Shikama District was a place that no one wrote poems about.Gray apartment complexes, cracked sidewalks, vending machines flickering half-dead by the curb. It was a place of dying light and muffled televisions, rusted stairwells, and people too tired to notice anything but their own survival.
Aira Moriyama was good at being invisible in places like this.Thin, pale, with limp black hair always tucked behind one ear, she walked home from school with her head bowed, bag clutched against her side, earbuds in but nothing playing. Just the illusion of sound to keep the world away.
She passed by shuttered shops, the burned-out sign of an old game arcade, and a row of vending machines humming like insects. She did not notice the figure leaning against the wall near the corner, watching.
He noticed her.He always did.
Kazuo Tachibana's House — 9:43 p.m.
The apartment was silent.Not because it was peaceful — but because his father was still at work and his mother never spoke anymore. She hadn't, really, since the hospital. She drifted like a wraith from room to room, curtains drawn, lights off, her face a blank map.Kazuo didn't mind.He preferred it this way.
The soft glow of his phone screen illuminated his face in the dimness of his bedroom.The posters on his walls weren't things he actually cared about: bands he didn't listen to, movies he barely remembered. He didn't decorate for himself. His room was a lie — like everything else.
He scrolled through social media, muted faces smiling into empty space. His feed was flooded with the usual:
Classmates pretending their lives mattered
Half-naked idols
"Follow your dreams" garbage
And then he saw it — a grainy photo someone had taken near the station.In the background, like a mistake, was her.Aira. Head down. Invisible even in pictures.
Kazuo's lips curled into a small, unreadable smile.
People like her…They don't fight.They don't scream.They dissolve.You could reach into their world and tear it apart, and they'd blame themselves for it.
He put his phone down, leaning back against the headboard.The muffled sound of a news report drifted from the living room, something about a robbery nearby.He didn't care.
In his mind, he was already arranging things.It's a game of pressure. A gentle weight at first.You don't grab a bird by the throat.You coax it closer, one grain at a time.
He thought of Shiori.She was sharp. Controlled. She liked to watch.Yuki and Kenji — they liked to break things.And him…I just like to see how far it'll go.
His eyes lingered on a small object on his desk — a silver lighter, engraved with someone else's initials.A souvenir.A habit.
The Convenience Store — Two Nights Later
Aira never intended to be out this late again, but life didn't ask for her permission.The apartment was out of food. Her mother had disappeared to God-knows-where.And so she walked to the FamilyMart by the station.
The streets were empty, save for the hum of vending machines and the distant wail of sirens.Inside, the same dead-eyed clerk barely looked up as she entered.
She picked out the same things — instant noodles, a bottle of barley tea — and stepped back out into the cold.
And they were there.
Leaning against a wall just beyond the store's halo of light, four figures.Kazuo's cigarette glowed faintly as he lifted a hand.
"Hey. You're that girl from Ichikawa High, right?"
The words felt too casual, like a hook wrapped in velvet.Aira hesitated. The bag handles cut into her fingers.
"…Yes," she said quietly.
Kazuo stepped forward, his face half in shadow.
"I'm Kazuo," he said, as though it mattered. "These are Yuki, Kenji, and Shiori."
The twins grinned — mirror images of casual cruelty — and Shiori didn't smile at all, her gaze sliding over Aira like she was an object, a shape.
"You walk home alone a lot," Kazuo said, lighting another cigarette. The tip flared, briefly painting his face in orange light.
Aira's pulse stuttered.She should leave.She should.
"I should—"
"Relax," Kazuo said, a smile like an old blade. "We were just heading to the station. You going that way?"
Aira hesitated.Loneliness is a hunger that distorts the shape of danger.
"…Okay."
They walked together through half-lit streets. Yuki and Kenji joked about a teacher they hated. Shiori stayed silent, scrolling through her phone.Kazuo kept pace beside Aira.
"What music do you listen to?" he asked.It wasn't what she expected.
"Um… old stuff. City pop. Nakamori Akina… sometimes."
"Cool," he said, like he meant it.
She risked a glance at him.He didn't seem cruel then. Just… older. Calm. The kind of person people orbit around.She envied that.
He noticed her looking and smiled.
"Most people are fake," he said quietly, voice dropping low enough that only she could hear. "But you're not, are you?"
Aira didn't know what to say.
later that night Kazuo at home again, in the dark, he flicked his lighter on and off, watching the flame rise and fall.
It's not about hurting people.Not at first.It's about seeing them.Seeing what no one else bothers to.I can tell when someone's already dead inside.And people like her — they wear it like perfume.
Shiori gets it.Yuki and Kenji just like the noise.But me… I like the silence.
He exhaled smoke into the dark.In his mind, Aira's face hung there like a paper mask.
It won't be long.
Aira's Journal Entry
They talked to me again.Kazuo said I wasn't fake.No one's ever said that to me.I don't know if it means anything.I think… maybe I like being seen.
Maybe I shouldn't.
She closed the notebook.Her hand trembled a little.