The Cycle of Death

Haruki meets a ghost in Nakano, Tokyo (Fiction)

1. Hey everyone! This week’s story is inspired by my recent exploration of Nakano ward in Tokyo. It’s a bit unconventional in that it doesn’t fit into one particular genre, and it frequently jumps back and forth across time. Thus, if you like open-ended stories about ghosts, friendship, and family this will probably be your cup of tea.

FYI, if the story is too long for email, it might get cut off before the end. To prevent that from happening, I recommend reading the browser version of this story.

2. This month, several historical fiction authors are offering their books for FREE for a limited time! If you’re interested in expanding your spring reading list, check out the promo here: https://books.bookfunnel.com/freehistficmar24/c49xqbudki

Now, on with the show 💫.

---

“Haruki? Haruki, what’s wrong?” 

“He’s going to send me away! Away from Tokyo, from you, from my mother!” 

A balmy summer wind tousled Haruki’s hair, carrying with it the faint scent of red bean taiyaki, petrichor, and plum wine. Laughter bounced off the walls of the adjacent street as a door slid open, and salarymen with blazers slung over their shoulders stumbled into the night. He blinked away the tears threatening the spill down his cheeks. 

Taiyo stepped closer. He resembled a shadow come to life. Were it not for the sliver of light outlining his silhouette, Haruki would have had a hard time distinguishing him from the darkness. He was precisely Haruki’s height and sounded young, hardly older than Haruki himself. In his hands, he clutched an envelope. It was just big enough to fit a greeting card and the shade of Haruki’s favorite color—forest green. 

The rain grew heavier by the minute. After a brief pause, Taiyo wrapped his arms around the weeping boy. 

“Y-you’re my only f-friend.” Haruki paused then added. “M-my b-best friend.” 

The door in the adjacent street slid open again, this time with more force. 

“Haruki!” His father called. “You little bastard! Don’t try to run away!” 

“I won’t let him do this.” He whispered, pulling away from Taiyo. “I’ll get away from him. I’ll go to my mother’s. You’ll still be here when I come back?” 

Taiyo angled his head.

“You’ll see me again, but not in the way you’d expected,” he replied. 

His tone sounded off. Too stiff. And he couldn’t meet Haruki’s gaze. 

Lightning forked the sky, illuminating the graffitied walls around the two friends and filling Haruki’s mouth with a sharp metallic taste. 

“Haruki!” His father cried again. 

He wiped his tears and glanced at his friend one last time before darting into the night. 

---

It’d been two months since Haruki met Taiyo in the street behind Nakano Broadway, where his family ran a tiny izakaya bar. He’d been sitting on a stool by the doorway at the time, folding origami animals while grown-ups filed past him, their faces ruddy from alcohol and laughter. 

The silky papers felt comforting to the touch as he coaxed life from their creases. First, a roaring t-rex. Next, a pegasus with proud wings. Then, a Pokeball with a tiny Charmander inside. 

He looked about him with an undefinable sense of zeal. Everything, from the way the light shimmered on the recently painted door of the izakaya to the sound of heels clicking against stone, felt fresh to him as if he were experiencing them all for the first time. 

It’d been like that all day. The sound of his homework crinkling as he slipped it into his backpack made his skin tingle. The feeling of water running through his fingers left him craving for more. He didn’t understand it—the awe he felt at simply being alive. Hadn’t he walked the same streets a thousand times? Smelled the scent of sake and savory unagi every day? Yet when he reached for these memories, they felt stale and flavorless, like they hadn’t been quite real. 

It wasn’t too far from the truth to say that he felt reborn in body, mind, and spirit—an infant in a twelve-year-old’s body. He observed his origami creations with furrowed brows. If only his mother was here. She’d know what was going on. 

The door to the izakaya slid open, making Haruki start and drop the Pokeball. A moment later, a broad figure appeared before him, cigarette smoke curling delicately around his thick, sausage fingers. 

“So, still playing with paper, are you?” His father said. 

Haruki shifted his leg in hopes of hiding some of the origami figures. His father’s eyes flashed. He picked up the pegasus, examined it for a few seconds, then crushed it in his fist. 

“Paper,” he intoned, “is flimsy. Frail. Useless. Like you. Like your mother.” He crushed the cigarette stub underfoot before leaning closer. Their nose nearly touched, and the smell of his smoker’s breath made Haruki want to gag. He clenched his jaw and averted his father’s penetrating gaze.

“Is that what you’re bent on becoming, boy? A good-for-nothing? A failure?”

Haruki shook his head fiercely. 

His father studied him for a few seconds then sighed, “Do your homework, and get rid of this trash.” He kicked at the remaining origami figures and stepped back inside, shaking his head. 

Something clattered in the adjacent alley as Haruki turned to go. He glanced over his shoulder. A moment later, a stick of chalk rolled out from the shadows and stopped by his feet. He picked it up and walked towards the alley. Here, darkness clung to everything with such tenacity that not even the glow of the lanterns could keep it at bay. 

A tiny shrine with a stone statuette of a laughing tree guarded the entrance. Strange. He’s memorized every twist and turn of this neighborhood, yet this is his first time seeing the shrine. Perhaps it’s new? He examined it more carefully. The chipped, red paint suggested otherwise. 

He drew deeper into the alley and noticed that someone had drawn a circle in chalk on the ground. Haruki rolled the chalk between his fingers for a moment then stepped up to the circle and added a pair of eyes, a nose, and a smile. 

Immediately, two curved lines bloomed from the drawing’s head. Haruki recognized it as hair. His heart began to race, and his palms felt clammy. He added a body and a pair of arms and legs. He stepped back, waiting. A minute later, a small dinosaur materialized in the figure’s hand. It looked identical in shape to the one he had made only a few minutes ago. 

Haruki shivered though it was not cold. “H-hello?”

Something shifted in the shadows. “Hello, Haruki. I’ve been waiting for you.” 

“D-do I know y-you?” 

The lanterns strung along the wall swayed gently though there was no wind. 

“I don’t think so. We’ve never met I believe.” 

Haruki sucked on his bottom lip. “I-I should g-go.” 

“Wait. Can you show me how you made that dinosaur? I like origami too, but I can’t remember how it’s done.” 

The entity emerged from the darkness and sat beside the chalk figure. There was something comfortingly familiar about its silhouette that made Haruki want to stay a few minutes longer. Maybe a few hours. 

He didn’t know what it was. He couldn’t even tell if it was real or a figment of his imagination. Maybe he was not only stupid, having been held back twice already, but also insane. Like his mother. She claimed to see spirits and would sometimes act oug in the middle of the streets. Haruki hadn’t seen her since she and his father had separated five years ago. He wondered whether he’d end up like her. 

Haruki stared at the entity for a long time. What did he have to lose in embracing his insanity? He thought of the glint of disappointment in his father’s eyes whenever he looked at him. He thought of his classmates laughing at him behind his back. The entity at least seemed to take a genuine interest in him. Even if it was all in his head, it felt good to talk to someone who didn’t make him feel inferior. 

He sat down and pulled out a sheet of paper from his book bag. 

“I-if you d-don’t mind m-me ask-asking, wh-what are y-you exactly?” 

There was a pause. “I’m not sure. I woke up like this, this morning with this envelope in my hand. I think it contains something important.” He stretched out his hand and a green envelope appeared. “I remember hearing someone calling your name, ‘Haruki’. There was a flash of light and loud screeching. I felt something heavy on me. Then, all of a sudden, I was here in this alley, and if I try to leave, I begin to fade.” 

“H-how about your n-name?” 

“I don’t remember,” the entity replied. “But you can call me Taiyo—Sun—because I would like to know what it is like to feel the sun on my skin one day.” 

“Alright then, Taiyo. First, you fold the paper like this…” 

After remaking the T-rex, he also folded a frog. It came to life when Taiyo picked it up, studying the pair with papery pupils before leaping away into the darkness. Haruki watched with a mix of awe and incredulity. Perhaps Taiyo did exist after all and wasn’t just a figure of his imagination…

---

Haruki returned to the alley the next day and the day after that. Soon, the pair created a menagerie of paper creatures: stomping elephants, hooting monkeys, and prowling tigers among many others. They wandered the alley freely, exploring the graffitied walls and resting beneath the swaying lanterns. Those who wandered too far from the alley, however, reverted to their original, lifeless form. 

A few weeks after their first meeting, Taiyo asked how he got so good at origami. Haruki set down his chalk and stared at the Gundam robot they’d been drawing together. An origami cat lay purring atop its head while several monkeys chased each other around its ankles. 

“My m-mother t-taught me,” he replied. 

He opened his mouth but felt his throat tighten, so he closed it again. Taiyo drew closer and patiently worked on his portion of the drawing. Haruki appreciated that his friend never pressed him to say more than he could. The sound of chalk scratching the pavement calmed him somewhat, so he tried again. 

“W-we didn’t h-have much m-money f-for toys when I-I was younger,” he explained. “S-so m-my mother would m-make o-origami an-animals for me. I-I learned as I gr-grew. Th-this was b-before sh-she and my dad broke apart.” 

Haruki clenched his jaw. He’d never told anyone about such personal information before. 

“Where is she now?” Taiyo asked. 

“In U-ueno.”

“That’s not far from here.”

Haruki let the chalk slip from his fingers. “M-my dad says I c-can’t s-see her. It’s n-not g-good for m-me.” 

“Do you miss her?” 

Haruki felt his throat tighten again and nodded.

“Maybe she misses you too.” 

His voice cracked when he spoke, “D-dad says sh-she’s a l-liar. She d-doesn’t really s-see spirits. She’s j-just m-mad.” 

At that last word, the dam that had kept the pain at bay for so many years crumbled. The world disappeared into a smear of light behind his tears. Loud, hiccupping sobs erupted from his lips. He buried his face in his hands. Taiyo wrapped his arms around his shoulders and held him for a  long time. By the time Haruki finished, he felt exhausted, like he had run several kilometers. 

When he opened his eyes, he found that all the animals had gathered around them to watch. Even the monkeys had grown still, their faces shadowed with solemnity. Though they were only made of paper, he felt touched by their presence. 

“Thank you,” Haruki whispered. 

Taiyo responded by holding him tighter. 

---

The days flew by much faster now that Haruki had a friend to spend them with. Besides expanding their menagerie, the two read manga and played Go together. They started equally matched, but Taiyo quickly proved the better strategist over time. 

Some evenings, Haruki would bring his harmonica for Taiyo to play. He’d do his homework on the ground while humming along to his favorite tunes. Once he finished, the pair would build a racetrack using Legos and set different animals against each other. The hippopotamus, as it turned out, was surprisingly fast. 

Around the same time, Haruki began to relax at school. Having someone to talk to eased his anxiety. He no longer cowered in his seat when other students walked by. His heart didn’t thunder when the teacher called on him for an answer. Though he still preferred eating lunch alone, he no longer ducked his head and walked in the opposite direction when spoken to. Even if all he could say were a word or two at a time, he felt proud of himself. 

His father remarked on the change in his demeanor one morning before school. 

“Your grades have been improving. This is good, son,” he said, glancing at him over the rim of his teacup. “I had always known your development would normalize by the time you’re twelve.” 

Haruki blushed and didn’t dare meet his eyes. “Th-thank you.” 

“Perhaps you’ll even earn acceptable exam scores this time. Then, I’ll know for certain you won’t turn out a loser.” He paused, drained his tea, and got up. “Like your mother.” 

Haruki bowed his head in response as his father left the room, dread twisting his stomach. 

Taiyo, meanwhile, was making little progress in remembering who and what he was. The day school let out for summer break, they’d played a game to try to help him recall his past. Haruki would ask him questions and for every three questions in a row he was able to answer, they’d each get to add a detail to the chalk drawing of the t-rex they were working on. The goal was to finish the drawing before sunset. They only had ten minutes left, and it was going terribly slow. 

“F-favorite movie?” 

Taiyo replied, “Don’t remember.”

“Where you l-lived?” 

Taiyo shook his head. “I don’t know, but I think it must have been close to here.” 

Haruki lay on his belly in the alley while Taiyo sat across from him, rolling a chalk around. The late afternoon sun felt good on his skin and made his eyelids droop. 

Yawning, he said, “Ok, wh-what’s inside your l-letter?” 

“This one?” Taiyo stretched out his hand and the envelope materialized. 

“Yeah.”

Taiyo fiddled with it for a moment before sending it back to wherever it came from. “A card of some kind. I’m not supposed to open it. Not until my birthday.” 

Haruki pushed himself upright. “T-Taiyo, have you ever c-considered that m-maybe you…don’t exist?”

Taiyo cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“Well—” Haruki scoured his mind for the right words. He didn’t want to offend his friend. “That m-maybe you’re just a f-figment of my i-imagination. A p-powerful one, yeah, but still a f-figment.” 

Taiyo picked up a paper tiger. It stretched on his palm and began licking itself. “Tell me this doesn’t feel real to you.” 

Haruki shook his head and apologized. “S-sorry. I d-didn’t mean—”

“But the weird thing is,” Taiyo continued, stroking the tiger. “I can remember stuff about you that you’ve never told me. I know your birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks. The taste of beans makes you gag. You think golden sunsets are prettier than red ones. Birds scare you, especially when they’re in a flock. You like it when the air is so cold it stings your cheeks.”

Haruki sucked on his bottom lip. It was moments like these that he wished he could see Taiyo’s face instead of a shadowy blur. 

“How d-do you know a-all of t-that?” 

“I just do for some reason. The longer I exist, the more I remember…you.” 

“Maybe we’d been ch-childhood f-friends,” Haruki suggested. “M-maybe we were t-too young to r-remember it.”

Taiyo shrugged. He picked up a crocodile Haruki had made earlier. Its scales rippled as it came to life, and a few seconds later, it began to poke around his palm. Twilight basked the alley in a pearly gray, the color of fresh corpses. 

He set the paper creature beside a herd of snorting horses and said, “I will go soon. Like the twilight, I am only in transition. I can’t stay in this world forever.”

Haruki’s shoulders tensed. “But you’ve just got here.”

“I don’t think I was meant to exist in this world anyway. I’m only here because of you, for some reason. I’m beginning to remember, but it’s still too foggy for me to be sure.”

“But if you’re just a figment of my imagination that means I can find a way to keep you here longer. You don’t have to disappear so long as I don’t forget you.” 

As Haruki watched Taiyo angle his head in silence, he felt an icy sensation seep into his bones. He has felt the pressure of that silence before. With his mother the night before his father sent her away for good. 

---

They’d just emerged from the Nakano Broadway shopping mall, a long, indoor strip of shops and restaurants packed in a narrow corridor. A flurry of plum blossom petals drifted around their ankles like snowflakes as they turned into an izakaya street. 

“Do y-you see something, m-mama?” 

He glanced up at his mother’s porcelain doll face. Though he was only seven, he thought she was the most beautiful person in the world, especially when her crimson lips stretched into one of those rare smiles. Such moments made him believe that everything was alright in the world. 

“See what?” She asked. 

He pointed at a shop with a plump tanuki statue out front. “There. Y-you k-keep looking there.”

She shook her head, causing a few stray strands of hair to cascade around her face and hide her expression. “Nothing serious. Just a ribbon of light. Probably a trick of my imagination.” 

“Is it b-bigger than the sp-spirit you saw in fr-front of my school the o-other day?” 

“I don’t want to remember that one. Let’s talk about something different, Haruki.” 

“Are you r-really g-going away?” 

She replied, “Just for a short while. Your father and I need a break from each other.” 

Haruki fixed his attention on the scenery before him. They’d turned into a narrow alley crowded with dozens of bikes, some as new as if they’d been bought yesterday and others aged with rusted frames. Fairy lights twinkled overhead like fallen stars, casting everything in a buttery yellow. The scent of fish frying from a nearby restaurant made his mouth water. 

“C-can’t I come v-visit you? E-even if it’s just once a m-month. Please?” 

He felt his mother’s grip tighten, this time a bit too much as if she were afraid he’d slip from her at any moment. Then, without warning, a smile brightened her face. 

“Come on! I see something behind those bikes. Let’s see if we can catch it.”

She sprinted past the bikes, towing a laughing Haruki behind her. People found her too erratic and often glared at her disapprovingly, his father included, but she never seemed to care. 

“Head up, Haruki,” she used to say. “The world is only scary if you allow yourself to believe it is.” 

They nestled between two traffic cones and the row of bikes, waiting, their breaths escaping them in loud huffs. 

After a moment, she leaped, whooping triumphantly. She threw Haruki a giddy grin over her shoulders. “Here,” she whispered, extending her cupped hands towards him.

He stepped closer and peered between her fingers with wide eyes. “Wh-what is it?” 

Her slender fingers unfolded, revealing empty space. It was always like this. The spirits she saw only revealed themselves to her, never anyone else. His father called her loony to her face, and his grandparents always regarded her with worried expressions. Only Haruki treated her seriously.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she whispered. “Make a wish, Haruki. The biggest, grandest wish you can think of.”

He thought hard for a moment then exclaimed, “I w-want to fly! Up and up. T-to the m-moon and the cl-clouds and t-the stars.” 

“Oh, Haruki.” His mother snorted in laughter, her voice bouncing off the walls and drawing stares from passersby. He joined her though he didn’t know what exactly was so funny. She’d told him to make a big wish, hadn’t she? 

Taking his hand again, she glanced down at him. Though the moment lasted hardly a second, Haruki felt something heavy between the fold of silence, like a mix of remorse and longing. He didn’t understand it at the time, but he’d think about that moment often as he continued growing up, like a puzzle he desperately wanted to solve. 

It would flash through his mind as his father yelled at him for bringing home less-than-satisfactory grades. It would drift across his vision as he stared absentmindedly out the classroom window while his classmates chattered in the background. It would nettle his subconscious as he stuffed his origami creations under his bed in shame. 

---

“Flimsy. Frail. Useless. Like your mother,” his father’s voice echoed through his mind as he sat cross-legged in the alley, folding hot air balloons, clouds, and airplanes. 

Taiyo would touch each one after he finished, and they’d float into the air around their heads, drifting gently with the current of some mystical breeze. 

“You’re turning thirteen in a few days,” Taiyo said as he sent an airplane humming into the air.

Haruki nodded and yawned. “Yeah, d-doubt F-Father will remember th-though. All he g-got me last y-year was some n-new pens. F-for my st-studies, he s-said.” 

“How do you plan to spend this birthday?” Taiyo asked.

Haruki sucked on his bottom lip and waited until he’d finished folding a dragon before replying, “I-I want to s-see m-my mother.” 

Taiyo nodded in response. “Somethings are inevitable.”

“Wh-what d-do you m-mean?”

Taiyo squared his shoulders and looked thoughtful. “I remember now, Haruki. I remember not only your past but also your future. What will happen—there is no avoiding it. Though I’m still trying to figure out who am I to you.”

Haruki shook his head. “Y-you’re not m-making s-sense.”

Taiyo had infused the dragon with life but rather than ascend towards the paper clouds, it remained curled on his palm. He held it out to Haruki and said, “Go. It will make her happy. That’s all that matters.”

The paper dragon scrutinized Haruki and growled softly before closing its eyes in sleep. 

---

Haruki held his breath as he rode the elevator up. Third floor. Sixth. Ninth. Twelfth. The elevator rang, loud and crisp as it stopped at number thirteen—his mother’s floor. He didn’t release his breath until he stepped out and the door closed. His father would have glared at him if he’d been here and caught him falling back into these childish habits. 

“H-head up,” Haruki whispered to himself. “H-head up. H-head up.”

Breathing deeply, he raised a fist and knocked. 

The door swung open to reveal that familiar porcelain doll face. His mother looked exactly like the last time he’d seen her the day he’d made his wish. Her ebony hair poured down her shoulders like a waterfall of fresh ink. And her smile…his heart pounded till he thought it’d shatter with joy. He didn’t think he’d ever feel the warmth of that smile again. 

“Haruki?” 

He leaped into her arms. She embraced him and in those few seconds, he felt safer than he had in years. He buried his face in her arms and trembled, trying and failing to staunch the tears running down his cheeks. 

“It’s you,” she whispered. “My little boy…How?” Haruki felt the muscles in her back relax as she stroked his hair. “You’re so big now.” 

---

The counter shook as Haruki’s father slammed his fist into the wood. Spit glistened from the corner of his mouth and sprayed the air in front of Haruki’s face.

The chatter in the izakaya up front stilled. One of the workers poked his head through the curtain into the kitchen and then pulled back after seeing the scene.

“You little bastard! After everything I did to raise you right!”

“I-I j-just w-wanted t-to s-see her,” he cried, shrinking from his father. “O-only for a f-few min-minutes.”

“Lies,” his father snarled. “You were probably there the whole day, weren’t you? You’ve probably been secretly seeing her for weeks. Months. This isn’t the first time.” 

“N-no, I s-swear—”

Fireworks exploded across Haruki’s vision as he crashed to the ground. His head rang. The world tilted. There was something strong and heavy gripping his jaw. Too tight. Too tight. Tears stung his eyes. 

“Bitch,” he breathed. “Mad, crazy bitch. I should have known a child from her flesh would be no better.” 

He tossed Haruki onto the tiles, where he lay, too stunned to pull himself to his feet.

---

Taiyo blew at a leaf, sending it looping through the air. It circled the alley once before drifting back onto his palm. He repeated this a few more times until he got bored and began fiddling with his green envelope. 

Haruki watched listlessly from the entrance while folding a rocket ship. Though it was early morning, his fingertips were already damp with sweat and humidity. Even the paper animals lounged under the shade of the walls, their usual fervor all but evaporated under the day’s heat. It was the day before his birthday. The day before he would visit his mother. The day before he’d face his father’s wrath one last time.

“Haruki, has your mother ever told you about Yūrei?”

Haruki perked up. “Wh-what? You th-think y-you’re somebody’s g-ghost?” 

Taiyo hesitated then nodded. “Maybe. Maybe I’m the ghost of someone close to you. That would explain why I remember so much about you.” 

A shiver ran down Haruki’s spine. “I w-wasn’t c-close with anyone m-my age b-before meeting y-you. Maybe the b-better q-question is why th-this alley? If you’re a Y-Yūrei, it’d mean t-his is where y-you died, but I d-didn’t hear of any-anyone dying h-here recently.”

The rocket sparked to life as Taiyo held it. He examined its jet of purple flame closely and murmured, “Death is not bound to the laws of time as Life is. Once dead, it does not matter whether you fall forward or backward in time because either way, you will not grow or age or change as mortals do.” 

Haruki whistled. “S-sounds like y-you’ve been con-contemplating this f-for a while.”

Taiyo angled his head at him and replied in a somber voice, “I’ve had a lot of time.” 

---

Thundered rumbled outside as rain pounded the roof in thick sheets. The heat in the izakaya kitchen seemed to swell with each passing second, matting Haruki’s hair to his forehead in sweaty clumps. He wiped them from his eyes then got to his feet.

Head up. Head up. Head up. 

“I w-would have ch-chosen someone else too, if I-I were mom,” he rasped. 

His jaws throbbed from where his father had grabbed him, and he winced as he spoke. 

His father glared at him for a few seconds, nostrils flaring. Haruki braced himself for his father’s fist, but when that never came, he continued, “Th-that’s the r-real reason why you h-hate her so m-much, isn’t it? B-because sh-she chose h-him over y-you.” 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, boy,” his father whispered. 

Haruki stared at his father with a mixture of sorrow and regret. Those eyes that had shot daggers at him every morning when he left for school and every evening while he did his homework, those eyes that used to make him cower with a single glance, how mistaken he’d been about them. 

Once he thought they were like a pair of blazing furnaces—terrible and vengeful. In reality, they were just coals lying in a pile of ash. Cold. Sad. Broken. Like the man they belonged to. 

“I-I’m sorry f-for you. I-I’m sorry y-you b-became wh-what y-you became.” 

His father’s brows lifted with surprise but just as quickly returned to their furrowed glare. “I’ll make you sorry,” he said, stepping forward. “For defying me. For listening to that lying bitch.” 

Haruki stared his father steadily in the eye. “T-the w-world is only s-scary if you choose to b-believe it is,” he said, repeating his mother’s words from so long ago. “And I ch-choose to no l-longer be afraid of y-you.” 

---

“I remember now,” Taiyo said in a wistful voice. “I remember who I am to you.”

The light outlining his silhouette turned crimson in the late afternoon sun. Haruki had only come to briefly say hello before setting off toward his mother’s apartment, but his friend’s words stopped him in his tracks.

“I’m sorry, Haruki,” Taiyo whispered, resting a hand on his shoulder. “But something terrible is going to happen. Neither of us could have done anything to change this.”

Haruki stepped back. “W-what t-terrible thing?”

Taiyo shook his head. “We are cursed, Haruki. We are trapped by our own life and death.”

“I d-don’t understand.”

The crimson around Taiyo deepened into a rust red. Darkness reclaimed the alley, banishing the remaining wisps of daylight with a single swish of its cloak. 

“I cannot tell you more. The rules of the curse stop my tongue.” He paused then pointed at the sky. “Like the twilight, we are both in transition. You can’t see it, but you are fading just like I am. Soon, we will enter a new dawn, a new life. I…I’m just trying to prepare you.” 

Haruki shuddered and turned his back to the alley. He thought about the day he met Taiyo and how fresh the world felt to him, almost as if he were experiencing everything with infant eyes. Somehow Taiyo’s words simultaneously sounded rational yet irrational. A new dawn…A new life…Fading…Why did he feel like he’s heard this message before? Why did he feel like he’s even said these words himself? 

“I h-have to g-go,” Haruki said. “A n-new l-life away fr-from my f-father i-is wh-what I n-need.”

“I know.” Taiyo replied. “It’s what I wished for once as well.” 

---

“I have something for you, Haruki,” his mother said. 

Taking him by the hand, she led him to the couch, where an envelope lay on one of the pillows. Haruki stared in disbelief—it was the same shade of forest green as the envelope Taiyo had. 

The paper felt thick to the touch. Upon closer inspection, he realized that it even bore the same crinkle at the bottom right corner. How many times had he seen Taiyo brushing his thumb over that faint indent? He inspected the back. Somehow, this was the exact same envelope. 

“What is this?” He asked.

“I’ve written a letter to you every year for your birthday,” she replied. “But I could never send it to you, for fear that your father might find it.”

“Why does father hate you so much?” He asked.

His mother’s shoulders slumped. For a second, he thought maybe she would ignore his question, then she replied. “I was seeing someone else before I left. I wanted to leave your father and take you away. Far away. Somewhere safe. Your father found out. I think the pain drove him a bit mad. If I tried to see you again after that, I think he would have—” Her fingers brushed her throat, and she winced. 

“He wasn’t always a bad man,” she continued. “Nobody wants to become bad. I don’t think so, at least. We’ve both done things to hurt each other. It’s not the pain and anger that defines us. It’s how we react to that pain and anger. We cannot always control how we feel, but we can control what we do with those feelings.” 

---

Haruki ran. Lightning forked the sky, illuminating the slick pavement. The rain felt refreshing against his skin and cooled the throbbing in his head. People hurried past, sheltered beneath umbrellas. Some shot him curious glances but most ignored him. His conversation with his father replayed over and over in his mind. He could hear his father’s voice as distinctly as if he were speaking into his ear. 

“So, you’ve chosen her over me,” his father had said, his eyes downcast, his hands hanging limply by his side. “You’d rather have a crazy mother than a father who’s provided for you all these years.”

Haruki rubbed his shoulder and stared at the man he’d once feared more than anything. “Sh-she d-doesn’t think I am s-stupid,” he said. 

His father had looked at him with a meditative expression. The rage that had clouded his gaze just minutes ago seemed to have evaporated, leaving behind a large, gaping hole. 

“I thought being hard on you would make you stronger,” he said. “Everything I did, I did out of love.” 

Haruki wiped a mix of rain and tears from his eyes. He still clutched his mother’s letter in his hand, where it grew steadily soggier by the minute. It didn’t matter though. He’d be with her soon and get to read all the other letters she’d written him over the years. 

He thought about Taiyo’s final words to him: You’ll see me again, but not in the way you’d expected. What did his friend mean by such a cryptic message? 

His legs ached as he darted across a busy intersection, nearly slipping in a puddle by the sidewalk. He felt as if he was running through an impressionist painting, where all the lights and colors blended into one indistinguishable blur. The raging shower had somehow softened to a harmless sprinkle within a few seconds. Even the usual city sounds of rumbling engines and chattering pedestrians sounded muffled, like they weren’t quite real, like he was hearing them in a dream. 

His father’s voice echoed somewhere in the background. 

“Haruki!” He cried. 

Haruki urged his legs to move faster. His father had threatened to send him to a boarding school away from Tokyo, away from his mother right after he’d said goodbye. He could still feel the frosty sting of his father’s gaze as he’d held him, pinned against the counter, his fingernails digging into his shoulders, the scent of his cigarette breath cloying his nostrils. He’d only managed to escape after biting his father’s hands. That scream. He shuddered. He didn’t think a grown man was capable of making such a sound.

“Haruki!” His father’s voice had grown fainter. Soon, it’d just be a memory. 

Memory…Haruki’s steps slowed. He’d been down this street before, not in the sense that he’d just run it, but in the sense that he’d felt the same heady thrill of being chased by his father in this exact spot. Not just once. Many, many times. It was a memory that brooded deep in the marrow of his bones. This bewilderment, this disorientation—he’s felt it all before. But how? 

He whirled around. The pounding in his ears intensified, drowning all other sounds. His eyes couldn’t seem to focus. People flowed past him in near silence, their faces a blur of peach and tan. A bulky figure in an overcoat brushed past him. Haruki yelped as he watched him disintegrate into a column of shadows as easily as if he’d never existed in the first place. That’s when Taiyo’s words struck. 

You can’t see it, but you are fading just like I am. 

Panic welled in his chest. He resumed running, but this time in the direction of Taiyo’s alley. He needed answers. More than that, he needed to be near someone real, who wouldn’t vanish at a single touch. Even the buildings were beginning to melt into smears of color and light. It was as if someone had splashed water on a wet painting and was washing the details away. He sped up, all worries about running into his father evaporating in an instant. 

“Taiyo!” He cried as he veered into the alley. “Taiyo, where are you?” 

Though his friend stood hidden in the shadows, Haruki could make out the two glints of light that followed him as he drew near. He frowned. Taiyo’s eyes have never reflected light before.

“We have reached the end of your story,” Taiyo said. His voice, though calm, wavered with melancholy. “This world was made to only exist for a little while. The only way to save ourselves now is to reset the Cycle of Death.”

Panting, Haruki replied, “What do you mean the world can’t go on? What is this place?”

“A simulation? A dream? A game?” Taiyo shifted his weight from one foot to another. “I don’t know. Whatever it is, it seems to revolve around your character development. Standing up to your father was the final key to its destruction.” 

“But I feel real!” Haruki shouted. “We’re real, aren’t we? We’re not going to disappear?” 

Around them, the buildings that made up the alley and the nearby izakaya streets were beginning to disintegrate into a swirl of colors. Though they progressed at a much slower rate than the figure had earlier, Haruki still felt petrified. Darkness tinged the edge of his vision. He felt like gagging. This can’t be happening. He couldn’t believe it. Refused to believe it. Did the stress of running away from home break his mind so thoroughly he was finally descending into madness?

“I don’t know,” Taiyo replied. “The past iterations of ourselves have always chosen the safe path, the one that keeps us from knowing the truth.” 

At that, Taiyo stepped out of the shadows revealing a slender face with long bangs framing a pair of almond eyes. Haruki stared. It was like looking into a mirror. No, at an identical twin. They even shared the same mole on the right side of their neck. The only difference was the state of the green envelope they each clutched. Haruki’s was soggier while Taiyo’s still looked new. 

“Th-this c-can’t be happening. Th-this can’t be r-real! The w-world d-doesn’t just d-disappear.” He held his head and scrunched his eyes closed. “W-wake up! W-wake up!”

“Search your past. You know this has happened before. You know it will keep on happening.” 

Haruki squinted through his lashes. Taiyo was right. Memories, including ones of this specific moment, were trickling back into his mind. There were too many of them, and they were too vivid for him to deny the truth. He’s lived this life before and so has Taiyo. Both of them, too many times to count. 

He knew what needed to be done to preserve their lives and reset the world, as Taiyo had put it. And like all the other times their stories have reached this point, he felt that tingling sensation in the back of his head, enticing him in a different direction than the plot had always taken. 

“There are two options,” Taiyo said.

“What i-if we d-don’t?” He whispered. 

“Haruki…”

“Wh-what if w-we resist this t-time? No s-second-guessing,” he said, more frantically now that even the pavement was beginning to fade. 

Taiyo threw him a curious look. Haruki understood what his other half was thinking even without words. No matter what they said, they’d just be repeating a script. How many times have they shared this exchange? A thousand times? Ten thousand? 

“Do you? Do you really dare?” Taiyo asked. 

Haruki slumped his shoulders. What was the point of elongating the inevitable? He was real, yes, that he was certain of, but did he possess any agency? Was his defiance of his father his doing or was it the directive of some supernatural puppeteer who’d decided that it was time for the story to end? 

All of a sudden, everything he’d said to his father about choosing not to believe the world was scary felt shallow. In the end, how he saw the world did not matter. Perspective alone would not save him or Taiyo. Only action, complying with the script that someone else wrote for them, would. They were pawns on a chessboard. Players on a stage. Characters in a story on the final page. 

“Ready?” Taiyo asked, stepping closer.

Haruki could feel the warmth of his breath on his cheeks. He nodded. “Do it. Reset the Cycle of Death. Reset the story.” 

He closed his eyes. Taiyo set both hands on his shoulders for a brief moment as if to say goodbye. Haruki relaxed his muscles. He’s known that two-handed touch all his life though he didn’t remember it until a few minutes ago when he’d completed his arc or however Taiyo had put it. It was the last thing he felt before—

Taiyo shoved him. He flew into the street intersecting the alley just as a car sped past. There was a flash of light and loud screeching. He didn’t even feel the pain of having his bones crushed, just a weight that seemed to grow heavier and heavier by the second. It was wet under him. Wet and uncomfortable and sticky. He turned his head to the side and saw ruby liquid pooling around him. It caught the light so beautifully. 

“Haruki!” He heard a woman’s voice cry. “Haruki!” 

He squinted into the dimming world. His heart skipped a beat as he locked eyes with his mother. She stared at him with a horrified expression, her hand clasped over his mouth, her knees buckling under her. She’s still here…She hasn’t faded. Then, from his other side, a deeper voice called his name as well. It can’t be. His father. His father was also still here. 

The panic that’d nearly overwhelmed him earlier returned. This time wilder, causing him to suck in great gulps of air that brought into sharp focus the pain blooming in the back of his head. 

If his parents were still here, does that mean they’re real? Like him? Like Taiyo? He caught sight of Taiyo staring beside his mother, one hand resting on her shoulders, and all of a sudden, his blood turned icy. Who was this person who shared his face and apparently, his life? Where did he fit into this story? Why had he been so sure that this—Haruki’s death—was the only way to keep themselves alive? 

More questions buzzed in the back of his mind, but it was too late. By now, even the pavement had vanished into air. Sleep stole Haruki’s consciousness in a wink, pushing him into a darkness that felt comfortingly familiar, like the inside of a womb that had been stretched to its limit. 

The only light seemed to emanate from himself. It wasn’t particularly strong—hardly thicker than a thread—but it persisted, outlining his body, protecting him from being entirely consumed by the darkness, but not quite able to keep the darkness from seeping into him. It discolored his limbs and shaded his face. It was a darkness that he could feel, like a heavy cloak draped over his body. 

By the time he awoke, naked and alone, in an alley somewhere near Nakano Broadway, he was like a shadow come to life. In his hands, he clutched a forest green envelope with a crinkle in its bottom right corner, and in his head, a single name reverberated incessantly: Haruki, Haruki, Haruki, Haruki, Haruki.