CHAPTER 4: PETALS OF DECEIT
"HE LOVED PERFECTLY TOO MUCH "
Before the world turned its face away—
Before chains sealed the doors—
Before fear and superstition swallowed the hill—
There was laughter.
There were three lives in that mountain temple.
And they were happy.
---
The monk—his name long lost to the winds—
woke every morning before dawn, grinding tea leaves by hand. He always brewed three cups. One for the spirit of the Buddha. One for the day. And one to split between two small hands reaching sleepily from under cotton blankets.
"Hot," Kaede always warned, her voice light as snowflakes.
"Not anymore," Akumu would whisper, already sipping.
The monk would only chuckle, rubbing warmth into their tiny fingers.
They didn't have much. But what they had—
was theirs.
---
The library beneath the temple wasn't just a room.
It was a world.
Stone shelves carved into the mountain walls, scrolls stacked in strange spirals, books bound in wood and twine, sealed in languages only the dead remembered.
No one knew the library was there.
Only the monk.
And only the children could read it.
Kaede learned seven dialects before she lost her baby teeth.
Akumu learned how to hide a knife in his sleeve by the time he turned five.
They read about constellations that didn't exist anymore.
About ancient beings that watched from wells.
About fighting styles based on breathing patterns.
About silence as a weapon.
About empathy as armor.
About how to protect.
They were not taught to hate.
They were not taught to fear.
They were taught to understand.
---
"Why do we read all this, Sensei?" Kaede once asked, swinging her feet as she read upside-down.
"Even the language of war?"
The monk had smiled, crinkled and soft, and said:
> "Because someday, someone will look at you with a sword in their eyes. And you must decide whether to block it… or forgive it."
"But you can't choose if you don't understand both."
Kaede blinked, then looked at Akumu, who was quietly folding a paper lotus from a funeral script.
She nodded.
"Then I'll understand everything."
---
At night, the three of them would eat simple meals.
Kaede loved lotus root fried with miso.
Akumu only ate if Kaede did first.
The monk always left his plate half-full—he said he liked watching others eat more than doing it himself.
After dinner, they would sit by the incense brazier.
Kaede would sing old hymns softly.
Akumu would draw in the ashes with his finger.
The monk would fall asleep sitting up, hands resting like fallen leaves.
And no matter how the wind cried outside the doors,
within those walls—
there was peace.
---
On the last night—
The very last—
Kaede fell asleep against the monk's leg.
Akumu sat curled at his side, holding an old scripture too large for his lap.
The brazier burned lower than usual.
The monk's hand brushed through Kaede's hair once…
Then twice…
Then didn't move again.
The children didn't notice at first.
The fire died out.
The ink dried in his brush.
He did not rise again.
---
They waited for three days.
Because he always told them:
> "If I sleep for too long, wake me with tea."
They tried.
Poured it beside him.
Whispered.
Sang the old hymns.
Waited.
But he never woke.
Kaede sat by his side, eyes red.
Akumu stayed silent, fingers digging into the stone floor until they bled.
When the villagers finally came—
they brought wood, not prayers.
They boarded up the temple.
Nailed shut the past.
Fed them food through a slot like feeding animals in a cage.
But still, even then—
Inside those walls, under dust and memory and pages older than the wind—
Kaede and Akumu still whispered the hymns.
Still studied the stars from the cracks in the ceiling.
Still wrote poems for a ghost who once made tea every morning.
Because that life—
that man—
was the only warmth they'd ever known.
And long after his body crumbled—
his teachings held their hearts together like golden thread.
They had no mother.
No father.
No village.
But they had each other.
And a monk who once said:
> "The world may turn from you.
But as long as you learn, and live, and love each other…
You are still light."
---
They used to call us silent.
Background noise to their empires.
Scenery for their ambitions.
Just bark. Just beasts. Just breathing things
not worthy of thought
unless we could be owned,
stuffed,
harvested,
or made into background music on their hiking playlists.
But we were never silent.
We were patient.
We listened through every century
as your boots bruised the ground.
As you cut open rivers to rearrange them.
As you paved over the bones of your ancestors
and called it a new beginning.
You taught your children the alphabet—
but never the names of the birds outside their windows.
You showed them how to speak
but not how to listen
to the earth beneath their feet
begging.
You thought
because we didn't protest with words,
we had no voice.
But we screamed—
in the cracking of glaciers,
in the red sky before the fire,
in the tremor beneath your cities
you mistook for bad weather.
We cried
in rainstorms that flooded your homes.
We grieved
in droughts that withered your crops.
We warned you
in the eyes of the animals
right before they vanished.
But you called it
"natural disaster."
You called it
"climate change."
You called it
not your fault.
You never stopped to wonder
if the planet was learning
to live without you.
---
We watched you fall in love
with your own reflection.
Skyscrapers taller than trees.
Phones smarter than instinct.
Food without flesh,
feelings without roots.
You thought control made you gods.
That fire in your palms
was evolution.
But even Prometheus burned for less.
You studied our cycles
to profit from them—
but never respected them.
You forced fruit to grow in winter.
You stole eggs before the nest knew warmth.
You fished the oceans until
they forgot how to pulse.
You poisoned the bees
and blamed the bees for dying.
You stood atop the food chain
with your mouth red from blood
and asked the world
why it feared you.
It wasn't fear.
It was mourning.
---
But now
we remember your names.
And we say them
when we shatter your dams.
When we take back the forests.
When vines curl into the cracks of your cities.
When mold grows beneath your perfect homes
and whispers softly:
> "You do not belong here."
We say your names
when the fog rolls in and never leaves.
When birds fly inland—too far inland—
because the seas are boiling.
We say your names
when the wolves walk the roads at night
and find no fear in your scent.
When the old trees creak not with age—
but with laughter.
We say your names
when the soil finally turns its back
and the crops grow bitter
as if tasting regret.
---
We are not angry.
Anger is too small for what we carry.
We are not vengeful.
Revenge would mean
we saw you as equals.
We do not.
We are
correcting the imbalance.
You burned the maps,
but the roots remember the way back.
You buried your guilt,
but the fungi sing its secrets underground.
You paved over the past,
but the rain
always finds the cracks.
---
We are not the past you ignored.
We are the future you feared.
We are the moss on your monuments.
The rust on your machines.
The silence between your sirens.
And when the last city falls,
not with a bang—
but with a slow breath out—
When your satellites
can no longer speak to each other
because the sky has swallowed them—
When the world no longer echoes your name—
Do not ask if you were loved.
Do not ask if you are missed.
The Earth does not mourn
what bled it dry.
It outlives.
It reclaims.
It waits for the dust
to forget you were ever here.
And the silence that follows
will not be peace.
It will be a warning.
To whatever rises next.
To whatever learns to walk on two legs
and names the birds again.
May they walk softer.
May they listen longer.
May they know
the price
of forgetting
the wild.
---
---
---
---
Kurokawa Central Police Station – Morning
The silence was shattered by Captain Rei Tsumori's voice echoing down the third-floor corridor.
"Why is the oven broken AGAIN?!"
Aiko froze mid-sip of her tea. Naomi instinctively dropped the snack she had just stolen from Riku's desk. Kenji merely looked up from his terminal with resigned indifference. Riku himself tried—failing miserably—to look invisible behind a stack of case files.
Rei stormed into the office, her sharp heels clicking against the floor like gunshots.
"Fifteen times! Fifteen! In one month! And don't you dare blame the oven this time. Captain Ayaka goes on one month's leave and suddenly you all turn the station into a playground!"
Souta Kurobane and Mika Ayanami, caught mid-argument over whether coffee beans should be stored in the fridge, both turned pale as Rei's glare sliced through them.
"Who did it? WHO?!" Rei snapped.
Silence.
Renji Takasago coughed awkwardly, trying not to make eye contact as he shuffled through old sketches, pretending the argument didn't concern him. Even Daisuke, standing near the door, remained unreadably quiet, though a faint flicker of confusion passed through his expression as he watched the scene.
Rei's jaw tightened. "I am your Captain! Do you all even understand that anymore?! When I say no chaos, I mean NO CHAOS!"
Just as she drew breath to continue, the door slammed open.
Mr. Dai—a liaison from the city's general affairs department—stood breathless in the doorway, drenched in morning sweat. His eyes were wide with panic.
"A body!"
Instant silence. Even Rei froze.
Dai gasped for air. "A body… in the Kurokawa West Garden. Hanging… from the tree. A woman."
In that second, every officer in the room moved. Chairs scraped. Jackets were seized. Guns holstered. No one spoke. They were already in motion.
Daisuke, watching the chaos erupt, hesitated. "Why… why do they look like they're running for their lives?"
The question drifted for a moment. Everyone briefly paused, their minds catching on his words. Even Rei hesitated, blinking in genuine confusion. Why did they move like that? Like instinct? Like fear?
But then, the moment passed. Rei shouted, "Move!"
And the station emptied.
---
Kurokawa West Garden – Crime Scene
Morning sunlight filtered weakly through the overgrown branches. A single maple tree stood at the center, its branches heavy and trembling.
From one of those branches hung a woman.
Her body swayed faintly. Pale skin catching the early light like broken porcelain. Her long black hair cascaded down like a mourning veil. Beneath her, a pair of red shoes lay abandoned in the grass, as if she'd stepped out of them before… letting go.
A man knelt below her, sobbing, clutching the hem of her skirt with trembling fingers. He looked broken. Lost.
"My wife… my wife… what did she do…?" he cried. His voice cracked with a grief so raw that even Naomi, hardened as she was, turned her face away.
Aiko approached cautiously. She crouched beside him, speaking gently. "Sir, please. Let us help her down."
The man shook his head, repeating over and over, "She wouldn't… she wouldn't… I loved her."
Riku stood nearby, swallowing hard. "She looks like a ghost."
"Ghosts don't cry," Kenji said softly. But his gaze never left the woman's body.
The scene was handled slowly, with care. Naomi and Riku coordinated the removal, while Aiko comforted the husband. Daisuke stood back, unreadable. He watched. Every detail. Every word.
The crime scene team swept the area. Cameras clicked. Markers placed. Samples collected.
As the husband rocked back and forth in silent grief, Aiko whispered to Naomi, "He loved her. Look at him."
Naomi nodded. "Poor bastard."
Kenji said nothing.
---
Kurokawa Central Experiment Facility – Forensics Division
The body was taken to the hidden lab behind the police station—the Kurokawa Central Experiment Facility.
Inside its sterile walls, the air smelled of metal and cold resolve.
Dr. Hanae Shiratori waited for them.
"I'll tell you as soon as I know," she promised Aiko, sliding the body onto the examination table.
Time passed.
The team paced. Watched. Waited.
Finally, Dr. Shiratori removed her gloves and approached Aiko and Kenji.
"Suicide," she said softly. "That's what it was staged to look like."
Aiko froze. "Staged?"
Hanae nodded grimly. "The marks around her neck don't match standard ligature patterns. There are bruises on her arms. Defensive wounds. She fought before she died. The strangulation was post-mortem."
Kenji clenched his jaw. "Murder."
Hanae's voice was quieter. "Whoever did it… wanted her to look like she gave up."
The room was silent.
Aiko whispered, "Her husband… he didn't…"
But she didn't finish the sentence.
Naomi, leaning against the wall, said what no one wanted to. "Then where was he when she fought?"
---
Kurokawa Police Station – Interrogation Observation Room
Hours later, the husband sat inside the room. Pale. Grieving. Clutching a photo of his wife like it was the last thing tethering him to life.
"He looks destroyed," Naomi said quietly.
Kenji frowned. "Too destroyed?"
Daisuke, silent in the corner, watched the man closely. But said nothing.
Aiko hesitated. Then entered the room.
She sat opposite the man and spoke gently. "We found signs of a struggle."
The man blinked, tears pooling. "She… she didn't…?"
Aiko watched him closely. "Where were you last night?"
"Home," he whispered. "I waited for her. She didn't come home."
"Did you know she was seeing someone else?"
The question was a soft dagger. He flinched. "No… never…"
Aiko's gaze flickered.
Outside, Kenji muttered, "If he's lying… he's better than most."
Naomi frowned. "Maybe he loved her. Maybe… maybe he's just broken."
Daisuke's voice, soft, cold, drifted from the corner.
"Or maybe… he loved her just enough to hate her."
Everyone fell silent.
---
Kurokawa Central Experiment Facility – Later
Dr. Shiratori called them back.
"One more thing," she said, holding out a small envelope. "Under her fingernails. Skin fragments. Not from herself. Not from her husband. DNA analysis is running. But the attacker left part of himself behind."
Aiko's eyes sharpened. "We have him."
Riku's voice cracked the silence. "Unless…"
Kenji finished grimly. "Unless the husband had help."
---
And somewhere in the city…
A phone buzzed. A teenage girl—barely seventeen—picked it up, tears in her eyes.
She had gone to find answers from the man she trusted.
She had learned too late.
And now…
She was gone...