🌘 Chapter 4 – The Shadow Between Two Hearts
Eloïse.
Hansi.
Ken's heart clenched the moment he saw them.
Eloïse stood with her usual grace — elegant, composed, wrapped in a beige coat that moved like silk with each step. Her eyes were soft, yet distant, carrying the weight of a thousand unspoken words.
Beside her, Hansi looked rawer, more human. The same fierce eyes that once haunted his dreams — eyes that held both strength and a quiet wound time had failed to heal.
"Ayato!" Hansi exclaimed, rising to her feet.
Before he could react, she had taken his hand, gripping it tightly, as if making sure he wasn't just a ghost from her memories.
Eloïse followed more slowly, her lips curving into a fragile smile.
"You really scared us," she murmured.
Ken forced himself to smile back — that same calm, confident smile Ayato had always worn.
It looked perfect.
It felt wrong.
They sat down together. A heavy silence followed.
The faint clink of spoons against porcelain filled the air, echoing louder than words ever could.
Finally, Hansi broke the stillness.
"We need to know, Ayato… what really happened that night?"
Ken lowered his eyes to his cup.
The image came unbidden — rain, gunfire, blood painting the street, the sound of a single bullet slicing the dark.
His jaw tightened.
"Ken didn't make it," he said quietly.
Eloïse's eyes fluttered closed.
"I thought so," she whispered. "But hearing it… makes it real."
Her voice trembled, and a single tear slid down her cheek. She turned away, ashamed of her own grief.
Hansi reached across the table, squeezing her cousin's hand gently before fixing her gaze back on him.
"And you?" she asked, voice low, eyes narrowing slightly. "You survived, but… you don't remember anything, do you?"
Ken shook his head slowly.
"The doctors said I suffered memory loss. Fragments come and go, but everything else… it's just shadows."
He hesitated — carefully crafting each word, making sure none betrayed the truth.
"Sometimes I feel like what I'm feeling isn't even mine. Like I'm… an outsider, living someone else's life."
Eloïse's gaze sharpened, her emotions breaking through her composure.
"When we talk about Ken," she said softly, "you change."
He looked up.
"Your tone, your eyes… even your silence. It's as if he's the one speaking through you."
For a second, Ken forgot how to breathe.
His world tilted — the lie teetering on the edge of collapse.
But he forced himself to stay calm.
He shrugged lightly.
"Maybe it's guilt," he said, voice steady. "That's all."
The lie tasted bitter.
Eloïse studied him for a long moment, then looked away.
"Maybe," she whispered.
The rest of the meal passed under a heavy sky of silence.
Even Yuri, sitting nearby, seemed uneasy. He finally stood up, breaking the tension.
"Well, I'll leave you three to… catch up," he said, stretching with a fake yawn. "I need some sleep."
He placed a firm hand on Ayato's shoulder.
"Rest too, boss. You still look like a damn ghost."
And with that, he was gone — leaving behind three hearts drowning in unspoken memories.
Eloïse finally broke the quiet. Her voice was soft, hesitant.
"Ayato… I think we should take a break."
Ken froze.
She wasn't angry — her tone carried no accusation, only sadness.
"You've changed," she continued, eyes glistening. "And I think I have too."
Ken wanted to tell her the truth.
That he wasn't Ayato.
That the man she loved was gone — and the one in front of her was just a stranger carrying his shadow.
But the words never came.
He simply nodded.
"I understand."
Hansi looked down, her fingers trembling slightly. Her heart screamed that something was wrong — that the man sitting before them wasn't truly the one they'd lost.
When they finally left, the café felt colder.
Ken remained seated, the wind brushing gently against his shirt, carrying the faint scent of rain.
Two women.
Two lives.
Two loves he could never truly claim.
The weight of both men — Ken and Ayato — pressed down on his shoulders.
He wondered which of them the world saw now… and which one he was slowly burying alive.
---
Night had already fallen by the time he returned to Ayato's apartment.
Hana greeted him with her usual bright smile.
"Big brother! I made gyozas! You want to try them?"
Ken's lips curved softly.
"Thank you, Hana."
They sat at the table, eating quietly, laughing over small things — the way any brother and sister would.
But every smile felt stolen.
Every laugh echoed hollowly inside his chest.
When Hana rested her head against his shoulder, warmth bloomed through him — quickly followed by guilt sharp enough to cut through bone.
He wasn't her brother.
He wasn't anyone's anything.
Later, lying alone in Ayato's darkened room, he stared up at the ceiling.
Memories tore at him — Hansi's touch, her voice, her scent. Eloïse's tears. Ayato's memories, tangled with his own.
Two hearts beat in one body, but only one of them still had a soul.
Survive, no matter what.
Ayato's voice echoed faintly in his mind — not as a command, but as a prayer.
Ken rose and walked to the window. Rain had started to fall again, soft and endless.
"You see, Ayato…" he whispered to the storm. "I'm surviving. But at what cost?"
---
The next morning, Yuri was already waiting outside the building, hands in his pockets, breath fogging in the cold.
They walked side by side in silence. The city around them was just waking — street vendors opening their stalls, buses rumbling down wet roads, the faint hum of life returning.
"So," Yuri said casually, "the girls didn't shake you up too much, did they?"
Ken's expression didn't change.
"A little," he admitted.
"Don't overthink it," Yuri said, smirking. "Give it time. Everything will come back eventually."
"I hope so," Ken lied.
They turned into a narrow alley shrouded in morning mist — and stopped.
Three men in black coats stood ahead of them.
They looked calm, polite even, but there was a cold precision in their eyes that sent a chill crawling down Ken's spine.
The one in the center stepped forward.
"Mr. Ayato," he said in a flat voice. "The Black Angel wishes to speak with you."
Yuri frowned.
"And who the hell is the Black Angel?"
A faint smile curved the man's lips.
He didn't answer.
The air grew heavy, charged. Even the wind seemed to stop moving.
Ken felt something icy crawl beneath his skin. The name itself carried weight — a shadow that seemed to echo through the space between heartbeats.
Yuri's hand went instinctively to his weapon.
"And if we refuse?"
The tallest of the men chuckled softly.
"That would be… unwise," he said. "He doesn't like being kept waiting."
Ken's pulse thundered in his chest — in Ayato's chest.
A name.
A warning.
A dark invitation.
The Black Angel had entered his story.
And nothing would ever be the same again.