Chapter Text
A slight commotion stirred at the entrance of the towering Mori Corp. building. A teenage girl, around the age of fifteen, was arguing with the security guards at the foot of the wide marble steps. Her dark hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, revealing sharp, determined eyes. She wore a simple t-shirt and jeans, nothing that marked her as extraordinary, yet there was a fire in her stance that made her presence impossible to ignore.
“Look, there’s someone I need to see inside. I’m not trying to trespass. I came through the front entrance,” she said, her voice tinged with indignation.
The two men before her remained unmoved. They were dressed in black suits with dark sunglasses, the wire of an earpiece snaking over an ear. Their expressions were unreadable and professional, utterly unconcerned with her protests.
“Miss, non-personnel aren’t allowed inside,” one said firmly, his tone clipped and leaving no room for argument.
“I’m here to meet someone! I’m not causing trouble. Is this really how you treat your guests?” she pressed, desperation creeping into her tone.
The men exchanged a glance, their scepticism evident.
“Miss, please leave. You don’t belong here.”
She tried again, her voice rising slightly. “I just want to find someone. I can make an appointment or schedule a meeting. Whatever works!”
“You have no business here. Leave, or we will have to use force,” one said, his voice flat and unyielding.
When she refused to step aside, the two moved with quiet efficiency, strong-arming her toward one of the sleek sedans lined up by the curb.
“Hey! Let me go!” she shouted, struggling against their grip.
They shoved her roughly into the back seat. There was a sharp click, and the door slammed shut before she could even straighten herself. A knock sounded against the driver’s window, as the girl tugged at the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. Child lock, of course.
“Hey! Let me out!” she pounded against the glass, frustration mounting.
Up front, one of the men leaned over to the driver, whose suit and sunglasses mirrored their own. “Drop her off at the shopping district. She has no business here.”
The girl tugged again at the door handle, but it was useless. When the car started moving, she let out a startled yelp, falling back against the seat. Kicking the front seat in exasperation, she yelled once more, but the driver didn’t even flinch, steering steadily down the city streets.
So Kashimura Aiko could only stare out the window as Mori Corp. receded into the distance, its glass facade and bold nameplate growing smaller and smaller until it disappeared from view.
Her plan had failed before it even began.
She bit her lip, a tight knot of disappointment forming in her chest. The city rolled past in a blur of grays and blues, buildings and streetlights replacing the black corporate tower in her view. Her mind wandered, pulling her back to a different kind of loss.
Aiko’s father had passed away at the start of the year from an illness they had long anticipated. He didn’t suffer, slipping away peacefully in his sleep. While the hole he left behind was undeniable, they took comfort in knowing he had lived a full, joyful life and remained cheerful until the very end.
The funeral drew a large turnout. In their close-knit village, everyone knew one another and came to pay their respects. Everything had been arranged beforehand, the funeral paid for by an anonymous donor, and the ceremony went smoothly. Though Aiko and her mother mourned deeply, they refused to let grief consume them, holding their spirits high, knowing it was what her father would have wanted.
It wasn’t until the reading of his will that Aiko discovered something unexpected: she had an older brother. Her mother’s hand had trembled in hers when she heard about the box of keepsakes her father left behind.
They had opened the box of keepsakes her father had preserved together—drawings, photographs, and small mementos of a child taken far too young. He had been kidnapped at six and, after months of futile searches, was presumed dead when the police found no further clues. The consensus was that a lone case like his, unconnected to any larger crime ring, offered little hope.
However, her parents had searched tirelessly, despite the grim news. But with each dead end and with Aiko on the way, they eventually returned to the small beachside town in Yamaguchi where she would be born. The memories of their lost son were carefully put away, tucked out of reach when the grief became too heavy to bear.
When Aiko arrived in this world, she was a small and delicate thing, yet her very presence soothed her parents’ hearts. She brought warmth and comfort to the home where sorrow had once lingered, a balm against the weight of loss.
In time, it seemed, life had managed to heal them.
Now, years later, as they sifted through the keepsakes, her mother paused at one, smiling quietly at a photograph. It was a family photo taken outside a kindergarten.
In it, a boy stood with her parents, a face unfamiliar to Aiko. His hair was a vivid shade of ginger, much like her mother’s had been before time had silvered it, and his eyes were a striking blue.
“Like his grandmother,” her mother had murmured softly.
Aiko was the spitting image of her father, while the boy in the photo clearly took after her mother’s side of the family.
Her mother’s fingers lingered over the bright grin frozen in the frame. “This was taken on his first day of school,” she murmured, her eyes carrying a weight of sadness. “He always was a brave child.”
Then, tucking the photo away with a soft smile, she turned to Aiko with a teasing glint in her eyes. “He didn’t cry at all... unlike you.”
Aiko had pouted. Who even remembered that?
Despite the shocking revelation, Aiko’s life continued as normal. School, friends, summer plans—her days were full and familiar. Yet beneath it all, a quiet curiosity simmered, about a brother she had never known.
It wasn’t until the start of summer that everything changed. Aiko had travelled to Tokyo with her friends for a holiday trip, the excitement of the city buzzing around them as they navigated the busy airport. They had just touched down and were leaving the arrival waiting area when a small, seemingly ordinary sign caught her eye.
Nakahara Chuuya
Mori Corp.
She had given it an extra glance because it bore her mother’s surname. And as she was puzzling over why the first name sounded familiar as well, she saw him.
Ginger hair, a shade so vivid and unusual in Japan that she had only ever seen it on her mother when she was young.
He moved through the crowd with a quiet and effortless confidence, a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a black coat draped over one arm, and small hand luggage in the other. He approached the man holding the sign, exchanging a few words. Then, his head shifted slightly, just enough for a flash of striking blue eyes to meet hers, and Aiko immediately found herself pushing through the crowd instinctively.
Nakahara Chuuya.
Ginger hair and blue eyes.
Could it really be him?
She squeezed through the crowd, ignoring the polite jostles and murmurs around her. She had to confirm it. She needed to know.
By the time she finally broke through, it was too late. She could only see the back of him as he slid into a sleek black sedan waiting curbside. The driver closed the door, and in the blink of an eye, the car pulled away, leaving her standing frozen, watching its tail lights disappear into the stream of city traffic.
The rest of the trip passed in a haze.
Aiko wandered through Tokyo, her friends chatting and laughing around her, while her mind remained elsewhere, circling the impossible thought that her brother was alive. After all these years, after the case had long been closed, could it really be him?
She had only one lead: Mori Corp.
As soon as she returned home, she threw herself into research. Endless online searches painted a picture of a massive conglomerate based in Yokohama, a company wealthy and influential enough to sponsor politicians in upcoming elections. They controlled the city’s major shipping hub and had subsidiaries spanning nearly every industry—food, jewellery, logistics, finance—practically everything imaginable.
Aiko stared at the five skyscrapers on her screen, all apparently belonging to the Mori Corporation.
Just how rich were they?
An image of Yokohama’s skyline showed their headquarters dominating the city, eclipsing everything around them, the towers seemingly twice the height of the next tallest building. Using an entire building was rare. Most companies rented only a few floors for their operations, and even conglomerates that occupied whole buildings rarely exceeded fifty floors.
Yet here were five black towers, each soaring over a hundred floors, all belonging to Mori Corporation alone. The scale was staggering.
Her fingers hovered over the mouse as she scrolled through aerial images of the city. Once again, she wondered just how much money they were rolling in.
However, it was weird that a company of such magnitude wasn’t more widely known. With their buildings so visible, shouldn’t they be more widely discussed?
But Aiko hadn’t even heard of them until today, despite their towers being landmarks in Yokohama. In every photo of the city’s skyline, their eye-catching height always loomed in the background, impossible to miss, and yet the company remained strangely invisible.
There were no pictures or names. Not a single trace of any employee or director of Mori Corp. could be found online.
Aiko scrolled through page after page of empty results, her disappointment growing with each click. For a company so massive and so visibly dominant, it was hard to find anything. It was as if the people behind it simply didn’t exist.
However, she wasn’t deterred. No matter how far-fetched it was, Aiko had already made up her mind. She was going to Yokohama. She was going to find out the truth for herself.
It was impulsive, she knew that. Reckless, even. Chasing after a stranger based on nothing more than a fleeting glimpse at an airport and a shared name. Anyone else would have dismissed it as coincidence.
Except, Aiko couldn’t.
There was a chance that he might be her long-lost brother. He was family, and her parents had searched for him for as long as they could. They had searched until there was nothing left to chase, until every lead dried up. Even if her mother had never said it aloud, Aiko understood deep down that they would have kept on searching if her mother hadn’t been expecting her and was forced to stop.
The thought lingered longer than she liked.
Aiko wondered, sometimes, in the quiet moments she tried not to dwell in, if they had ever resented her for it. For being the reason they had to stop. For being the reason they had to let go.
If her brother was truly alive... then maybe, just maybe, they could have found him sooner if not for her.
She pressed her lips together, pushing the thought away, but it didn’t fully leave.
Her parents loved him. That much was undeniable. She knew it from the carefully preserved keepsakes, how her mother handled each item like it might crumble if held too tightly. It was in the silence that followed, in the way the box had been closed and never spoken of again.
It was in the way her parents couldn’t handle his loss.
Because...
You don’t completely erase every trace of a person unless it was something too much to bear, something you wanted to forget at all costs. It wasn’t normal, this grief of theirs.
Aiko wouldn’t even have known about her brother if her father hadn’t left that box behind. A box hidden away for years, untouched, and unknown even by her mother.
And when they had finally opened it together, her mother had smiled and reminisced, shared small, fragile pieces of the past.
Then nothing.
No more stories. No more mentions.
As if speaking of him once had already been too much.
That was what settled it for Aiko. She couldn’t leave it like that.
Her mother was all she had left now. After her father’s passing, the quiet in their home had only deepened, and Aiko couldn’t bear the thought of losing anyone else, not even someone she had never met.
So she would find him. Or at least, she would try.
She didn’t tell her mother any of this.
Not yet.
If she was wrong, if it was all just a coincidence, she would only be reopening wounds that had barely healed. She didn’t think her mother could handle that loss. Not again.
But if she was right...
Then maybe, just maybe, she could give something back.
A reunion for mother and son. A second chance.
The next morning, Aiko packed a small bag. She told her mother she was going on a short trip with her friends, nothing unusual and nothing worth worrying about.
And before she could second-guess herself, she left.
By the time the sun had fully risen, Aiko was already on the first train bound for Yokohama, watching the small beachside town fade into the distance.