Chapter Text
The world ended on a Monday.
A normal day, in every other way. It was bright, sunnier than usual as the sunlight cut through the blinds like a sharp blade. You wake before your alarm, the air in your apartment smelling faintly of burnt toast and laundry detergent. But the air drapes over your room heavier than it usually does.
Something feels off.
Not just the way your head aches or the lingering taste of last night’s dinner, but a strange, hollow weight pressing in your chest. You roll over, blanket tangled around your frame, and the overwhelming silence of the apartment makes your stomach twist. It isn’t quiet in a comforting way, but empty and heavy, like the sort of quiet that makes you super hyper-aware of every sound you’ve ever ignored. You sit on the edge of the bed, letting your feet dangle, listening for anything. Any ordinary, mundane noise that would make this feel like just any normal day.
You roll out of bed, hair messy from the approximately four hours of sleep you got, and stumble your way to the bathroom. You yawn, trying to blink out the last vestiges of sleep from your eyes, and from there you shuffle over to the sink where you splash your face with water, hard, and brush your teeth. You then change into your school uniform, a simple button-up uniform shirt, a pleated skirt, and a blazer, and grab your bag.
Downstairs, your mother is somewhere in the kitchen, humming a tune that she never remembers the words to, the smell of breakfast hanging faintly in the air. She glances at you, squints, and frowns slightly. “You look tired. Did you sleep at all?” There’s no judgment in her voice, only a faint tremor that makes your stomach flip. It’s not unusual for her, as she’s always been careful to pretend she’s fine, but you nod anyway, because noticing is dangerous and you’ve noticed too much in your life. You shake your head, muttering something about finals coming up while trying to make your exit quick enough so that she doesn’t notice.
She sighs, a soft exhale that smells faintly of coffee and burnt sugar cubes, but doesn’t press the matter. You grab your toast, taking small bites and swallowing mechanically, barely tasting it. Every second feels as if it's stretching out like taffy. Your mother calls your name as you tie your shoes, asking you something about groceries, and mentioning a trip to the store later. Her voice was bright and casual, but there’s something in the lilt that doesn’t land right, like it’s a ringing in your ears you’ve been trying to ignore.
The walk to school is quiet, the sidewalks buzzing with the normal clamor of students you barely know, and don't exactly care to know. Their laughter and chatter scrape at your ears, a sharp reminder that you just don’t belong. You clutch your bag straps too tight, dragging your fingers over the worn fabric to ground yourself. Each step feels heavier than the last, and you are hyper-aware of the way your backpack digs into your shoulders, as if reminding you that you are carrying more than books.
Still, you adjust your pace to match theirs, letting the world move around you like a carousel, and for a while, it almost feels normal.
Almost.
Your first period class drags on, not because it’s particularly long or difficult. I mean, it's history after all. But because your mind keeps flicking sideways, like a loose shutter catching the sunlight at odd angles. Like it did this morning. You take notes mechanically, the pen scratching against the paper in a rhythm that feels almost cruelly normal, and the repetition pained you in a way you couldn't explain mentally, but physically it was easy. You rubbed your aching wrist before glancing around the room, noting the way your classmates’ heads tilt toward the teacher. The way one of them keeps tapping their pencil against the desk, the other whispering something that makes a friend snort quietly. For a moment, you let yourself absorb it, this small, fleeting normalcy, and it feels pleasant in a way.
By your second period chemistry class, the feeling of off-ness in your chest hasn’t faded. You try to ignore it, telling yourself it’s just one of those mornings, the sort that make your stomach churn for no reason and your head ache for no reason and leave your body stiff with unnamed anticipation. You shift in your seat, correct the way your uniform collar sits around your neck, and focus on the faint click of the clock on the wall. The sound is steady. Predictable. You liked predictable. After all, the unexpected is.. not. Planning ahead, thinking before speaking, finding comfort in repetition. These are the rules you’ve learned to live by. The laws of nature applied before, and they always will.
Won't they?
Your teacher drones on about a lab assignment, something you could care less about, and your pen moves across the page without conscious thought as to exactly what notes you're taking. You notice the wetness the pen leaves on your page and the way your hand shakes ever so slightly when you move it towards the letters. The smudge of the ink across the paper and the stain it leaves on your thumb. You try not to think about why it shakes, or the stark black stain now on your thumb; you try not to think about the hollow twinge in your chest. You try, but failing is easier than succeeding.
Then your phone rings. A shrill, insistent sound that cuts through classroom murmurs like a knife, slicing through the droning of a stoichiometry lesson from your teacher. It’s as if the world itself has slammed into the side of your skull—ears ringing, jaw clenched so tight you can hear your teeth grinding in your head, your face burning with embarrassment at the sudden intrusion. Like everything inside your head has been knocked loose, scattered, and wrong. The overstimulation of it all only adds to your twisted mind’s sense of perturbation. The ringing comes from your backpack, the vibrations tickling at your ankle from your bag placed haphazardly on the floor. Who could possibly be calling?
You stare at your bag, unzipping it and fumbling clumsily as your knuckles knock against notebooks and pens before turning your phone’s ringer off inside your bag. The cold screen soothes your aching fingertips, the need for another sensation too overwhelming to even name.
You pull your phone into your lap, the black screen sitting upon your skirt’s folds—barely hidden from sight.
The notification of an incoming call flashes across the screen once again. Caller ID: Uncle. Your heart dropped to your stomach. Your uncle. The one your mother calls, her brother, when she wants to delegate problems you aren’t supposed to know about. You stare at it, frozen, your stomach twisting, throat tight. The words 'don’t answer' and 'you have to answer' clash inside you, but before you can decide, you stood up abruptly, chair clattering to the floor as 50 eyes were suddenly on you, looking everywhere all at once. You couldn't get up fast enough, bolting out of the classroom and straight to the nearest bathroom into a stall.
“Hello?” Your voice trembles. It sounded small, foreign, almost unreal to your own ears.
His voice cracks before the words even start. He says your name, the vowels shaky. There’s no small talk, no preamble. Only the weight of what’s coming, and it presses against you harder than the seat beneath your legs. “I’m.. I’m sorry to tell you this over the phone, but there’s been an accident. Your mother.."
His words drown out after that. The syllables hang, fractured and disjointed. You try to place them, to hold onto them, but they slip through your fingers like water. Your vision narrows. The world tilts. You try to breathe, but each inhale tastes wrong. The hum of the fluorescent bathroom lights becomes a roar. The noises of the world outside of your bathroom stall fade to a distant echo. And for the first time that morning, you understand that the predictable, structured little world you had created for yourself has cracked.
You finally push the bathroom door open, fingers trembling slightly against the cold metal handle, eyes red-rimmed with tears. The hallways feel emptier than they usually do, a stark comparison to the hollow feeling in your chest. When you enter the classroom, the soft smells of old chalk and pencil shavings hit, but it doesn’t register. You move back toward your seat, each step measured and heavy, as if the linoleum beneath your shoes has thickened overnight. The teacher looks up at you, a soft crease of pity on her brow, the kind that says she knows more than she should. Her eyes meet yours for a moment, and something in that glance, something brief and almost imperceptible, makes your stomach twist further. You nod once, barely, and shuffle past your classmates’ whispered glances and back out into the hallway. Nothing is said, nothing needs to be. Somehow, silence can carry more than words ever could.
The office calls your name before you can make it there. You hear it first as a distant vibration in the air, then a voice over the intercom: a soft, professional tone, calm but carrying an edge of urgency. Nothing is said but your name, but the message is clear: Leave. Now. You adjust the strap on your bag, heart hammering like a drum behind your ribs, each beat a reminder of how fragile the world feels.
You step inside the office, bag hanging from one shoulder, and your body is rigid, frozen in place. Your phone rings again. It's your uncle.. once again.
“Hey, kiddo." His voice is gruff, cracked. Probably worn down from crying. "Your father is on his way. He’ll pick you up.”
You want to respond, you really do, but the words dry up like cotton in your mouth. Only the hollow ache in your chest responds, spreading like ink in water, filling every corner of your body with disbelief. You felt tears wet your cheeks. Your father. The man whose memory is a patchwork of fragments, arguments you barely remember, of silence that stretched for years. The man who left, and whose absence shaped the compact universe you had built for yourself with your mother, with routines, with repetition, with rules that kept chaos at bay. He’s coming back now. After years of absence, after the small, self-contained world you’d survived in is suddenly gone.
You hear his car pull up to the parking lot before you see it. As you thanked the office ladies with a nod and a sniffle, stepping outside with your bag digging into your shoulder. Someone gets out of the backseat, a boy, probably around your age. With white hair and black tips.. Shinsuke.
He really grew up. After years of little to no contact, he looked.. different. He was taller now, shoulders broader, an echo of the boy who once held your hand against the frightening world. His presence is comforting yet foreign all at once. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t offer words of solace. He looks almost like the boy you once knew, and almost doesn’t. Time has stretched him into someone you only recognize in pieces.
He only opens the door, then slides in next to you in the backseat. He sits, hands folded in his lap, eyes glancing briefly toward you before returning to the quiet steadiness that has always been, and probably will always be his armor. When you finally tune in to your surroundings, the familiar scent hits you first—leather, faint cologne, and something strangely metallic that reminds you of your father’s presence in fragments you thought you had forgotten. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t reach for you from his drivers seat. He just watches, eyes steady on the road ahead, with his hands knotted tightly around the steering wheel.
The car changes gears, out of park, before you even got the chance to ask where your father was taking you. The vehicle moves forward, tires crunching on the gravel, and everything feels slowed and stretched. Your mind loops over the phone call, your mother’s newly-derived absence, and the long years of estrangement. You want to speak, to demand answers from them, to find someone to blame, but no words come. Only the hollow weight presses on your chest, a reminder that the world ended on this Monday, and there is no turning back.
Your father finally speaks, voice low, measured, but carrying that taut edge that makes your stomach twist even further. “Shinsuke and I.. We went to go see your mother. But.. but it was too late."His voice cracks, a rare fracture that feels uncharacteristic for him. For your father, the man whose memory is all but arguments and years of silence, the man who left—this was new. "The hospital… they told me everything. I’m.. sorry. We.. We'll go ahead and grab your stuff from the apartment.” The words echoed, sounded out like they tasted bitter inside his mouth. He changed the subject way too quickly. Like it pained him to apologize. Was it truly the pain of apology, or just the sting of losing someone you loved?
Love?
You nod, barely. One small, trembling motion, and it is all the acknowledgment you can manage. Your throat feels tight, every breath a reminder of the void inside, the air in your lungs that your mother could no longer breathe. The city streets blur past the window, colors and shapes washing over you, but nothing really takes. Inside the car, time has folded in on itself. Silence is loud. Grief sits on your chest, solid and immovable, and for the first time in years, the distance between you and your father, between you and Shinsuke, feels both unbearable and necessary, all at the same time.
You realize—though you don’t dare think it aloud—that nothing in your structured little life could have prepared you for this. Nothing will be familiar again. Not ever. And yet, you sit frozen in the backseat, gripping the straps of your bag as the car moves steadily forward, carrying you toward the place that used to be home, the one that will now hold the absence of everything you thought you could count on.