Chapter 6 - One Day After Tomorrow
The Silence Before the Shatter
The sky was a dull slate, heavy with rain that refused to stop. Tokyo's endless rhythm—the horns, the chatter, the flashing neon signs—carried on as if the heavens hadn't cracked open above it. But inside Hukitaske Pharmacy, time itself felt arrested.
Hikata stood at the doorway, drenched, her umbrella hanging limply at her side. Rumane's hand trembled as she lowered the kettle from the flame. Even Raka, always ready with a joke, fell completely silent.
Akio noticed the air first. It was the kind of silence that exists only before something sacred dies.
He turned toward Hikata. Her lips parted, but no words came at first—only breath, shallow and uncertain.
"What happened?" Akio asked quietly, though the part of him that still believed in peace already knew.
"It's…" She swallowed hard. "It's Kaede."
His heart stuttered. The world tilted.
"No." His voice was barely a whisper. "What about her?"
Hikata's eyes glassed over. "She's gone."
There was no scream, no collapse—just stillness. A quiet too deep for sound. The rain outside seemed to echo his heartbeat, relentless and hollow.
"She's dead, Akio." Hikata's voice broke on the final word. "Early this morning. The police— they said… fever. But it isn't that simple."
Akio's hands began to shake. His throat tightened until the air itself hurt to swallow.
"She was fine," he murmured, denial crawling up his spine. "She was strong. She was—"
"She was poisoned."
The words hit like shrapnel.
Rumane gasped, nearly dropping the kettle. Raka whispered something under his breath—something like a prayer. But Akio didn't hear.
The room blurred into streaks of shadow and rain. His pulse pounded in his ears. His mind screamed no, no, no while his heart sank deeper than any denial could reach.
The House of Lies
The rain didn't let up. It came down like the sky was punishing the earth for something it couldn't name.
They drove to Kaede's home in silence, wipers cutting through the storm. Hikata sat beside him, her hands twisted in her lap. Rumane followed in another car, her face ghostly pale in the rearview mirror.
When they arrived, yellow police tape fluttered in the wind like weak banners of surrender. Officers moved about the property in wet raincoats, the click of their cameras punctuating the storm's dull roar.
The house itself looked untouched—peaceful even. But peace was an illusion.
Akio stepped over the threshold, and the world tilted again. Everything was the same: her slippers by the door, the umbrella she always forgot to close properly, the faint scent of her perfume hanging in the air. It was the smell of a memory pretending to still be alive.
A detective approached. He was young, his face hard but his eyes sympathetic. "Dr. Hukitaske. I'm sorry you had to see this. We have reason to believe it wasn't an accident."
Akio didn't blink. Didn't move.
"We found traces of poison," the detective continued. "High concentration. Slow-acting compound."
"Poison…" Akio murmured. His voice broke around the word. "By whom?"
The detective's mouth tightened. "We believe the suspect is the person she was living with. His identity was falsified. We arrested him near Shinjuku Station—trying to flee north. He had blueprints for a bank, disguises, even forged documents for a fake identity."
"And Kaede's accounts?"
"Drained. Every yen. He'd been taking money slowly for months. Her insurance policy was also filed to be collected under his name. We're investigating how he forged the papers."
The detective paused, hesitating. "I'm sorry. But… she trusted him completely. He played his part too well."
Akio stared at the floor, at the single photograph that had fallen from a table. It was Kaede, smiling, a streak of sunlight caught in her hair.
He picked it up and whispered, "Where is he?"
The detective hesitated. "He's in custody."
Akio didn't wait for permission. He turned and walked out into the storm, his footsteps hollow against the pavement.
The Cell
The holding room was a sterile cage of white tiles, reeking of bleach and cold sweat. The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly, casting long shadows through the glass partition.
Akio stood on one side of the barrier. On the other side, shackled to a steel chair, sat the being who had worn Kaede's love like a costume.
Gone was the polite façade. His skin was pale, hair matted, eyes darting like trapped animals.
Akio picked up the phone.
The figure hesitated, then lifted his own receiver with trembling fingers.
"You killed her," Akio said. The words were calm, too calm.
The person gulped. "It wasn't—it wasn't supposed to happen that way."
"You poisoned her."
"It was just to keep her sick for a while," he blurted. "I didn't—she wasn't supposed to—"
Akio slammed his palm against the glass, the crack echoing like a gunshot. "You watched her die. You let her believe she was safe."
The freak recoiled. "I didn't mean—"
"Don't you dare speak that word!" Akio roared.
The guards shifted uneasily, but didn't interfere.
"You made her believe in you," Akio whispered, his voice trembling now. "You made her laugh again. You made her trust. And you took everything."
The criminal's breathing turned ragged. "I—I needed money. I didn't mean—"
"You killed the only light that ever forgave me," Akio said.
He dropped the phone, the sound clattering against the receiver, and in that moment something inside him snapped.
Before the guards could stop him, Akio shoved open the side door and crossed into the cell. Chaos erupted—shouts, footsteps, alarms—but he didn't care.
He grabbed the criminal by his collar, slamming him against the wall. "You made her believe she mattered!" he screamed.
The freak gasped, struggling. "Please—"
"You watched her suffer. You let her die alone!"
The guards rushed in, prying Akio off, but not before the person saw what lived in those eyes—eyes that had seen war, death, and rebirth, but never vengeance until now.
"If there's anything left of your soul," Akio said through his teeth, "you'll pray it burns fast."
The freak broke down sobbing.
As they dragged Akio away, his voice echoed through the corridor like a curse. "You stole her light. And I will make sure you never see daylight again."
The criminal screamed, the sound raw, guttural.
And when Akio looked back, his reflection in the glass wasn't that of a healer anymore. It was something far older—something grief had hollowed and remade.
Ashes in the Wind
He didn't return home.
He went to the cemetery instead, walking without umbrella or coat, soaked through by the storm. The rain blurred everything—his breath, the stones, the city skyline in the distance.
The willow tree swayed softly, weeping with him. Beneath it lay two graves now. One for Kaede. One for their daughter.
Akio fell to his knees in the mud.
"I should've stayed," he whispered, his voice breaking. "I should've seen it. I should've stopped it."
His fists struck the ground. "You were everything good in this world, and I let you die surrounded by monsters."
The wind moved through the tree like a sigh.
He bowed his head until his forehead touched the wet earth. "Even when we were apart, even when I couldn't say it—I never stopped loving you."
The rain answered with silence.
He stayed there until the clouds began to thin, until the first weak rays of dawn broke through.
The Collapse
Days became indistinguishable. Morning bled into night; time lost all texture.
Akio didn't eat much. He worked enough to keep the pharmacy running, but his eyes were dull, his movements mechanical. The light that once defined him had become a flickering remnant.
Rumane tried to speak with him, but he rarely answered. Raka brought tea that went cold on the counter. Hikata sat quietly nearby, sometimes reading out loud to fill the silence.
But nothing reached him.
He spent his nights in the back room, staring at the old mirror—Kaede's reflection burned into memory. Some nights, he shouted at nothing. Others, he simply wept until his throat bled.
He kept her scarf draped over his chair. Her last unsent letter lay folded in his pocket, worn soft from touch.
The Words That Were Never Said
One night, under a moon that looked too kind for such a cruel world, Akio returned to the cemetery. The willow tree shimmered in silver light.
He lit incense and placed it beside her stone.
"Kaede," he whispered. "I'm sorry. I should've been there. I should've never let you think you were alone."
He unfolded the letter—the one she'd never sent—and placed it gently beneath the gravestone.
"I hope wherever you are, you've found peace. I hope you remember me not for my absence, but for the days I made you smile."
The wind shifted. For a heartbeat, he swore he heard her voice in the leaves.
"You were always my home, Akio."
He closed his eyes and breathed in the silence.
The Fire to Come
The trial came and went.
The verdict was swift: life imprisonment, no parole. The courtroom murmured as the criminal sat silent, eyes hollow. Since his arrest, he hadn't spoken a single word. He didn't sleep, didn't eat. The guards whispered about the curse of the pharmacist—the one who looked death in the eye and left it trembling.
Akio didn't attend the sentencing. He didn't need to. The outcome was already written the moment Kaede died.
Rumane found him later that night, standing by the pharmacy window, staring out at the rain.
"It's over," she said softly.
Akio didn't look at her. "It'll never be over."
"You can't live on vengeance."
"I'm not," he murmured. "I'm living on memory."
He lit three candles on the counter—one for Kaede, one for their daughter, and one for himself.
The flames wavered but did not die.
He whispered, "I couldn't save her. But I'll save others. I'll make sure no one else falls the same way."
Outside, thunder rolled across the horizon. The candles flickered like distant stars.
The last ember of his family.
The first flame of purpose reborn.
Chapter 7 – One Day After TomorrowBeneath the Quiet Sky
The sun rose hesitantly, filtering through clouds still heavy from the night's rain. Tokyo moved on. People hurried to work, laughter echoed in alleyways, and life returned to its usual, relentless pace.
But for Akio Hukitaske, the colors of the world had drained to grayscale.
He walked the familiar path to the pharmacy, each step heavier than the last. When he pushed open the door, the faint jingle of the bell felt almost foreign.
Inside, Hikata was reorganizing shelves. Rumane had left a thermos of barley tea steaming gently on the counter. From the back room came Raka's voice, humming a folk song that barely reached his ears.
It all looked normal. But normal had lost its meaning.
Across the front window, two small handprints remained in the morning condensation—his daughter's. They hadn't faded in all these years.
Grief, Akio realized, wasn't a storm to survive. It was a room you learned to live inside. And his heart had many such rooms now.
A Broken Rhythm
The day passed like fragments of a dream. Customers came, thanked him, left. He treated a scraped knee, adjusted a blood pressure dose, listened to an elderly granny talk about her lost cat.
He smiled when needed. Spoke gently. Measured precisely. But it was as if someone else was performing his life for him.
In the afternoon, Rumane found him standing before a shelf, rearranging the same boxes over and over.
"Akio," she said softly, "you've been doing that for hours."
He blinked. The world snapped back into focus.
"I just… need to keep moving," he said.
Rumane reached out and rested her hand on his. "You're allowed to stop. You're allowed to be broken."
He met her eyes—steady, kind, unflinching. And for the first time in days, he nodded.
The Letter Kaede Never Sent
That evening, Hikata returned from the station with a sealed envelope. "They found this in Kaede's drawer," she said. "It was addressed to you."
Akio took it with shaking hands. The paper was soft, the edges worn, as if handled often.
He unfolded it.
Dear Akio,
Sometimes I think we only get one true person in a lifetime—the one who changes how we see the world. And if that person leaves, we spend the rest of our days trying to rebuild around the crater they left.
I tried to move on. I truly did. But every morning, I still make your tea. I still leave the window open for the light you loved. I still whisper your name when I light the incense.
If you ever find your way back, know this—I never stopped believing in you.
Love always,
Kaede
Akio read it twice. Then a third time. His hands trembled, but his tears never came. There was nothing left in him to spill. Only silence—and a fragile kind of understanding.
A Visit to Her Room
The next day, he returned to her house for the last time. The police had cleared the scene; boxes lined the hall. But her bedroom door remained open, untouched.
He stepped inside.
The faint scent of jasmine. The hum of the rain outside. The photograph of the three of them—Kaede, himself, and their daughter—taken years ago at a festival they once visited together. He remembered her laugh in that moment, the way she squeezed his hand like she could hold the world steady.
On the nightstand sat an old prescription bottle. His handwriting was on the label.
He touched it gently. "You still trusted me," he whispered.
The curtains swayed, and for a fleeting instant, he felt her beside him.
The Return of the Willow
He went back to the cemetery as dusk fell. The willow's branches trembled in the wind, glimmering under the lantern he carried.
He knelt between the two graves, lighting three sticks of incense.
"I'm not okay," he said. "But I'm still here. I'll keep going—for you. For her. For every soul I couldn't save."
The smoke curled upward like a bridge between worlds.
He stayed for hours—talking, remembering, confessing. When the stars finally appeared, he whispered, "One day after tomorrow, I'll see you again."
And for the first time, that promise didn't feel like surrender. It felt like peace.
Light Through the Mirror
Back at the pharmacy, the others had left for the night. Only the lanterns glowed softly in the corners, their light trembling across the walls.
Akio stood before the new mirror, its frame engraved with his own hand:
I remember. I remain. I rise.
He added new words beneath with a steady hand:
And I forgive.
He looked at his reflection—not the being who had failed, not the scientist who broke the world, but the healer who was learning, at last, how to live within it.
He took a deep breath, not out of habit, but intention.
This time, he wasn't breathing just to survive.
He was breathing to live.
[Next: Volume 4, Chapter 8 — The Garden Between Worlds]