Chapter Text
The office smelled like burnt coffee and desperation.
Kuina had stopped drinking both.
Fluorescents buzzed overhead, too bright for a Monday, too white for any day at all. She sat at her desk, second row from the copy machine, wedged between a guy who always smelled like curry and a woman who liked passive-aggressively whisper-sighing every time she typed.
Her screen was blank. Cursor blinking like it knew something she didn’t. Like it was daring her.
“Kuina,” came the voice she was dreading.
She didn’t look up. She didn’t have to. Ikeda had a neck like a bottle cap and a voice like overchewed gum.
“I know you’re working on something good,” he said. Translation: I know you’re not.
“But the quarterly stats are brutal and I need views, not poetry.”
She turned. “So no haikus about climate collapse?”
Ikeda didn’t laugh. “You’ve got three weeks. You pitch me a feature that gets traction, or you're off the masthead.”
That hit. Not like a punch. Like a slow bruise—familiar.
“I have stuff,” she muttered. “You had stuff,” he said. “You wrote a good piece about a missing kid last year. People cried. I want more crying. I want shares. I want a title that bleeds.”
“I’m not writing trauma porn.”
“No, you’re not writing anything.”
That part stung more. She stood up. Her chair groaned. So did she. “I’ll bring you something. Something good.”
“You have until the end of the month.” He paused. “And Kuina? Make it matter. Or make it loud.”
She didn’t answer. By the time she was out the door, the buzz of the office had swallowed her whole. Phones ringing. Fingers hammering keys. Someone’s laugh—too loud, too fake.
She lit a cigarette before she even hit the sidewalk. Tokyo was gray that day, like it had forgotten color.
She didn’t know where she was going. She just wanted to go somewhere quiet.
Her lighter coughed before sparking. Wind kept pushing back, like the universe was trying to do her one favor today and stop her from chain-smoking herself into oblivion. She lit it anyway.
Kuina took a drag, pulled her coat tighter around her ribs, and started walking. No destination. Just movement. The way people do when they're trying to outrun a feeling. Or a deadline. Or their own lack of talent.
Her phone buzzed. She flinched like it was going to bite her.
Ann <3
She smiled before she could stop herself.
“Hey,” she said, answering with a rasp.
“Hey yourself,” came Ann’s voice—low, smooth, like someone who never panicked unless it was necessary. “You sound like you haven’t slept.”
“I sound hot and mysterious.”
“You sound like you lost a fight with a vending machine.”
Kuina grinned, a little crooked. “Close. Lost a fight with capitalism. Boss wants a feature that makes people cry. Or scream. Or buy our paid subscription.”
Ann laughed softly. God, that laugh. Kuina wanted to bottle it. Maybe shoot it into her veins instead of caffeine.
“What’s the theme this time? Orphans? Abandoned pets? That one guy who faked his death for Instagram likes?”
“Funny. No idea. My brain’s a sock right now.”
Wind in the receiver. Ann was probably outside too, pacing in that long, detective-y coat she wore when she was off-duty but still Ann. She worked in some department with an acronym Kuina never remembered—something with youth cases and missing people. Something heavy.
“You working?” Kuina asked, trying to sound casual, but needing the sound of her like a tourniquet.
“Was. Interviewed a fifteen-year-old who stabbed a classmate with a pencil. Not even the sharp end. I think it was a cry for help.”
“Relatable.”
Ann snorted. “You okay?”
And there it was. The gentle punch to the gut. Because Kuina wasn’t. But the second someone asked, she wanted to pretend she was. To be charming. To dodge it. To be okay enough for Ann.
“Just tired,” Kuina said. “Thinking of running away and opening a takoyaki stand in Okinawa.”
“You’d burn the stand down in a week.”
“Rude. Accurate.”
They were quiet for a beat. Kuina watched a pigeon strut like it paid rent, then turned down a quiet street she didn’t recognize. Kunitachi. Trees leaned over the sidewalk like old men with secrets.
“I might have something for you,” Ann said, like it was an afterthought, but Kuina knew better. Ann didn’t do random.
“There’s this school out here. Alternative academy. I’ve been called there a few times—mostly for counseling support or intake interviews. No major cases. But it’s…interesting.”
“Interesting like cult interesting or…?”
“No, like quiet interesting. Good weird. There’s this feel to the place. The kids are… off-track, yeah, but there’s something holding it together. Some kind of story under it all. I don’t know. You like things that hum under the surface.
“Are you calling me a rat?”
“I’m calling you a bloodhound with great hair.”
Kuina smirked. Her ears were pink.
“What’s the school called?”
“Kokorozashi Academy.”
She said it like it mattered. Like it would stick.
And it did. The name hung in Kuina’s chest, like a chord strummed too softly to catch, but still vibrating long after.
“You ever been inside?” she asked.
“Once. Sat in on a group circle. One of the boys gave this monologue about how silence is just ‘sound on pause.’ Gave me chills.”
Kuina leaned against a streetlamp, finishing her cigarette. The street was dead. No cars. Just the sound of her girlfriend’s voice and something like maybe—maybe—hope curling under her ribs.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll check it out.”
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
“I never do. That’s why I still like you.”
Ann laughed again. And Kuina hung up before she could say something sappy and gross and true.
By the time Kuina found the school, it was already halfway to silence.
It sat tucked between a hill and a train line, hidden like a secret people forgot they were keeping. No front gate. No signpost. Just a weathered wooden plaque that read:
Kokorozashi Academy Where your story begins.
Barf.
But also… maybe not.
Kuina kept walking. Her boots crunched gravel, and the sun had already started to dip sideways, painting the concrete walls orange. Students filtered out through side doors and shoe lockers—some alone, some in messy clumps, still half-laughing, half-arguing.
Afternoon dismissal in a Japanese school was usually around 3:30 PM. Here, it looked like it happened when it needed to. Not all at once. Like the place didn’t believe in bells.
She leaned on a fence and watched for a while. No uniforms. Most wore hoodies, thrifted coats, loud sneakers, chipped nail polish. One kid was dragging a cello case like it weighed more than her. Another had a full sleeve of Sharpie doodles up his arm and no bag at all.
They looked like the kind of people who didn’t fit.
Kuina knew that look. Wore it once.
She wasn’t here to be sentimental. Just sniffing around. Ann had mentioned a few names—people who used to go here. That meant this place had a story. If she could find it. Dig it up. Scrape at the surface hard enough to make it bleed.
She lit another cigarette but didn’t smoke it. Just held it like a habit she couldn’t quite quit. Her eyes flicked to the main building.
She could see a teacher inside, arms waving during some animated conversation with a student. Another kid was passed out on a bench near the front steps, earbuds in, face to the sky.
It didn’t look like a graveyard. And yet.... something felt buried here.
She pulled out her phone and opened her notes.
Questions to ask later:
Who founded this place?
How do they get their funding?
Why does it feel like everyone’s keeping a secret?
What the hell happened here?
A door clicked beside her. She turned. An older woman—mid-40s maybe, stylish bob, pressed slacks—stepped out and raised an eyebrow.
“You’re not a parent,” the woman said, tone crisp.
Kuina gave a thin smile. “Neither are you.”
The woman didn’t flinch. Just stepped forward and offered a hand.
“I’m Takada Yume. Head of student outreach. You?”
“…Kuina,” she said slowly. “Tokyo Spectra. I’m writing something.”
That always made people bristle. This woman didn’t.
“Of course you are,” Takada said. “You all come eventually.”
Kuina blinked. “That so?”
Takada smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. “Not the first time this place has drawn attention. But if you're looking for dirt, you won’t find it. Just ghosts.”
That gave Kuina pause.
Ghosts. Not literal. Probably. But still.
“Can I look around?”
Takada gestured toward the building. “You’ll find more in the old files than you will in the classrooms.”
She started walking away, then glanced over her shoulder.
“If you’re really interested, start with the alumni. They’re the ones who carry the story.”
And like that, she was gone. Kuina watched her disappear down a path, shoes quiet on the stone.
The alumni.
She pulled out her phone again.
Chishiya Shuntarō
Usagi Yuzuha
Karube Daikichi
Niragi Suguru
Akama Rie
Tachibana Rei
Mikami Itsuki
Yutaka Tatta
Chota Segawa
Nine names. Nine reasons to stay in this city. And maybe… one story worth telling.
______
The office smelled like floor cleaner and burnt sweet potatoes—someone always microwaved them too long. Ann Rizuna didn’t look up from her monitor.
Case files blurred slightly on her screen: scanned interviews, timestamps, intake photos, forms that said runaway or unfit guardian in red pen.
Youth Welfare Division, Special Circumstances. It was a mouthful. Mostly meant they got the complicated ones.
Ann’s phone buzzed once in her pocket. She already knew who it was.
Kuina:
Got the list. You’re getting good at stalking my leads for me.
Ann’s lips twitched. She typed back, quick:
Ann:
Call it… unofficial resource sharing.
She didn’t press send immediately. Instead, she stared at the message for a second too long.
Then added:
Be careful with those names. Some of them still have open files.
Send.
Her hands hovered for a moment. Then moved again, precise.
She pulled up the Kokorozashi file. Not official—it had never warranted a full investigation. But her own notes were tucked there, the way she sometimes collected places like other detectives collected knives or unpaid overtime.
Kokorozashi was one of those places that felt off, even when nothing showed up on paper. An alternative academy in Kunitachi. No major complaints. No scandals. No arrests. And yet…
The way the students talked about it—when they did—like it was a wound and a home at the same time. Something had happened there. Or maybe someone.
“Detective Rizuna?”
She turned. A new face. Ponytail. Neatly ironed shirt. Probably fresh out of the Academy.
“Yeah?”
“I’m Yamaoka. Just started in Division B. Sorry—uh, I saw the Kokorozashi file open. That’s a school, right? I think I read something about it once.”
Ann gave a careful nod. “You following the case?”
“No, just… curious.” Yamaoka smiled, unsure.
“Are you working it?”
“Not exactly. I just forwarded some info to an outside contact. Journalist.”
Yamaoka tilted her head. “The one you’re dating?”
Ann didn’t smile, but her jaw relaxed slightly. “Yeah. Hikari Kuina. She writes for Tokyo Spectra.”
“Oh! How long have you two been—sorry, is that okay to ask?”
Ann leaned back in her chair, eyes skimming the lines of a scanned report as she spoke. “Almost two years. We met during a juvenile case. She was reporting, I was… babysitting a sixteen-year-old with a box cutter.”
“That sounds romantic.”
“She offered me a cigarette. I said no. Then she stole my lighter.”
Yamaoka laughed. “So… this school. Is it one of those reform academies?”
Ann paused. "Yes and no. It’s quieter than most. More like… a last stop. For kids who don’t fit anywhere else.”
“Anything ever happen there?”
Ann’s eyes flicked back to the screen.
“There was a boy,” she said. “Arisu Ryōhei. Died at eighteen. Rare heart condition. But after he passed… people changed. It’s hard to explain. Some of his classmates—they got better. Healthier. Like they’d been cracked open and something got poured in."
Yamaoka frowned. “You think it’s connected?”
“I don’t know what I think,” Ann admitted. “But I know this: every time I ran into one of those kids in a case file, they mentioned him. Not directly. Not by name. But they always talked like someone had seen them. Really seen them. It was like being haunted by kindness.”
Silence settled in.
Yamaoka leaned against the desk. “That sounds like a story.”
“It is.” Ann looked at her screen again. “But it’s not mine to tell.”
She clicked the file closed.
_____
Kuina didn’t know what she expected inside the academy. Maybe peeling walls. Whispering students. A faint smell of bleach and bad cafeteria rice.
What she got instead was warm lighting and floors that didn’t creak.
Kokorozashi Academy looked like a community center and a bookstore had a baby. Soft yellow walls, paper cranes hanging in clumps from ceiling beams, quiet chatter echoing down a hallway. A few students lingered by cubbies, dragging their feet. Nobody looked rushed. Nobody looked scared.
It made her suspicious immediately.
She wandered past a shelf of books—donation paperbacks with cracked spines—and pretended she wasn’t casing the joint. Every inch of her buzzed with reporter instinct. The good kind.
The there’s something here and I’m gonna find it if I dig hard enough kind.
She passed a bulletin board filled with messages scribbled on Post-its:
You’re not a burden. Try again tomorrow. You are still here. That’s something.
She stopped reading them before her chest could get weird about it.
“Can I help you?”
The voice was gentle. Real. Like someone asking because they actually meant it.
Kuina turned and saw a man maybe in his mid-twenties, with soft features and a hoodie two sizes too big. His hair flopped into his eyes. He had this… openness about him. Like someone who made space without even trying.
She blinked. “Oh. Sorry. Just… looking around.”
He nodded, easy. “You’re the journalist, right? Someone said you were coming.”
Of course they did. Ann had probably given them a heads-up, or Takada had been whispering down hallways the second Kuina walked in.
“And you are?” she asked, notebook already out, thumb flipping it open like muscle memory.
“Tatta. Kōdai Tatta. I’m the maintenance tech here now. I used to be a student.”
Bingo.
Kuina smiled, the polite one that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Mind if I ask a few questions?”
“Sure,” Tatta said with a shrug. “I’ve got time. I was fixing the printer, but it’ll probably jam itself again in five minutes anyway.”
They sat on a bench just down from the teachers’ lounge. A couple students wandered past, laughing about something Kuina didn’t catch. She clicked her pen.
“So. Maintenance guy, huh?”
Tatta laughed softly. “Yeah. Came back about two years ago. Couldn’t stay away.”
“You grew up in the area?”
“Sort of. Moved around a lot as a kid. But this place… stuck.”
She scribbled something down. “Why?”
He leaned back a little, looking up at the paper cranes. “Because I stopped feeling like I had to apologize for existing.”
That one landed in her ribs. Sharp. But she didn’t let it show. Just kept her pen moving.
“And when you were a student? What was it like?”
Tatta hummed. “Weird. Beautiful. Messy. We weren’t like other schools. We had group circles instead of morning announcements. Teachers actually talked to us. And no one cared if you were late, as long as you came back.”
“That ever go badly?”
“Sure. People took advantage of it. Left, never came back. Some tried to ruin it. But some of us stayed. Got better. Learned how to be… people.”
Kuina watched him, trying to line it all up. Tatta didn’t have the hollow stare of someone faking recovery. He looked like he’d already crawled through the wreckage and found a chair to sit in.
She tapped her pen on her knee.
“Why do you think they let you stay?” she asked. “When you were that lost?”
Tatta tilted his head. Thoughtful.
“…Because someone believed I could be more than the person who tried too hard to be liked.”
That made her still.
Tried too hard to be liked.
There it was. The root. Not the showy trauma. The real kind. The one that made you bend yourself backwards for scraps of approval.
Kuina sat with it. Let the silence settle in.
Then she asked, softer now, not trying to sound like a reporter:
“Who believed in you?”
Tatta looked at her. No smile. No deflection.
Just a name.
“Arisu.”
She blinked.
“I’m sorry, who?”
“Arisu Ryouhei,” Tatta said quietly. “He… was one of us.”
One of us. Like a badge. Or a scar.
“And where is he now?”
Tatta paused. The kind of pause that wasn’t hesitation—it was grief being remembered.
“He died. Heart condition. Years ago.”
Something shifted in Kuina’s chest. Like a door cracking open in the dark.
“And he helped you?”
Tatta nodded. “Yeah. Just by… being who he was. He saw things in people. Not in a weird saint way. Just… he listened. He noticed when you weren’t okay, even when you smiled. No one ever did that before.”
Kuina stared down at her notebook, but her pen wasn’t moving anymore.
She was thinking of the Post-its. The cranes. The hum under the floorboards.
“You still think about him?” she asked.
Tatta looked at her, eyes clear.
“Every day.”
Kuina didn’t say anything for a beat. Just stared at the little groove on her pen cap, like it held the shape of everything she was trying to hold in. She’d interviewed people before—so many she stopped remembering their faces—but something about this wasn’t letting her go.
It was the way Tatta said his name.
Arisu.
Like it wasn’t just a person. Like it was a season they’d all lived through. Something that left pollen in the air long after it was gone.
Kuina cleared her throat. “Hey, uh… Would it be alright if we exchanged contacts?”
Tatta blinked. “Contacts?”
“Yeah. Just—your number, or line, or whatever. I think your story matters. A lot. And I’d… like to hear more, if that’s okay.”
She realized her fingers were tapping against her thigh. Nervous energy. She didn’t usually ask this directly. She normally wrapped it in some “I’ll circle back when we fact-check” nonsense. But this wasn’t just about the article anymore.
Tatta looked surprised, but not in a bad way. More like huh, people don’t usually care this long.
“Sure,” he said, pulling out his phone. “Want me to scan your code?”
“Yeah—uh, here.” She held it up, trying to act like her hands weren’t slightly shaking. Get it together, Kuina.
He tapped something on his screen and smiled. “There. You can text me anytime. I’m usually around. Unless the printer explodes. Which it might.”
She chuckled. “Thanks. I mean it.”
Tatta gave her a small nod. Then, more serious now, voice a little quieter:
“I don’t talk about him a lot. Arisu. But if you’re really writing about this place… You should know who he was. Not just the heart condition. The rest of him.”
Kuina caught that. The way he said not just the heart condition like it wasn’t the important part.
“I’d like that,” she said. “I want to know.”
Because something told her this wasn’t just a tragedy. It was a map.
And she was just starting to trace the edges.
Kuina kept replaying Tatta’s voice in her head.
“He saw things in people.”
Kuina leaned her head against the window, watching buildings smear past in shades of silver and dusk. Somewhere between Kunitachi and her neighborhood, she realized she hadn’t eaten since a half-soggy convenience store sandwich at noon.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
Ann:
You alive?
Kuina smirked and typed back:
Kuina:
Barely. Train’s crawling. Got a name. Tatta Kōdai. And one big, blinking question mark named Arisu.
The reply came a second later.
Ann:
Knew you’d find the edges.
Kuina slipped the phone into her pocket and closed her eyes for the rest of the ride.
Her apartment was small—one of those newer buildings pretending to be older. The light in the hallway flickered like it had stage fright. But the moment she opened the door, she felt her body loosen a little.
Because there were shoes in the entryway that weren’t hers. And a jacket thrown over the back of the chair. And the soft scent of yuzu hand cream, which only one person ever used.
“Hey,” Ann called from the kitchen, not turning around yet. “I brought dinner. Didn’t trust you to eat.”
Kuina blinked. “You broke in again.”
Ann glanced back, deadpan. “You gave me a key.”
“Which you use like a thief.”
“I prefer the term concerned partner.” Ann handed her a bowl of steamed rice and miso soup with soft tofu floating like clouds. “Eat first. Trauma later.”
Kuina couldn’t help but laugh a little as she dropped her bag and sat cross-legged on the floor like a kid. “You spoil me.”
“You’re underpaid and emotionally unavailable. Someone has to.”
They ate quietly for a minute. Kuina let herself exist. Just… chew and breathe and listen to the clink of Ann’s chopsticks.
Then she spoke. “He said Arisu’s name like it was sacred.”
Ann looked up. “Tatta?”
“Yeah. Said he thinks about him every day. Said he saw people. Not like a savior. Just… like he actually noticed when you were falling apart.”
Ann didn’t respond right away. She chewed, thoughtful.
“I checked Arisu’s donor record,” she said after a while. “You know how many people he saved when he died?”
Kuina shook her head.
“Seven. Heart, liver, both kidneys, lungs, pancreas, eyes. His entire body was like an apology to the world.”
Kuina stared at her. “How did I not know this? He’s not online. No articles. Nothing.”
“That’s why you’re the one writing it,” Ann said gently.
Silence again. But not uncomfortable. More like… the kind that fills a space instead of empties it.
“Thanks,” Kuina said finally.
“For dinner?”
“For everything. For… backing me up. For not laughing when I said this story matters.”
Ann smiled, warm and wry. “I’d never laugh at that. You only get this stubborn when it really matters.”
Kuina leaned against the table, eyes soft now. “You think I’m getting in over my head?”
“Definitely,” Ann said. “But that’s kind of your thing.”
Then her tone shifted, a little more curious. “What are you feeling, Kuina? Really.”
Kuina stared at the bottom of her miso bowl. “Like I stepped into a room I wasn’t supposed to see. But instead of yelling at me to get out, someone’s just… waiting for me to find the right light switch.”
Ann leaned forward, elbow on the table. “You found your story.”
“I think I did,” Kuina whispered. “But it’s bigger than I thought. It’s not about a school. It’s about a boy who died with a failing heart but somehow gave everyone else a reason to live.”
Ann’s hand slid across the table and wrapped around hers, grounding her.
“I think it’s about you, too,” she said quietly. “The way you notice things. The way you never stop asking.”
Kuina blinked hard. “Okay, that’s illegal levels of supportive. You have to stop before I cry in my rice.”
Ann grinned. “Sorry. Occupational hazard. I read people for a living.”
They stayed like that for a while. Just… holding hands across the table while the city outside moved on without them.
For once, Kuina didn’t feel like she was chasing a deadline. She felt like she was being led.
By a boy she’d never met. By names whispered in quiet hallways. By a story still waiting to be told.