10 — Tokyo Winter

Tokyo in winter felt sharper than Kun remembered.

The streets outside were lined with skeletal trees, their branches clinking softly in the wind—like wind chimes made of bone. But inside the apartment—small, high-walled, and flooded with pale light—everything was clean, orderly, and silent.

Too silent.

His mother had done her best.

She always did.

She found them a place quickly after the hospital discharge. Got Kun his prescriptions. Tended to his fever. Helped him walk again after the accident. But none of it ever really fixed the look in her eyes.

Or his.

Kun smiled more now, but it rarely reached his eyes.

Still, he laughed—because she needed to hear it.

"Hey, this one's your favorite," she said one quiet evening, slipping a worn VHS tape into the player. The screen flickered with static.

"You made me watch it like a hundred times."

He curled beneath a blanket on the couch, a heating pad warm against his aching hip.

"That's because you always cried at the ending."

"I did not."

"You did," he grinned, pointing. "Big ugly tears, Mom. Like, full sobbing."

She rolled her eyes and laughed. "I guess… you were a sweet kid, weren't you?" Still are, she almost said.

Kun tilted his head against the cushion, eyes soft.

"You're still doing your best," he murmured. "Even now. I'm… really thankful." She blinked, surprised.

"I know I don't say it a lot," Kun continued, barely a whisper now, "but… even when I was being bullied, even when I felt like I didn't matter to anyone—every time you were there, I could keep going. Just a little longer."

She reached for his hand. Her fingers trembled slightly.

"You don't have to say this, Kun."

"I want to," he said. "Just in case."

"…In case of what?"

Kun smiled.

But something behind it ached.

"Nothing."

They watched the movie together.

That night, they laughed. She made his favorite ramen. He finished all of it. Gray curled up beside them with a meow and fell asleep in his lap.

For a while, it felt like they could start again.

But the next morning, she didn't notice when he stayed in his room longer.

Didn't think much of it when he skipped breakfast.

Didn't worry—until the sun was gone and the apartment felt hollow.

"Kun?" she knocked softly. "Are you okay in there?"

No answer.

She opened the door.

And there—

He was swaying.

His body hung from the ceiling fan.

His feet dangled inches above the floor.

His neck was twisted too far to one side.

He was wearing his school uniform.

The same one he wore the day he met Sai.

A chair lay toppled below him.

In his limp hand was a note—creased, tear-stained.

"I didn't want to leave you behind. I'm sorry."

Her scream shattered the silence.

But she wasn't alone.

In the far corner of the room—where shadows twisted like oil in water—something moved.

Eyes.

Black. Unblinking. Watching.

A smile crept into view—inhuman, unnatural.

Sai stood there, not in the room, but just beyond it.

Like he had always been there.

"You said you'd stay," he whispered—not to her,

but to the boy who could no longer speak.

"But you lied. So I brought you back. With me."

The air thickened.

The walls seemed to fold inward.

And in that instant—before the sirens, before the neighbors, before the grief—

She saw Kun.

He was smiling at her.

Just like he did the night before.

Only this time…

his feet never touched the ground.

✦ 1st BAD ENDING: "If I cannot have him, no one will."

🔓 Achievement Unlocked:

"Till Death Do Us Part"

You let Sai have him in the end.

Ending Unlocked: [1/?]

Ending Rank: D

"Even in death, love clings tighter."

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