Chapter 04: Gravity and Bad Luck
That night, for the first time in four years, Haru and Aoi went to sleep with a sense of peace. They placed Kaito in the bed between them, a small, warm weight. The night was quiet, the house was still.
At 3:17 AM, Haru Kurosawa woke up because he was cold.
He stirred, his mind foggy, and reached for the comforter. His hand met only the cool cotton of the fitted sheet. He opened his eyes.
The ceiling above him was... white.
Since when, Haru thought, his brain struggling to catch up, did we paint the ceiling white?
He felt colder. He sat up. "Aoi?" he whispered.
Aoi was shivering beside him, also without a blanket.
Haru looked around the dark room, confused. Where was...? He looked up again. The white he was seeing was not paint. It was their thick, king-sized comforter, spread perfectly flat against the ceiling, as if it had been glued there.
He stared. He blinked. "What the...?"
He stood up on the mattress, reached up, grabbed a corner of the blanket, and gave it a sharp yank. It came free, falling down and burying all three of them in a heap of warm fabric. Kaito, disturbed, let out a sleepy giggle.
The next morning, Haru was insistent.
"I am being serious, Aoi!" he said, sipping his tea at the breakfast table. Kaito was in his high chair beside him, happily sensing the shapes of his food. "The entire blanket. It was stuck to the ceiling."
Aoi, placing toast on a plate, sighed. "Yes, dear. And that is why I keep telling you to stop watching those late-night horror shows. You'll be late for work."
"I'm not—! It was real! Don't you think it was Kaito's—"
"You are going to be late," Aoi repeated, cutting him off. She picked up his second cup of tea to pass to him.
Suddenly, her wrist buckled. "Ah!"
The cup, which she had held easily a second before, seemed to gain an impossible amount of weight. It slammed down onto the table, shattering the ceramic and splashing hot green tea all over Haru's work trousers.
"Aoi!" Haru yelled, jumping up. "Seriously, what are you doing now?!"
"I'm sorry! I don't know!" she cried, grabbing a dishcloth. "It just... it just got heavy!"
She began frantically dabbing at his pants, while Kaito, oblivious to the chaos, clapped his hands, his dark eyes glowing faintly.
The days and weeks that followed were maddening. The Kurosawa family found themselves living in a house suddenly plagued by a very specific, very strange "jinx."
Doors would suddenly become too heavy for Aoi to open. Haru's briefcase would be found floating gently against the kitchen light. One afternoon, Aoi found every single spoon and fork in their kitchen drawer hovering in a chaotic, metallic cloud in the pantry.
Then, months later, Aoi was vacuuming the living room. Kaito, now speaking in short, clear sentences, was on the floor, surrounded by his plastic animal toys.
Suddenly, Aoi heard his small voice over the roar of the vacuum. "Mama! Mama, look!"
She shut off the machine. The sudden silence was heavy. "What is it, sweetie?"
"Flying!" Kaito chirped, pointing up. "Stars! Look!"
Aoi looked. Kaito's gaze, that eerie violet-tinged sensing, was directed at the air above him. And floating in a gentle, perfect circle were his red plastic rocket, a yellow giraffe, and three wooden blocks.
Aoi stared, the vacuum handle slipping from her hand.
"It... it wasn't bad luck."
That night, after Kaito was sound asleep, Haru sat at the dining table with a notepad and a pencil. Aoi sat across from him, nursing a cup of tea.
"Okay," Haru said, sketching. "I've been tracking the incidents." He drew two columns. "Quirk One: 'Quasi-Thermal Vision.' He sees energy. Quirk Two... I think it's Gravity."
"Gravity?" Aoi asked.
"It's the only thing that makes sense," Haru said, his inner math teacher emerging. "He's four years old, and he's unconsciously manipulating gravitational force. He can make things float—like the toys today, or the blanket months ago." He rubbed his left foot. "Or he can make them incredibly heavy. Like... like the television."
Aoi winced. "You broke your foot. You missed a month of work."
"Exactly," Haru said, tapping his pencil. "It's uncontrolled." He finished his diagram and looked up, his expression serious. "By the way... Aoi... don't you think his abilities... they're well-suited for, you know... a hero?"
Aoi's face hardened instantly. "Are you joking? Haru, absolutely not. I am not sending my son—my blind son—to the front lines to fight villains."
"But technically, he's not blind anymore," Haru argued gently. "And this second quirk... maybe his vision has other aspects we don't know about yet."
"No." Her voice was final. She stood up. "I will start tomorrow. I will teach him control. How to hold his spoon. How to not drop a television on you. But that is only to protect him... from himself. That is all."
She walked to the kitchen, the discussion clearly over. Haru remained at the table, looking at the simple diagram he had drawn.
A blind hero?
He sighed, looking at a can of soda on the table. He focused. The can slid across the wood into his waiting hand. He popped the top.
Is that just a dream a boring employee like me couldn't achieve? Am I trying to push that dream onto my son... How ridiculous.
.
.
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