The night swallowed me whole as I trudged toward home, each step heavier than the last. The rain had started hours ago, a relentless torrent that blurred the world into gray streaks and whispers. I was late. Again. They would be waiting.
I didn't want to come back.
But I had nowhere else.
As I pushed open the creaking front door, the cold air inside bit through my soaked clothes. The dim light flickered over two silhouettes standing like statues in the hallway.
Father's eyes were sharp, gleaming with a mixture of suspicion and fury. Mother stood beside him, silent but fierce, a cigarette smoldering in her fingers.
"Where have you been?" Father's voice cracked the silence like a whip.
I didn't answer.
"Answer me, Akihiro!" Mother hissed, stepping forward, the cigarette tip glowing red like a wound in the dark.
The questions weren't real. They never were. They were excuses. Preludes.
They grabbed me—hands like iron, dragging me into the living room where the shadows seemed to dance with menace.
"Late again," Father snarled, slapping my cheek until it stung with fire.
I tasted blood.
They didn't need to speak to hurt me. Their hands, their anger, the cold in their eyes—it all said the same thing: You belong to us. You are nothing.
But something inside me shifted.
The rage, long buried beneath bruises and silence, rose like a tide.
I wasn't a broken doll anymore.
When Father reached for his belt, the old leather strap swinging through the air, I moved. Faster than I thought possible.
I caught the belt mid-swing.
His eyes widened—fear flickered there, briefly, before the mask snapped back into place.
Without thinking, I lashed the belt back at him, hard.
The sting of leather cracked against his cheek.
He stumbled, clutching his bleeding face.
Mother screamed, the cigarette falling from her lips and skidding across the floor.
I stood, chest heaving, soaked in blood—mine and theirs.
"I'm done," I said, voice low but fierce.
The word wasn't just defiance. It was a declaration.
Mother grabbed a lighter and a fresh cigarette, bent close, and pressed the burning tip against my arm.
Pain exploded.
I screamed.
But I didn't run.
I couldn't.
Until the fire was unbearable.
I broke free.
I ran.
—
The rain was colder now.
Outside, the world was a blur of water and darkness.
I had no plan, no direction—only the desperate need to escape.
Near the school grounds, beneath the skeletal branches of an old tree, I scavenged what I could—small pieces of wood, scraps of cloth, anything to build a shelter.
Seven hundred yen in my pocket, the last shred of what I owned.
I wrapped myself in the wet fabric and hid in the shadows, the cold seeping into my bones.
Hours passed. The sky darkened.
Then footsteps.
"Akihiro?"
A voice—soft, familiar, hesitant.
Reika.
I didn't want her to see me like this.
Covered in blood, bruised and broken.
I didn't want anyone.
She knelt beside me, her eyes wide with concern.
"What happened? You weren't at school today. I've been worried."
I pushed her away.
"This is my home now. A place where I can be alone."
Her expression faltered—sadness, maybe even pain.
She nodded quietly.
"Okay."
And then she left.
—
I collapsed.
Exhausted, broken.
Sleep claimed me.
—
In dreams, I wandered a strange, misty field.
A figure appeared—Mei.
Her eyes were deep pools of mystery and sorrow.
She reached out, pushing me gently into a bloom of flowers.
I tried to pull away but my body wouldn't obey.
Her voice was a whisper.
"Why do you carry so much pain, Akihiro? Why do you hide in silence when the world demands you speak?"
I wanted to answer, but my throat was tight.
She pressed closer.
"Your heart withers, but it's not broken. Not yet."
Time stretched, the conversation endless and exhausting.
The flower's petals brushed my skin like cold fire.
Pain and revelation mingled.
—
I woke suddenly.
Midnight.
An unfamiliar heat radiated from my skin.
Black and red aura swirled around me—alive, powerful, and terrifying.
I felt it—strength growing inside me, raw and untamed.
My hair tingled, strands whitening slowly like frost creeping at dawn.
I wasn't the boy who had fled into darkness anymore.
Something new had taken root.
Something dangerous.
—
The breaking bloom of a new chapter in my life had begun.