Chapter Text
January 17, 2008 | Miyagi Prefecture, Japan
Snow had been falling that night at Miyagi.
Thick, wet flakes that clung to everything as if they wanted to bury the world in white and coldness.
Megumi was five years old, small and skinny in a coat that was already too short at the sleeves. His mother had been gone for almost a year, and the apartment had changed. The warmth that used to live there had leaked out through the cracks in the walls, replaced by the sharp smell of cheap sake and the low growl of the television left on all night.
Toji no longer tucked him in. Toji no longer asked if he was hungry. Toji simply existed in the same space, a shadow that drank and stared at nothing.
That evening had started like too many others. Megumi had come home from kindergarten to find the door unlocked and the lights off. The fridge held only a half-empty bottle of beer and a single slice of bread going hard at the edges. His stomach hurt with the kind of empty feeling that made a little boy angry instead of sad. When Toji finally stumbled in an hour later, reeking of smoke and the outside cold.
Five-year-old Megumi stood in the corner of their cramped apartment, little fists clenched at his sides, silently watching the man who used to be his father. He watched how his father quietly padded his clothed with sock feet on their cold floor, turning on the old television they have and settling on an already quite worn out sofa.
The young Fushiguro, as silent as he possibly could, tried to inhale before he spoke.
“I’m hungry,” Megumi said, voice small but steady with the kind of anger only a child who had learned too early could carry. “Y-you said you’d buy rice today. And eggs. You promised yesterday.”
Toji didn’t even look at him at first. He was slumped on the couch, another bottle already dangling from his fingers, eyes blank and far away.
Megumi tries not to tremble. Because, because. The warmth that used to live in those eyes, back when Megumi’s mother was still alive and the apartment felt like a home instead of a cage or whatever suffocating space it is now, all those had been gone for months. Now, there was only exhaustion drawn there. And somewhere, if Megumi tries to stare deeper, despite his young and tender age, he could swear that there’s resentment there being obscured as hard as the old man could.
And although the child wants to hate the man, in the deepest pit of Megumi’s heart, he misses his father. The man who used to swing him onto his shoulders and would constantly tell him he’s their little blessing and in no doubt, would be accompanied by a soft smile that had vanished months ago. What was left was this hollow version who barely spoke unless it was to snap.
Then, Megumi almost flinched when he heard his father’s voice again.
“Kid, not tonight,” Toji muttered, taking another long swig straight from the bottle. “I got enough crap on my plate without you nagging. There’s bread in the kitchen if you’re that desperate. Go eat that.”
“There isn’t any bread left!” Megumi’s voice cracked higher, the empty feeling in his stomach twisting into something hot and sharp. “You said you’d get food! You always say stuff like that and then you forget!”
Megumi feels the hot, stubborn tears prickling his eyes. A brave boy that he is, he harshly used his closed fists to wipe away those.
“You even forgot my name last week,” the kid says weakly, his lower lip trembling as he tries his very best to stop himself from sobbing. “You called me brat and keep on calling me like it was all you could remember!”
At that, Toji’s head snapped. His eyes narrowed on the child trembling in the corner. Soon, that blank look he was shoving earlier was morphed into sharp irritation. “Watch your mouth, you ungrateful brat. You think this is easy for me?”
Megumi failed in keeping his tears. But at least, he hasn’t yet freed the trembling sound from his mouth.
“Your mother’s gone, the bills keep coming, and I’m out there every damn day trying to keep us from getting kicked out. Life doesn’t just hand you rice and eggs because a five year old whines for them. Grow the hell up.”
Grow the hell up.
It’s as if the child’s heart had been pricked with long, large needles that he had always been afraid of. He was proven correct that it would hurt—way more painful than he imagined, at that.
“I am growing up!” Megumi shouted, tears burning even hotter at the corners of his eyes as he tried to blink them back, but ultimately failed when his cheeks received that tingling warmth. “I’m the one who has to eat the leftovers from the convenience store trash sometimes because you’re too busy drinking or betting everything away! I hate it here. I hate coming home to this. I hate you for making it like this!”
Those words landed like flaming stones. Toji’s face twisted, with anger flashing first, then something that might have been guilt, but it hardened too fast into cold stone.
“Then get out if you hate it so much. See how long you last out there in the snow, you ungrateful little shit. Maybe the cold’ll teach you what real hunger feels like instead of crying to me about it.”
And Megumi didn’t wait for anything. For anything more, when he knows well enough that he could never be granted that again.
He turned on his heel, grabbed his too-small coat from the table, and slammed the door behind him as hard as his small body could manage. The sound echoed down the stairwell like a gunshot, but he couldn’t bring himself to be terrified. He ran, down the stairs, out into the freezing Miyagi night, sneakers slapping against the wet pavement already turning to black ice under fresh snow.
Tears continue to stream down his face, freezing almost instantly on his cheeks. He doesn’t even know where he is going. He only knows that staying in that space meant listening to the silence that had replaced his father’s love, and he could not stand it any longer.
The streets blurred past him. The narrow alleys, flickering streetlights, the distant hum of cars on the main road near the old warehouse district. His coat flapped open, cold seeping into his thin shirt. His breath came in short, angry puffs.
Then.
Then, he slipped on a patch of ice just as he darted across a wide intersection. One moment he was running, the next the world tilted violently sideways. He hit the ground hard, the impact jarring his spine and knocking the air clean out of his lungs. Pain exploded across his back and elbows. He tried to push himself up, arms shaking, but his palms slid uselessly on the slick surface.
Headlights flooded the street ahead. They were bright, merciless white beams cutting through the snow. A delivery truck, too fast for the weather, tires hissing as the driver slammed on the brakes too late. The horn blared, long and furious, but the massive grille kept coming, unstoppable.
Megumi stared straight into it, five years old and suddenly certain this was the end. No one was coming. No one ever did.
His father’s words echoed in his head, get out if you hate it so much, and for a split second he almost welcomed it, the idea that everything could just stop. The cold, the hunger, the loneliness. It would all stop.
If this truck hits him, then death would as well, right? And if death hits him, then perhaps, all this pain would also stop crawling inside his little body.
Megumi closes his eyes. And although it breaks his heart that he would leave the world this early, he prepares himself for his awaiting death.
Then.
Then.
Then small, but strong, hands suddenly grabbed the back of his coat and yanked with everything they had.
“Hey, watch it!”
The voice cut through the horn and the screech of tires like sunlight cracking through storm clouds. Megumi felt himself hauled backward in one fierce tug, feet skidding across the ice, the truck’s grille missing him by barely the width of a hand.
They tumbled together into a snowbank on the opposite curb, a chaotic tangle of limbs and wet wool and flying snow. The truck roared past, horn still blaring its angry warning, and disappeared into the night just like that.
Megumi lay there gasping, chest heaving like a bellows, snow soaking straight through his clothes. He can feel his heart hammering so hard that he’s afraid it might crack his ribs open.
The other boy, on the other hand, was sprawled half on top of him at first, breathing just as hard, but he sits up quickly, brushing snow off Megumi’s coat with brisk, careless swipes like they are in the middle of some silly game instead of nearly dying.
“Wow, that was really close!” he says after ensuring there’s no more cold whites on the other’s coat, “Hey, you okay? Blink twice if you’re still alive down there!”
The boy’s voice was loud and bright, full of that kind of innocent energy that didn’t belong in a freezing night like this. He grinned wide, hazel eyes sparkling even in the dim glow of the streetlight, like the whole terrifying moment was just another adventure they’d won together.
“I saw you slip from way back there. I was running too, y’know? But then I saw you charging right at that big truck like you were trying to win a race against it.”
One thing the young Fushiguro noticed from the boy is that he talks animatedly. As if he couldn’t talk without all these big and exaggerated motions.
“You can’t beat trucks, dummy! They’re waaay bigger and waaay heavier. I had to run super fast to grab you in time. Um, my legs are shaking? But it was worth it!”
Megumi stared up at him, body still buzzing with leftover terror, as if he hadn’t just accepted his death a while ago if it will truly come to him that time. Underneath it though, Megumi felt something sharper flickered within him.
Anger at the world. Anger at his father. And now, anger at this strange loud boy who acted like saving a life was no big deal at all.
“Who…who are you?” he managed, voice hoarse and shaky. He pushed himself up on his elbows, glaring even as tears stung his eyes. “I didn’t need saving. I was fine. I was running and…and it just happened!”
The other boy tilted his head, that sunny grin never fading. He looked about the same age, his head that’s being covered by the hoodie of his thick yellow jacket dusted with snow, cheeks flushed from the cold and the sprint.
“You were about to be flat like a pancake! That’s not fine, dummy,” he reached out without asking and tugged the collar of Megumi’s coat to sit him straight. And before Megumi could even wince, the boy already unwound the cheap red scarf from around his neck and looped it around Megumi’s instead. The wool was still warm from the boy’s body heat and smelled faintly sweet, like the inside of a convenience store or maybe peaches. “Here, take this, okay? You’re shivering than a wet cat.”
Megumi is quiet as the boy fixes the scarf that’s keeping his neck warm now.
“See? Now you look tougher. Like you could fight the snow and win,” the boy inched away from him, smiling smugly with his arms now crossed on his chest. “I’m really good at this hero stuff, huh? Never tried it before tonight, but it feels pretty cool. Makes the cold not so bad.”
Megumi’s hands fisted in the snow, the scarf’s warmth already seeping into his skin and making something tight in his chest loosen just a little. He hated how nice it felt.
“You talk too much,” he muttered, glaring harder. “And you’re stupid. Running out in the snow like this? You could’ve died too, chasing after some random kid you don’t even know.”
The boy laughed, a bright, unselfconscious sound that cut through the wind like it had no right to. He poked Megumi’s cheek lightly with one finger, and Megumi hissed at him right away and swiftly swatted the finger as his face couldn’t control the annoyance it drew upon.
“Nah, I’m tough!” the other speaks again, “It doesn’t matter if I know you or not, you were about to die there, y’know? And I was kinda close to you, so why not run to you?”
As Megumi was about to retort, the boy beats him to it for another time, “Besides, if I didn’t run after you, you’d be truck food right now. And that’d be really sad. Don’t you want to play in the snow?”
Megumi didn’t reply, he just scoffed and looked away, doing the same thing the other kid did a while ago—which was crossing his arms too in his chest.
“C’mon, don’t look so mad. Smiling’s better, it makes the cold feel smaller. I’ll smile with you—see?” Megumi tilts his face back in front to see what the other boy is doing. Well, he stretched his mouth into an exaggerated, toothy grin, eyes crinkling at the corners like the whole awful night was a game and they were somehow winning together. “Your turn! Even a tiny one. Bet it’ll warm you up faster than my scarf.”
Megumi’s lip wobbled. He wanted to shove the boy away, to stay angry and alone because being angry was safer than trusting.
But the scarf smelled warm and the boy kept talking like the world was full of second chances instead of dead ends.
“I’m not smiling,” he said stubbornly, voice cracking. And he doesn’t even know at this point what pushed him to say the words that came out from his mouth next. “My dad…he doesn’t care anymore. He told me to get out, that’s why I am outside. So just, leave me alone. I don’t need your stupid scarf nor your stupid smile.”
The boy’s grin visibly softened, although it didn’t disappear. “That really sucks. My family’s been acting weird lately too, yet they won’t tell me anything. But I still smile ‘cause if I don’t, the bad stuff wins.”
“And you’re not bad stuff. You’re a kid, just like me, who almost got squished by a truck. So I’m not leaving you alone. Not until you’re warm again,” he stood up and offered his hand, small fingers wiggling insistently. “We can walk together for a bit. There’s a vending machine up ahead that sometimes gives you an extra drink if you kick it just right. I’m really good at kicking! I’ll run ahead and get it ready for you—my treat, even if I don’t have money. Kicking counts!”
Megumi hesitated, the part of him that had already learned the world took more than it gave, warring with the desperate need for even a scrap of warmth. Then, he took the hand. The boy’s grip, despite his hand being small too, was firm and steady, and he pulled Megumi up like it was the easiest thing in the world, chattering the whole time about how the snow looked like it was trying to make everything into a giant pillow and how maybe they could pretend they were explorers in a frozen kingdom.
They started walking side by side for a little while, the boy’s restless sunny energy making it impossible for him to stay still. He kept glancing around at the falling snow with wide-eyed wonder, point out how the flakes looked like tiny stars trying to land on their heads, and how the quiet streets felt like a secret world only they knew about.
"Can you stop calling me dummy?" irritably, he spat out to the boy. "You keep calling me like that. If anything, you're the dumb person here."
"Oh," the other kid mutters silently. And for a second, Megumi felt guilty. For a second. Because the next thing that the boy told him was enough to flare up the young Fushiguro. "But your hair makes you look like a dummy."
"I'm leaving you."
"Sorry, t'was a joke! Actually, no, but! Sorry, dum—I mean!"
"Whatever, just keep walking."
The other boy said sorry for another time before he started blabbering about things again that Megumi can barely follow along to.
But soon that same restless energy made him pull ahead, jogging a little way toward the glowing vending machine visible in the distance under a flickering streetlight. His footsteps left small, quick prints in the fresh snow as he called back brightly over his shoulder, voice carrying clearly through the quiet night, “Wait here a second, I’ll kick it extra hard so it gives us two cans! One for you and one for me! Don’t worry, I’m really good at this!”
Megumi followed slowly, still a good distance behind, the scarf warm and comforting around his neck but his legs feeling heavy from everything that had happened—the fight with his father, the near-miss with the truck, the confusing mix of anger and unexpected kindness swirling inside him. He watched the boy’s small figure move ahead, that bright energy cutting through the cold like a little lantern.
Then.
Then, that was when the black van appeared.
It slid up quietly beside the vending machine, engine barely making a sound, doors opening without warning. Two sharp-suited men stepped out with their faces blank and expressionless, movements too smooth and coordinated, like they had done this many times before.
Before the boy could even turn around fully, they were on him. One clamped a large hand tightly over his mouth, the other hoisted him up like he weighed nothing at all, arms pinning the boy’s flailing limbs.
The boy exploded into terror and fury all at once. He thrashed wildly, legs kicking out in every direction, muffled screams vibrating desperately against the hand clamped over his mouth. His eyes were wide with pure, unfiltered fear, fresh tears streaking down his flushed cheeks and mixing with the melting snow. “Mmmph—let go! Let me go! I wanna go home—my family’s waiting—stop it!”
His voice broke into angry, terrified sobs as he wiggled and bucked with everything he had, small fists pounding uselessly against the man’s shoulder. “You’re hurting me! I didn’t do anything wrong! Let me go right now! Please—my mom and dad are gonna be worried! I just wanted some drinks!”
Megumi froze for a second, heart leaping into his throat, the warmth of the scarf suddenly feeling too tight. Then he started running toward them, sneakers slipping on the ice, small legs pumping as fast as they could, a cry of protest already forming on his lips.
The boy, now slung over one man’s shoulder like a discarded sack, caught sight of him approaching through the falling snow. His eyes widened even more in panic, the terror sharpening into something protective. He shook his head frantically, the movement desperate and urgent despite being held so roughly.
Then.
Then.
Then, slowly and carefully, the boy shook his head, staring right at the blown dark blue eyes of Megumi. He stopped screaming. He stopped wiggling. Instead, he mouthed one clear word straight at Megumi, lips forming the shape with urgent force even as tears continued to fall.
Run.
The last thing Megumi saw, before the van doors slammed shut with a heavy thud, was the boy forcing one final smile. It was shaky, brave, that same sunny grin from minutes earlier. And it was directed right at him. As if he was trying to say everything would be okay even as the men shoved him inside and the van peeled away into the snow, tires kicking up slush as it disappeared around the corner.
The memory always ended there.
Blurry on purpose, the boy’s face rubbed out like someone had taken an eraser to it.
Megumi had spent years shoving the whole night down into the deepest pit his mind could manage. Remembering the full thing meant remembering how close he had come to dying alone in the snow. Remembering the boy meant remembering that someone had cared, even for five frantic minutes, and then been taken away while trying to protect him with the last brave smile.
It made the loneliness afterward hurt worse than the cold ever had, leaving a scar that refused to fade no matter how hard he tried to forget.
Gasping, Megumi jolted awake.
The bus rattled over another pothole, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like angry insects. His forehead was pressed against the cold window, breath fogging the glass in rapid, panicked bursts. A few passengers shifted uncomfortably, shooting him the usual sideways glances reserved for someone who looked like he carried too much weight for his frame. He was twenty-one now, not five, but the dream always left the same metallic taste of terror and something softer, something he refused to name or examine too closely.
“Shit!”
He shot upright, heart still hammering against his ribs, and shoved through the crowded aisle just as the automated voice crackled overhead.
The doors hissed open with a tired sigh. Megumi barely made it onto the cracked sidewalk before they slammed shut behind him. Cold night air instantly slapped his face, chasing away the last sticky fragments of snow and a scarf that smelled like peaches and impossible kindness. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his worn jacket and started the familiar twenty-minute walk to the restaurant, shoulders hunched against the wind that cut straight through his clothes.
This was his life now, and it stretched out in front of him like an endless, grinding road.
Ever since his mother had passed away, Toji had withdrawn into a shell of drinking and gambling that left almost nothing for the son he used to carry on his shoulders and call him his little blessing. Megumi had watched it happen in slow, painful increments. From the missed school events where other kids’ parents showed up with bentos and proud smiles, the empty fridge that stayed empty for days, the nights he came home from school to find his father asleep on the couch with empty bottles scattered around and the TV still blaring some horse race or poker game.
Megumi had learned early, too early, that warmth was something you earned or stole, never something given freely without a price.
Tsumiki had been the one stolen warmth that somehow stayed. She had entered their crooked little apartment on the freezing night of Megumi’s sixth birthday. Brought home by Toji in one of his rare lucid moments, a girl a year older trailing behind him like an afterthought.
Megumi had exploded then, too—tears and shouting, accusing his father of forgetting his own son while dragging strangers into the only space they had left.
He can still remember the bone-deep pain he had felt that night when he told his father that he couldn’t even buy him a simple cake, cupcake, hell, even a bread would do. Toji didn’t even know it was his son’s sixth birthday.
Mad, crying, Megumi had run out into the cold again, but this time Tsumiki had followed. She found him huddled behind a small bakery, shivering and alone, and had handed him a cheap cupcake with a single little candle she must have bought with whatever pocket money she had.
“Happy birthday, Megumi,” she had said softly, wrapping her scarf around his neck the way another boy once had years earlier.
From that night on she had become the only person he trusted completely. She looked after him like a real older sister—cooking what little they had with whatever was left in the pantry, helping with homework at the tiny kitchen table, making sure he had clean clothes even when Toji forgot to do laundry for weeks. Their bond had grown quiet and fierce through the years, the only steady light in a house that felt more like a waiting room for something worse.
For the first time after so long, Megumi felt the embrace of warmth again. Megumi finally had someone to lean on and spend his days with.
Until Tsumiki’s eighteenth birthday, when the illness hit without warning.
It came suddenly.
The coughing fits that left streaks of blood on tissues, nights where she could barely breathe, doctors using words like chronic respiratory failure and long-term supportive care and expensive treatments if you want her to have any quality of life.
The hospital bills had piled up faster than Megumi could count, each new envelope landing like another weight on his chest. He had dropped out the week after high-school graduation, trading textbooks and any dream of college for aprons and calloused hands and the constant smell of grease.
The restaurant job—dishwasher during the brutal day rush when the lunch crowd hit, then server through the dinner and late-night crowds—was far from their apartment, but it paid the highest among the places that would hire a dropout with no experience and no references.
The commute was hell on the body, the hours longer than any twenty-one-year-old should have to work, but every single yen went straight to Tsumiki’s treatments. He told her every night on the cheap payphone outside the restaurant that everything was fine, that he had it under control, that she just needed to focus on getting better. He smiled through the phone even when his fingers bled from the scalding dishwater and his shoulders screamed from carrying heavy trays for hours on end.
He pushed through the restaurant’s back door now, the familiar blast of grease and old fryer oil hitting him like a wall. The night shift was already in full swing—clattering plates, shouted orders from the kitchen, the low hum of tired conversations from the few remaining customers nursing late coffees.
Megumi hates Thursdays the most. Because that would mean that’s the start in which the restaurant would be busiest, which will continue until Sunday. Still, despite the curse of this night, he carried on. For after all, he had no other choice.
If he dares to complain about this, then that would equate to him giving Tsumiki up. And he couldn’t just do that. No, not when for many years, Tsumiki had been the one taking care of him.
So, without any words, Megumi tied on his apron with mechanical movements, raw hands protesting as he plunged them into the first sink of scalding water.
He worked in silence, the way he always did. Scrub, rinse, stack. Wipe down tables when the manager barked that the servers were short again. Smile politely when a customer complained about cold rice or slow service, nodding like it didn’t matter that his back ached and his stomach had been empty since lunch.
Inside his head, the dream lingered like a bruise he kept pressing anyway. The boy’s bright voice still echoed faintly, along with the terror, the mouthed word, and that final shaky smile. Megumi told himself it meant nothing. Just an old trauma trying to surface because he was exhausted, because Tsumiki’s latest test results had come back worse than expected, because the weight of keeping her alive was slowly crushing him flat.
He didn’t need saving. He never had.
He only needed to keep going. One shift, one bill, one day at a time. Until the world stopped trying to take the last good thing he had left.
The clock on the wall ticked past midnight. Megumi wiped down another table, eyes distant, and kept working.
This was his normal life.
And for now, it was all he had.
The evening air of Thursday hung heavy with the scent of rain-soaked concrete and the distant, greasy aroma of street food stalls that lined the brighter parts of Shinjuku. Streetlights flickered on one by one along the narrow back alleys, casting long, uneven shadows that stretched like reaching fingers across the wet pavement. It was well past nine, the kind of hour when most people had hurried home or vanished into the louder neon districts, leaving these forgotten corners to those who had no choice but to linger.
He moved through the alley with careful, quiet steps, hoodie pulled low over his messy hair, hands shoved deep into his pockets. The paper bag from the market earlier was gone, its sweetness long since swallowed. Now there was only the weight of the evening and the task he had been given.
They had come for him at dusk with a single knock on the apartment door. The handler had stepped inside without waiting, placed a thin folder on the table, and spoken in that flat, even tone they always used.
“Containment failure. Subject loose for forty-eight hours. Witnesses compromised. Handle it.”
He had stared at the folder, chest tightening, but he had nodded anyway. Refusal was never really an option. His body had learned that lesson too well over the years, how it simply refused to let him walk away once the order was issued. How his limbs would lock or his voice would die if he tried to say no. So he took the folder, memorized the details, and left when they told him to.
Tonight’s target was a woman in her late thirties. A former low-level employee who had seen things she shouldn’t have and managed to slip away during a transfer. She had been hiding in this alley for days, surviving on whatever scraps she could find, terrified and half-starved. The file said she had a daughter somewhere. That she had begged when they first located her. That she had never hurt anyone.
He hated these ones the most.
The alley narrowed ahead. A faint shuffling sound came from behind a stack of overflowing dumpsters. He stopped, shoulders tense under the hoodie, and took a slow breath to steady himself. His hands were shaking slightly. He clenched them into fists until the tremor eased.
Just get it done. Quick and clean. Then it’s over.
He stepped forward, keeping his voice soft and warm, the same bright, friendly tone he used with strangers on the street. “Hey, I know you’re there. It’s okay. I’m not here to scare you,” and he desperately wanted to vomit right here and then, feeling his stomach churning in the ugliest way one could ever imagine and feel.
Because he himself knows that he’s lying. That there’s no single reason at all on why would it be okay, when he knows very well what would transpire before this Thursday could even end.
A gasp, he heard. The woman scrambled out from her hiding spot, eyes wide with fear, clothes torn and filthy from days on the run. She was thinner than the photo in the file, cheeks hollow, hands clutched tightly around a small, battered backpack like it was the only thing left anchoring her.
When she saw him—a young man, barely twenty, with an open, disarming face—she froze for a second, confusion flickering across her exhausted features.
“What? You…you’re just a kid,” she whispered, voice cracking. Until, something akin to hope flickered in her face. And that just made the bile in the man’s throat get stronger. Because if anything, he would ruthlessly devoid her of that. “Please, I have a little girl. She’s only four. I just wanted to see her one more time. I didn’t tell anyone anything important, I swear on her life. Just let me go. Please. I’ll disappear. No one will ever hear from me again.”
His throat tightened painfully. The smile he forced onto his face felt brittle, like it might shatter if he breathed wrong. “I know. I’m really sorry about this. This isn’t what I want either.”
He took another slow step closer. The woman backed up until her shoulders hit the cold brick wall behind her. Tears spilled down her cheeks as she slid slowly to the ground, curling in on herself, arms wrapped protectively around the backpack.
“I’ll do anything,” she begged, voice breaking into raw, desperate sobs. “Just don’t—please don’t. I’ll never speak a word. Tell them I’m dead already. Tell them whatever you need to. Just let me live. My daughter, she needs her mom. She’s waiting for me.”
He knelt down in front of her, hazel eyes warm and aching with the kindness that still lived in him despite everything. His hand reached out gently, not to strike, but to brush a dirty strand of hair away from her tear-streaked face. The gesture was so soft and careful that she flinched at first, then sobbed harder, searching his face for any scrap of mercy.
But he doesn’t have that.
He’s terrible, disgusting, inhumane, and vile. That is all he is. He couldn’t give them what they’re begging for.
“I wish I could let you go,” he whispered, voice soft and genuine, the sunny warmth cracking into something pained and honest. “You sound like a really good mom. The kind who would do anything for her kid. I’m sorry it has to be like this.”
The woman looked up at him through her tears, hope and fear warring in her eyes. For a moment she seemed to see the boy behind the task, the one who still spoke gently, who still looked sorry.
“Then help me,” she pleaded, reaching out a trembling hand toward his sleeve. “You don’t have to do this. You’re young. You can still walk away. Please, I won’t tell anyone about you. Just give me a chance.”
His smile wobbled badly. A single tear slipped down his own cheek before he could stop it. “I can’t walk away. Not really. If I, if I—” he wasn’t able to finish what he was saying as he felt his throat tightening with his chest, as if trying to shatter the ribcage lying inside. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
And, in a quick, efficient way, he had moved. One hand pressed firmly over her mouth to muffle the final, desperate cry, the other finding the precise point that would end it fast. It was over in seconds. Her body went limp against him, eyes still wide with shock and lingering terror even in death.
He held her for a long movement afterward, rocking her gently in his arms like she might still be the mother she had spoken of, whispering quiet apologies into her hair that no one would ever hear. Tears continued to stream down his face, mixing with the light rain that had begun to fall again.
“I didn’t want this,” he choked out between shaky breaths, voice still carrying that bright, innocent quality even when it broke. “You didn’t deserve it. None of you do.”
When the handler’s car finally pulled up at the end of the alley, silent and black with tinted windows, he was already standing, face wiped clean, the sunny smile forced back into place like a shield. The woman’s body had been left exactly as instructed, arranged to look like a tragic accident for whoever discovered her in the morning.
The handler gave a single, approving nod from the driver’s seat. “Clean work. Return to the apartment. We’ll speak in the morning.”
He climbed into the back seat without another word, staring out the window as the city lights blurred past in streaks of color. Inside his chest, the ache sat heavy and unrelenting, but he kept the smile on his face all the way back, humming a quiet, made-up tune under his breath because it was the only way he knew to keep the darkness from swallowing him whole.