Kisuno had learned that Tokyo had three faces.
The daytime face was bright and indifferent—workers rushing past without seeing, parents pulling their children closer when he approached, vending machines that dispensed miracles for coins he didn't have. The evening face was softer, more forgiving—neon signs painting the streets in colors that made even garbage look beautiful, the smell of ramen shops and izakayas promising warmth he could almost taste.
But it was Tokyo's night face he knew best. The 2 AM face, when the city finally exhaled its pretenses and showed what it really was: a machine that kept grinding whether you survived it or not.
He sat in Hazuno's closet now—his refuge for the past five days—drawing with crayons Hazuno had stolen from a convenience store. The paper was the back of old school assignments, and Kisuno filled the blank spaces with fragments of memory: a mansion with cherry blossoms, two figures he couldn't quite see clearly, and always, always, that terrible red that had soaked into marble floors.
The closet door opened. Hazuno stood there, backpack slung over one shoulder, and something in his expression made Kisuno's heart tighten with an emotion he'd almost forgotten: hope.
"Get your cloak," Hazuno said quietly. "We're leaving." "Leaving?" "I found somewhere better. Somewhere safer." Kisuno's fingers tightened on the crayon—sky blue, the color of eyes that used to believe in things. "The police?"
"No police. I promise." Hazuno crouched down to eye level, and Kisuno saw the exhaustion written in every line of his face. The older kid hadn't slept properly in days, running himself ragged between school, home, and keeping Kisuno alive. "Do you trust me?"
The question hung in the small space between them. Trust was a luxury Kisuno had learned to live without. Trust meant vulnerability, and vulnerability meant the kind of pain that rewrote your entire understanding of the world.
But Hazuno had come back. Every time, when he could have just walked away, he'd come back.
"Yes," Kisuno whispered.
The industrial district at midnight was a graveyard of economic dreams—abandoned factories with broken windows like missing teeth, warehouses tagged with graffiti that screamed defiance at a society that had moved on. Hazuno led Kisuno through streets where streetlights had given up, where the only illumination came from distant office towers that marked the boundary between this forgotten world and the one that mattered.
Josu waited outside a warehouse, hands shoved in his jacket pockets, breath misting in the October cold. The bruise on his face had faded to yellow-green, but new shadows lived under his eyes—the kind that came from watching someone you love die in slow motion.
"You actually came," Josu said, surprise evident in his voice. "You offered," Hazuno replied simply. Josu's gaze dropped to Kisuno, and something flickered across his expression—recognition, maybe, or the kind of understanding that only came from intimate acquaintance with suffering. He knelt down, making himself smaller, less threatening.
"Hey, kid. I'm Josu. This place isn't much, but it's dry and warm. Better than a closet, anyway."
Kisuno studied him with those penetrating blue eyes that seemed to see through everything. Josu didn't flinch from the scrutiny, didn't try to force a smile or make himself more palatable. He just waited, patient in a way that suggested he understood what it meant to be examined for threats.
Finally, Kisuno nodded.
The warehouse interior was vast and empty, their footsteps echoing against concrete floors and metal rafters. But in one corner, Josu had created something almost habitable—camping lanterns casting warm light, sleeping bags arranged on cardboard, a small camping stove with instant noodles stacked beside it. It looked like survival, which was more than Kisuno had expected.
"Home sweet home," Josu said with dark humor. "At least until they demolish this place next month." "Next month?" Hazuno's voice carried an edge of panic.
"One problem at a time, yeah?" Josu pulled out his phone, checking the time. "I've got to get back. Grandfather's medication is due at one. But there's food, blankets. Should be enough for tonight."
He moved toward the door, then paused, looking back at them—this strange trio of broken kids trying to build something from ruins. "Hazuno. Thanks for not treating me like I'm just the school psycho."
"Thanks for not treating me like I'm just the school puppet."
Something passed between them, an understanding that didn't need more words. Then Josu was gone, disappearing into Tokyo's night face, leaving Hazuno and Kisuno alone in their borrowed sanctuary.
They ate instant ramen in silence, the only sound the small camping stove's hiss and the distant rumble of late-night trains. Kisuno ate slowly, savoring each bite in that way people did when they'd learned hunger as a constant companion. Hazuno watched him, this small child who'd survived three years in one of the world's largest cities through nothing but will and whatever scraps of luck the universe had bothered to provide.
"Can I ask you something?" Hazuno said finally. Kisuno looked up, broth dripping from his chin. "Your parents. What happened to them?"
The question landed like a stone dropped in still water, sending ripples through whatever fragile peace they'd established. Kisuno set down his cup, small hands trembling slightly.
"They were murdered," he said, voice flat and factual. "When I was three. In our house in Kyoto."
Hazuno's breath caught. He'd suspected something terrible, but hearing it confirmed was different—it made the horror real, gave shape to the nightmare this child had been living.
"Do you remember it?"
"Pieces." Kisuno's eyes went distant, seeing things Hazuno couldn't. "Mama told me to hide. I heard shouting. Then... quiet. The bad kind of quiet." His fingers traced patterns on the concrete floor—abstract shapes that might have been blood or might have been nothing. "I came out and they were on the floor. Not moving. I waited for them to wake up, but they didn't."
"What did you do?"
"I ran. Put on Papa's cloak because it was cold and I was small and scared and it smelled like him. Just started running and didn't stop." Kisuno looked up, those blue eyes shimmering with tears he refused to let fall. "I've been running ever since."
Hazuno felt something crack open in his heart—the same thing that had cracked when he'd first seen Kisuno in that alley, but deeper now, more fundamental. This wasn't just sympathy or pity. This was recognition of a kindred wound, different in details but identical in the way it had shattered something essential.
"I'm sorry," Hazuno said, knowing the words were inadequate, saying them anyway. "Don't be sorry." Kisuno's voice carried surprising strength. "Sorry doesn't change anything. Sorry doesn't bring them back."
"No. But maybe... maybe it means you don't have to carry it alone anymore." The child's expression shifted, something vulnerable breaking through the armor. "Why are you doing this? Helping me. You don't even know me."
Hazuno considered the question, searching for truth in the labyrinth of his own motivations. "Because when I saw you in that alley, running from the police with nowhere to go, I saw myself. Not literally, but... the important parts. The parts where we're both drowning and everyone's too busy or too comfortable to notice."
"But you smile all the time. You have friends, family—"
"The smile's fake. The friends use me. And my family..." Hazuno's voice caught. "My mom drinks until she can't remember her own name. My dad screams about money and failure like if he yells loud enough, reality will rearrange itself. They're there, physically, but they're not present. Not in any way that matters."
"So we're both alone," Kisuno said.
"We were. Past tense." Hazuno reached out, placed a hand on Kisuno's small shoulder. "Now we have each other. And Josu, apparently. We're building something here. I don't know what, exactly, but it's something."
Kisuno leaned into the touch like a plant turning toward sunlight—hesitant, uncertain, desperately wanting to believe. "What if they find me?" he whispered. "The police. Social services. What if they take me away?"
"Then we'll figure it out. Together." "You promise?" The weight of that question—the trust it represented, the faith this traumatized child was placing in him—settled over Hazuno like a mantle. He thought about all the promises the world had broken, all the times adults had failed this kid, all the reasons Kisuno had to never trust anyone again.
"I promise," Hazuno said, meaning it with everything he had. For the first time since they'd met, Kisuno smiled—a small, fragile thing, like the first flower pushing through concrete, but real.
They slept side by side in sleeping bags that smelled like socks and old camping trips, the warehouse vast and echoing around them. Kisuno fell asleep first, exhaustion finally overwhelming survival instinct, his breathing evening out into the soft rhythm of childhood dreams that might, for once, not be nightmares.
Hazuno lay awake, staring at the warehouse ceiling where moonlight filtered through broken skylights, painting everything in shades of silver and shadow. His phone buzzed—messages from his parents he didn't bother reading, notifications from the school group chat he'd muted days ago. The life he'd built felt increasingly distant, like watching someone else's existence through scratched glass.
A sound made him tense—footsteps outside, heavy and deliberate. His heart rate spiked. Police? Security? Someone who'd report them? The warehouse door opened.
Hazuno sat up slowly, positioning himself between Kisuno and whoever was entering. But it was just Josu, backpack slung over one shoulder, moving through the darkness with the confidence of someone who'd spent considerable time in this space.
"Couldn't sleep," Josu said quietly, careful not to wake Kisuno. "Grandfather's resting, and home felt..." "Like drowning," Hazuno finished. "Yeah."
Josu settled down nearby, pulling out a convenience store meal—onigiri and green tea. He ate mechanically, staring at nothing, and Hazuno recognized the expression: someone running from thoughts that chased them even in silence.
"How long does he have?" Hazuno asked.
"Doctor says weeks. Maybe a month if we're lucky." Josu's voice was carefully neutral, but his hands shook slightly. "Cancer's in his bones now. Everywhere that matters for survival."
"I'm sorry."
"Everyone's sorry. Nobody can do anything about it." Josu took a long drink of tea. "Medical bills are crushing me. Three part-time jobs and it's not enough. After he's gone, I'll have debt and no family and this reputation as the school psycho. Great future prospects."
The bitterness was understandable, but underneath it, Hazuno heard something else: terror. Pure, undiluted fear of being truly alone in a world that had already proven itself cruel.
"You'll have us," Hazuno said. Josu looked at him, surprise evident even in the dim light. "What?" "Me and Kisuno. We're not much, but we're something. You don't have to face whatever comes next alone."
"You barely know me. I've been an moron to you for months."
"People change. Situations change. Maybe this is ours." Hazuno gestured at the warehouse, at Kisuno sleeping peacefully for maybe the first time in years, at the strange configuration they'd formed. "Three broken people trying to build something that doesn't break. It's not traditional, but when has traditional worked for any of us?"
Josu was quiet for a long moment, processing. Then, almost imperceptibly, he nodded. "Okay. Yeah. Okay."
They sat in comfortable silence, two teen's on the edge of something they couldn't name, watching over a child who deserved better than any of them could provide but who they'd try to protect anyway.
Outside, Tokyo continued its endless rotation through day and night, indifferent to the small miracles occurring in its forgotten corners. But in that warehouse, something fragile and important was taking shape—not family in the traditional sense, but something forged from shared wounds and the radical choice to not face them alone.
Kisuno stirred in his sleep, murmuring something too quiet to hear, and both older kids looked toward him instinctively, protective in ways they hadn't known they could be.
Above them, through broken skylights, stars fought through Tokyo's light pollution, distant and beautiful and utterly unreachable. But maybe, Hazuno thought, reaching for the sky was less important than reaching for each other. Small hands could hold surprising strength when they found the right hands to hold onto.
TO BE CONTINUED... [Next Episode: "Cracks in the Foundation"]