[DAY 1 - NOVEMBER 24TH]
The funeral was announced for November 27th—three days away. Makoto's grandmother had requested a small, private ceremony, but Yoto High School insisted on a memorial assembly for the following week.
Kagayaku sat through his classes like a ghost, hearing words but not processing them, watching teachers' mouths move but absorbing nothing. His mind was stuck on a loop: Three weeks. Three weeks until arrest. Three weeks until everything ends.
At lunch, he found Shōgeki in their usual spot—the back corner of the library where nobody ventured. "Shimizu-san called me too," she said without preamble. "Said we have three weeks. That Detective Sato is building a case."
"What do we do?" Kagayaku's voice was hollow.
"I don't know. Run? Turn ourselves in? Wait and hope she's wrong?" Shōgeki's hands were shaking around her untouched bento. "What's the play here? What's the strategy?"
"There is no strategy. We killed someone. The consequences are coming whether we're ready or not." He stared at his own uneaten food. "Maybe we deserve it."
"Don't say that." But Shōgeki's voice lacked conviction. "We did what we had to do. Self-defense. Protection."
"Is that what you tell yourself at 3 AM when you can't sleep? When you see his face underwater?" Kagayaku's black stars flickered. "Because I can't make myself believe it anymore. I killed someone, Shōgeki. Not in self-defense. Not in the moment. I planned it for weeks. Researched it. Executed it with cold precision. That's murder. Premeditated murder."
"He threatened us—"
"He was a human being and I drowned him in a bay." Kagayaku's voice broke. "Whatever he did, whatever he threatened, he was still a person. Like us. And I killed him."
Shōgeki started crying—silent tears streaming down her face, her body shaking with suppressed sobs. "I can't do this. I can't go to his funeral. Can't stand there and look at his body knowing I put the drugs in his mind. Can't face his grandmother knowing her grief is my fault."
"We have to. Not going looks suspicious."
"I don't care about suspicious. I care about the fact that I helped kill someone and now I have to pretend to mourn him." She wiped her eyes roughly. "This is hell. Actual hell. We're living in hell of our own making."
Kagayaku had no response. She was right. This was hell.
His phone buzzed. Text from Detective Sato: "A few follow-up questions. Can you come to the station after school? Informal chat. Nothing to worry about."
Nothing to worry about was cop-speak for everything to worry about. He showed Shōgeki the message. Her face went pale. "They're closing in," she whispered.
"Yeah. They are."
[AFTERNOON - POLICE STATION]
Detective Sato's office was small, cluttered with case files and cold coffee cups. She gestured for Kagayaku to sit, her sharp eyes never leaving his face. "Thank you for coming in, Hoshino-kun. I know this must be difficult, losing a family member."
"We weren't close," Kagayaku repeated his script. "But yes, it's sad."
"Right. Distant cousins." Sato pulled up something on her computer. "I've been looking into your family history. Interesting story. Your mother Rina—she was murdered by an obsessed fan when you were four. Your father Kasuke died six months later, killed by his own brother Takeshi in a confrontation. Takeshi's son is—was—Makoto."
"I know my family history."
"And you know that Takeshi Hoshino is currently serving eighteen years for slaughter. That he and his brothers orchestrated your mother's death for insurance money." Sato leaned forward. "That must create complicated feelings. Your cousin, descended from the person who helped kill your parents."
"I try not to dwell on it." Kagayaku kept his voice level. "The past is the past."
"Is it? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like the past caught up with Makoto three nights ago." She pulled out crime scene photos—Makoto's body on the pier, body is pale, eyes open. "Rohypnol in his system. Heavy enough dosage to disorient but not incapacitate. Almost like someone wanted him able to walk but unable to resist."
Kagayaku forced himself to look at the photos without flinching. "That's terrible. But what does it have to do with me?"
"Maybe nothing. Maybe everything." Sato pulled out another file. "Security footage from Yokohama Station shows you getting off the train at 10:34 PM on November 23rd. Your alibi says you were home all night."
Fuck.
"I went for a walk. Couldn't sleep. Took the train to Yokohama, walked around, came home." The lie formed quickly. "Didn't think to mention it because it wasn't relevant."
"A walk. At 10:30 PM. In the rain. To Yokohama—where, coincidentally, your cousin would be walking home from work an hour later." Sato's smile was sharp. "That's quite a coincidence."
"I didn't know his schedule. Like I said, we weren't close."
"And yet, witnesses at his grandmother's restaurant report seeing a student matching your friend's description—Burst Shōgeki—working tables that night. Temporary hire. Paid cash." She pulled out a photo—grainy security camera footage of Shōgeki in her work uniform. "That's another interesting coincidence."
Kagayaku's mind raced. Stick to the script. Don't deviate. Don't give her anything. "I don't know what Shōgeki does in her free time. If she was working there, that's her business."
"Right. Her business. At the same restaurant where your cousin—who threatened you two weeks ago according to text message records we've subpoenaed—worked every Saturday night." Sato leaned back. "I've been a detective for fifteen years, Hoshino-kun. I know what a murder plot looks like. And this? This is textbook. Motive, means, opportunity, planning. All you're missing is a confession."
"I didn't kill him." The words felt like ash in his mouth. "I had nothing to do with his death."
"Then help me understand the coincidences. Help me understand why two students with every reason to want Makoto dead were in the exact place he died on the exact night he died, with one of them having access to drug his water." Sato's voice hardened. "Give me another explanation. Any other explanation. Because right now, the only story that fits the evidence is murder."
Kagayaku sat silent, his black stars threatening to surface. He controlled them with effort. "I think I should have a lawyer present before answering more questions."
"That's your right." Sato stood. "But understand: asking for a lawyer makes you look guilty. And I'm very close to having enough for an arrest warrant. So if there's anything you want to tell me—any detail that might change the picture—now's the time."
"I have nothing to say without a lawyer present." "Then I'll be in touch." She opened the door. "One more thing: your eyes. When you're stressed, do they ever... change? Get brighter? Show patterns?"
Kagayaku's blood ran cold. "No. They're just blue."
"Right. Just blue." But Sato was looking at him like she saw through the lie, through the mask, straight into the guilt-soaked core of him. "Be careful, Hoshino-kun. Secrets have a way of coming out. And when they do, the consequences are always worse than if you'd just told the truth from the start."
He left the station with legs that barely held him, his hands shaking so badly he had to shove them in his pockets. She knows. She doesn't have proof yet but she knows. And she's building a case piece by piece until she has enough to arrest us both.
His phone buzzed. Text from Shōgeki: "How bad?" "Bad. They have footage of me in Yokohama. Footage of you at the restaurant. Text records of Makoto's threats. They're connecting the dots."
"What do we do?" "I don't know." For the first time since planning the murder, Kagayaku genuinely didn't know what came next.
[DAY 3 - NOVEMBER 27TH - THE FUNERAL]
Makoto's funeral was held at a small temple in Yokohama. Maybe forty people attended—family, school friends, his grandmother's church community. Small, intimate, devastated.
Kagayaku and Shōgeki sat in the back row, both dressed in black, both wearing expressions of solemn respect that hid the screaming horror underneath.
Makoto's body lay in an open casket at the front. I did that, Kagayaku thought, staring at the corpse. I put him in that box. Ended his life. Turned a living, breathing person into a body.
The grandmother spoke—an elderly granny, frail and broken, her voice shaking as she described Makoto as a good kid, a kind soul, her reason for living after her son went to prison. She talked about his dreams of managing talent in the entertainment industry, of making a difference, of proving he was more than his father's mistakes.
With every word, Kagayaku felt his humanity cracking further. He had dreams. Plans. A future. And I took it from him. Beside him, Shōgeki was crying—real tears, not performed grief. Her hands clutched her red scarf so tight her knuckles were white.
When the ceremony ended, people filed past the casket to pay respects. Kagayaku and Shōgeki had to go too—not going would be noticed.
Kagayaku stood before Makoto's body, looking down at the face he'd seen underwater, terrified and begging. Up close, he could see where death had marked him.
"I'm sorry," Kagayaku whispered, so quiet nobody else could hear. "I'm sorry it came to this." But sorry changed nothing. Sorry didn't resurrect the dead.
The grandmother approached as they turned to leave. "Thank you for coming. You're Kasuke's son, aren't you? I recognize the eyes." Kagayaku nodded, unable to speak.
"Makoto talked about you. Said you seemed troubled, lost. He wanted to help you." Her voice broke. "He was always trying to help people, even when they didn't want it. That was his nature."
The words were knives. Because Makoto hadn't wanted to help—he'd wanted to extort. But maybe she'd seen a different side. Maybe to her, he had been a good person trying his best.
Or maybe grief is rewriting him into something he wasn't. Maybe that's mercy—letting the dead become saints so the living can bear losing them. "He seemed like a good person," Kagayaku managed. The lie felt like swallowing glass.
"He was. He was." The grandmother touched his arm. "I hope you find peace, Kagayaku-kun. I know your life has been difficult. But there's always hope. Always another chance."
She walked away, leaving Kagayaku standing there feeling hollow. Another chance. I had another chance. A whole second life. And I used it to become a murderer.
Outside the temple, Shōgeki threw up in the bushes, her body rejecting the guilt violently. Kagayaku held her up, both of them too destroyed to maintain the masks anymore.
"I can't do this," Shōgeki gasped between heaves. "I can't keep pretending. Can't keep lying. Can't keep being this person." "Then what do we do?"
"I don't know. But this—" She gestured at the temple, the funeral, the grandmother's grief. "This isn't survival. This is torture. We're torturing ourselves with what we've done."
"Maybe that's the price. Maybe we're supposed to torture ourselves." Kagayaku helped her stand. "Maybe that's what justice looks like when the legal system can't provide it."
"That's not justice. That's just more suffering on top of suffering." Shōgeki wiped her mouth with shaking hands. "We've become what we hated. People who cause pain. People who destroy families. Just like Makoto's father. Just like my parents' killers."
"We're not—"
"Yes. We are." Her crimson eyes blazed through tears. "We can justify it however we want. Self-defense, protection, revenge—doesn't matter. We're still killers. We still destroyed an innocent grandmothers world. We're still the villains in this story."
Kagayaku had no response. She was right. They were the villains. They'd always been the villains. They'd just been too blinded by their own trauma to see it.
[DAY 7 - DECEMBER 1ST - BREAKING POINT]
One week into the three-week countdown, Kagayaku stopped sleeping entirely.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Makoto drowning. Saw the grandmother's grief-stricken face. Saw Detective Sato's knowing eyes. Saw his own reflection in mirrors, getting harder to recognize as human.
He was in the bathroom at 3:47 AM—that cursed time again—staring at himself, when his black stars erupted without his permission. Both eyes, blazing so bright they cast shadows on the walls.
And they wouldn't go away. He tried to control them, tried to force them back to normal blue, but they stayed black—pulsing, burning, reflecting the darkness he'd become.
I'm losing control. The weapon is consuming the person. Just like Shimizu-san warned. His phone rang. Shōgeki, also awake at 3:47 AM, also falling apart. "I'm calling her," Shōgeki said without greeting. "Shimizu-san. I'm calling her and asking for help because I can't do this anymore."
"Shōgeki—"
"No. Listen. We have two weeks left until arrest. Two weeks to decide our next move. And I can't spend those two weeks like this—drowning in guilt, performing normalcy, pretending we're not dying from the inside out." Her voice broke. "I need help. We need help. And she's the only person who understands."
Kagayaku looked at his black stars in the mirror. Thought about the funeral, the grandmother, the body in the casket. Thought about two more weeks of this hell.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Call her. See if she can save whatever's left of us." "What if there's nothing left to save?" "Then at least we tried." Shōgeki hung up. Five minutes later, she texted: "She's coming. Tomorrow night. Her apartment. Says she'll help us figure out our options."
"Options for what? Confession? Running? Suicide?" "Options for surviving what we've done. If survival is even possible."
Kagayaku put his phone down, looked at his reflection one more time—black stars blazing, face gaunt from not eating, eyes hollow from not sleeping.
This is what revenge looks like, he thought. This is what justice costs. Not prison, not legal consequences—this. The slow death of everything that made you human. The becoming of monster while still having to live with the memory of being a person.
Shimizu-san was right. They were all right. And we were so, so wrong. His stars pulsed once more, then finally dimmed back to blue. But the damage was done.
The cracks had become chasms. And Hoshino Kagayaku—the kid who'd died twice and loved once—was disappearing into the thing he'd created. Fourteen days remained until arrest.
Fourteen days to figure out if redemption was possible for people who'd chosen damnation willingly. Fourteen days to learn whether Shimizu Akari could save them, or if they were already too far gone.
Outside, Tokyo was waking up—another day, another performance, another step closer to the end. And in apartments across the city, two student killers prepared to face the consequences of choosing revenge over humanity.
The countdown continued. The reckoning approached. And somewhere in the darkness, the ghosts of everyone they'd destroyed were waiting to collect their due.
TO BE CONTINUED... Next Episode: "Reflections in Blood"