Chapter Text
The room is quiet.
Too quiet.
Not the soft, warm kind of quiet that settles gently around you like a blanket. This quiet is the kind that presses in from all sides—heavy, suffocating, like the silence after something important breaks and no one knows what to say.
Okarun lies on his side, body curled beneath the worn futon. The sheets are thin and smell faintly of detergent and old wood. He’s not cold, not really, but the chill in the air seeps into his skin anyway. It clings.
Across the room, Jiji’s breathing is slow, rhythmic, a soft rise and fall like ocean waves far off on a beach he can’t reach. That sound—steady, peaceful—feels distant. Like it belongs to someone else. Like Jiji is on the other side of a glass wall.
Outside, a lone cicada lets out a drawn-out screech—shrill, almost desperate—and then falls silent. A pipe hisses behind the wall. The house groans, stretching its old bones. But none of it touches the stillness that clings to Okarun like a second skin.
His eyes are open.
Unblinking.
The ceiling looms above him in the dark, its familiar cracks etched deep into the plaster like veins. He stares up at them. One, two, three.
He’s counted them before. He counts them every night. They haven’t changed. He has.
His fingers twitch under the blanket. He flexes them, slowly, but they don’t feel like they’re part of him. The sensation is faint, like he's moving someone else’s hands. The strange static that used to hum beneath his skin after transforming—the leftover charge, the electricity that crackled just behind his teeth and eyes—it’s gone now.
And in its place, there’s nothing.
Just a dull, aching absence.
He doesn’t feel like himself.
He doesn’t feel like anything at all.
The breath he lets out is silent, shaky. He shifts in bed, careful to keep his movements small. He’s practiced this—how to move without making a sound. How to vanish without leaving the room.
Jiji breathes on, unaware.
Okarun slides one hand out from under the blanket. It trembles, faint but visible in the faint moonlight that slips through the narrow window.
Stupid, he thinks. Stupid body. Stupid hands. Stupid thoughts.
He sits up, slowly. Every joint protests, stiff from lying still too long. The air bites at his skin the moment he lifts the covers, sharp and sudden, like stepping out of a fever dream and into something colder, realer.
The tatami mat under his feet is soft but creaks if you don’t know where to step.
He knows. He’s done this before.
The desk drawer sticks slightly as he opens it, the old wood swollen from humidity. He eases it back without a sound. Inside: a few scattered pens, a crumpled worksheet, Momo’s ramen receipt folded into a makeshift bookmark, and—there.
The box cutter.
Still tucked beneath the sketches he never finished.
It’s nothing special. Just cheap plastic with a chipped edge of blue paint, the blade barely sharp. But when his fingers close around it, it feels heavier than it should. Like it knows.
Normal things. Human things. That’s what it was hidden under.
But this part of him isn’t normal. Isn’t human. Not entirely. Not anymore.
He steps out into the hallway, leaving the door slightly ajar behind him. Not fully open. Not fully closed.
He moves like a ghost.
And for the first time that night, he’s sure that’s exactly what he is.
The bathroom light is off. He doesn’t turn it on.
He doesn’t need to.
The moonlight spills through the narrow frosted window, casting a pale glow that silvers the cracked tile floor and glints off the mirror above the sink. Everything is painted in soft gradients of grey and blue, like the house is holding its breath.
He closes the door behind him—just enough to click, not enough to latch.
The blade is still in his hand.
Still closed.
He sits down slowly on the edge of the tub first. It’s cold against the backs of his thighs, the porcelain biting through the thin fabric of his pajama pants. His feet settle on the floor, and for a moment he just sits there, hunched forward, elbows on his knees, the box cutter balanced loosely in his palm.
The silence is total. No more cicadas. No groaning pipes. Just the low, ambient hum of his own thoughts pressing in from every side.
He shifts again, this time onto the toilet lid, and lowers himself with quiet precision. A practiced motion. This isn’t new.
The blade rests on his thigh now, the metal warm from his hand.
His heart isn’t racing.
That’s the worst part.
He thinks it should be.
Shouldn’t there be panic? Or shame? Guilt, at least? Something to tell him that this is a line, a threshold, a wrong turn?
But no. There’s nothing.
Just calm.
Cold, heavy, quiet calm. Like the weight that settles on a lake after the ice has frozen over.
Like this is routine.
Like brushing his teeth.
Like breathing.
He stares down at the blade. The edge is dull, a little rusted near the base, but still sharp enough for what it’s meant to do. He flicks it open with a soft click, the sound small but loud in the stillness. The silver edge catches the moonlight, flashing like a signal he wishes someone would answer.
He wonders—not for the first time—what part of him he’s trying to cut out. The yokai? The leftover inhumanity? Or just the parts that feel too human and fragile, always afraid, always aching.
He’s not looking for pain. Not really.
Just proof.
Proof that something inside him still works.
Proof that he's still there underneath all the static.
That he hasn’t slipped away completely.
His hand is steady now. Too steady. Like his body knows the motions better than his heart does. He rolls up his sleeve slowly, the cuff of his hoodie dragging over the fresh skin of his forearm. It’s unmarked—for now. But he remembers. He always remembers.
The last time, he told himself it would be the last time.
This time, he doesn’t bother lying.
The blade hovers just above the skin.
The moonlight is soft. His breath is softer.
And in that quiet, in that moment where everything feels suspended, Okarun thinks:
I don’t want to die.
I just want this part to stop.
I just want my head to be my own again.
He pushes up the sleeve.
The fabric clings for a moment to the sweat on his arm, then slips free. Pale skin catches the moonlight. It’s smooth. Unmarked. Healed.
That doesn’t matter.
He knows exactly where the last one was. The angle. The pressure. The way it tugged slightly at the skin before the warmth followed.
He doesn’t hesitate.
He draws the blade down, clean and slow.
Not deep. Doesn’t need to be.
Just enough.
A thin line blooms across the inside of his arm. His breath snags—not from pain, not really. Just reflex. A jolt. Like static through a broken speaker.
Then stillness.
Warmth trickles over his skin. His hand relaxes.
For the first time all night, it’s steady.
“…What are you doing?”
The voice doesn’t register at first.
But the silence after it hits like a blunt force. Okarun flinches hard, dropping the blade—it hits tile with a sharp clatter, too loud in the hush of the house.
He freezes.
Head snapping up.
Jiji’s in the doorway. His silhouette is backlit by the hallway. No slippers. Shirt askew. Hair flat on one side like he just got out of bed.
His eyes are wide, Caught somewhere between reacting and trying not to.
Okarun doesn’t speak.
Can’t.
His mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
He stays sitting on the toilet lid, hunched over, sleeve rolled up, arm red. Not a mess. Not a drama. Just evidence.
Jiji stares at him. At the blade. At the line of blood.
Then without a word, he walks in, closes the door behind him.
The click is louder than it should be.
He slides down with his back to the door and sits on the cold tile. His knees pull up. His hands hang loose between them.
No words. No questions.
Moonlight slips across the floor between them.
Okarun doesn’t move.
He doesn’t know if he’s angry about being seen. Or relieved. Or anything. He just feels—
Exposed.
His voice comes out flat. “You gonna freak out?”
Jiji blinks once, slow. “No.”
More silence.
It scrapes at the edges of Okarun’s nerves.
He looks down at his arm. Blood's already started drying. He wipes it on his hoodie, barely thinking about it.
Jiji’s voice is low. “You wanna tell me why?”
Okarun lets out a breath through his nose. More exhale than laugh.
“Don’t know.”
He’s not lying. That’s the worst part.
“I don’t feel anything right now,” he says, and it’s just… a fact.
No drama. No emotion. Like describing the weather.
“There’s… too much quiet in my head. And whatever part of me used to care just… isn’t there.”
He doesn’t look up. Just stares at the floor. At the tile seam between his foot and the shadow.
“I wasn’t going to kill myself,” he says. “I just wanted it to fix it for a second. That’s all.”
Jiji doesn’t speak.
Doesn’t try to argue. Doesn’t tell him it’s dumb. Doesn’t offer some half-assed comfort.
Okarun finally glances at him.
Jiji’s face is hard to read in the low light. Eyes sharp, jaw tight—but not judging.
Just watching.
Okarun’s throat is dry. “Wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
“Yeah,” Jiji says, after a second. “It never is.”
More silence.
No speeches. No big reaction. Just stillness.
Then Jiji leans forward slowly, reaches out, and picks up the box cutter from the floor. He doesn’t flinch at the blood. Just folds the blade back in, wipes it on his sleeve, and tucks it into his hoodie pocket.
He doesn’t ask for permission.
Then he holds out his hand.
Okarun stares at it.
At the fingers. At the small pink scar across one knuckle. He doesn’t want to move. Doesn’t want to react.
But his hand lifts anyway.
It’s automatic. Slow. Like his body’s doing the thinking for him now.
He places it in Jiji’s.
Jiji’s grip is solid. Not tight. Not soft either. Just there.
That’s all it is. A point of contact.
A way to say I see it. I’m not leaving.
Jiji stands, doesn’t let go.
“C’mon,” he says. Voice low.
“Let’s go back.”
They don’t say anything when they get back to the room.
Jiji walks in first and doesn’t flick the light on. He just moves toward his futon, wordless, calm, like none of this is new. Like Okarun didn’t just bleed into the silence of the house.
Okarun trails behind him, steps slow, limbs heavy.
The door closes with a soft click.
No one speaks.
There’s no point.
The air in the room is still, thick with sleep and leftover incense from Seiko’s earlier cleansing ritual. Outside, a dog barks once, then fades. Somewhere beneath the floorboards, the pipes sigh again.
Okarun lowers himself onto his futon, hoodie sleeves pulled down over his wrists. The cotton sticks to the drying smear on his arm, but he ignores it. Doesn’t wince. Doesn’t shift.
He curls onto his side, knees drawn up, one arm tucked under his head like a pillow. His eyes trace the familiar lines of the ceiling again—only this time, the cracks blur a little in the dark.
Not from tears. Just from tiredness.
His body is worn out. But his mind feels like it’s floating somewhere above him, thin and brittle, as if it could snap off and drift away at any second.
Jiji settles in behind him, maybe a foot away. Close enough to feel, but not touching.
Okarun listens.
Listens to Jiji breathe. Steady. Soft. Human.
That quiet is still there. That emptiness. But it feels different now. Not less. Just… not alone.
He exhales slowly, the sound barely audible against the futon fabric.
And for the first time in what feels like days, he doesn’t flinch at the silence.
He lets it stay.
Lets it settle over him like a threadbare blanket, thin and frayed, but still warm in places.
His eyelids lower.
And this time, he doesn’t fight it.
He closes his eyes.