Chapter Text
One summer day, when Young Kiyoshi was 9 years, 27 weeks, 6 days, and 3 minutes old, he realized he wasn’t like the other children. Nor was he like anyone else; Young Kiyoshi could touch dead things and bring them back to life.
While his grandmother was in the kitchen baking a pie, a blood vessel in her brain burst, killing her instantly. Young Kiyoshi shook his grandmother to see if she was alright, and just like that, she was. Unfortunately, Young Kiyoshi’s gift came with some conditions:
It was not only a gift that gave--it also took. If Young Kiyoshi kept a dead person alive for longer than one minute, someone else had to die in their place. When Young Kiyoshi raised his grandmother, he had traded her life for the life of his best friend’s father across the street.
This was not the only rule Young Kiyoshi would learn that day. You see, his first touch gave life. A second touch made them dead, again. Forever.
That night, after his grandmother tucked him in, she kissed him on the forehead and was immediately returned to her most recent state--which is to say, death.
At the joint funerals later than week, Young Kiyoshi’s grandmother and Young Riko’s father were buried on adjoining hills. Dizzy with grief, Young Kiyoshi and Young Riko shared their first and only kiss.
After his grandmother’s death, Young Kiyoshi, sent away to boarding school, avoided social attachments, fearing what he may do if someone else he loved died. He also became obsessed with pies.
It’s 19 years, 34 weeks, 1 day, and 59 minutes later, heretofore known as now.
Young Kiyoshi has become The Piemaker.
He runs a small shop in the city known as the Pie Hole. The peaches never brown, the strawberries never shrivel. In his hands, dead fruit becomes ripe with everlasting flavor--so long as he only touches it once.