The rain had been falling steadily all evening, a cold December drizzle that seeped through every crack in the old wooden doorframe and made the floorboards of Aunt Yumi's restaurant creak under even the lightest step. The place was empty now, the last customer long gone, the neon "Open" sign flipped to "Closed" hours ago. Only the soft hiss of the gas burner under the simmering dashi pot and the rhythmic patter on the roof kept me company.
I stood at the sink, sleeves rolled to my elbows, scrubbing the last of the evening's pots with more force than necessary. My hands moved on autopilot—scour, rinse, stack—muscle memory from years of kitchens far grander than this one. The scent of kombu and bonito flakes still hung in the air, comforting in its familiarity, but tonight it felt like a mockery. This tiny, ten-seat izakaya in a quiet corner of Tokyo was the only kitchen that would still have me.
Thirty-five years old, and this was what remained of my life.
I set the pot down harder than I meant to. The metallic clank echoed through the empty room.
Once, I had been the most promising student at the country's top culinary academy. Instructors spoke my name with genuine excitement. Scouts from three-Michelin-star restaurants attended my final practical exam. My fusion of traditional kaiseki techniques with bold, unexpected flavors had earned standing ovations. I could still remember the exact moment the head judge—a man whose approval could launch careers—leaned forward and said, "Tanaka-kun, you have the hands of an artist."
That was before everything unraveled.
I dried my hands on the faded apron that had once been crisp white, now stained with years of soy sauce and miso. The television mounted in the corner flickered with the late-night news, volume low. Something about heightened security alerts, foreign tensions, the usual vague warnings that no one truly believed would touch their daily lives.
I didn't bother turning it up. What did it matter? My own world had collapsed long before any global crisis.
The scandal broke two years after graduation. Anonymous posts on industry forums, screenshots of "evidence" showing I'd used AI-generated recipes for my award-winning dishes. Fabricated chat logs, doctored files planted on a shared drive. By the time I realized what was happening, the damage was irreversible. Chefs I'd admired blocked my messages. Job offers dried up overnight. Even the smallest bistros turned me away—too much risk, they said. No one wanted the stigma.
I never found out who did it. Not definitively. But I knew.
Kenji Sato.
We'd been classmates, friends even, or so I'd thought. He was always one step behind me in rankings, always smiling a little too tightly when I won praise. I remembered the night after the national competition—him clapping me on the back, voice perfectly congratulatory, eyes hard as glass. "You deserve it, Hiroshi. Really."
I should have seen it then.
Instead, I'd spent the last seven years scraping by on part-time gigs, lying on applications, watching my savings disappear. Aunt Yumi was the only one who never doubted me. She'd offered me a corner of her kitchen the day the scandal hit the news, no questions asked. "Family looks after family," she'd said simply, and that was that.
I walked to the front and turned off the main lights, leaving only the soft glow over the counter. The restaurant felt smaller in the dimness, more fragile. Yumi had gone upstairs to her apartment an hour ago, claiming exhaustion, but I knew she was giving me space. She always did when the darkness crept in.
I poured myself a small cup of sake from the bottle we kept for staff, the cheap kind that warmed without comforting. The first sip burned going down.
What a waste.
All those years studying flavor profiles, balancing umami and acidity, learning to coax the sweetest notes from a simple daikon. For nothing. I could have been head chef somewhere by now. Could have had my own place, my name on a sign, a team that respected me. Instead I was here, washing dishes in a restaurant that barely broke even, living in a one-room apartment that smelled of old tatami and regret.
The television droned on. A reporter speaking about a recent attack in another district, grainy security footage of masked figures. I reached for the remote to turn it off when the door rattled.
The bell jingled softly.
I froze. We'd been closed for hours.
A man stood in the doorway, rain dripping from his coat, face half-hidden by the hood. Tall, thin, familiar posture. My stomach twisted before my mind caught up.
Kenji.
He stepped inside without waiting for invitation, closing the door behind him. The lock clicked. Water pooled at his feet.
"Hiroshi," he said, voice rough. "I… I saw the light was still on."
I didn't move from behind the counter. "We're closed."
"I know." He pulled back his hood. His face was thinner than I remembered, eyes bloodshot, skin sallow. He looked like someone who hadn't slept properly in months. "I just… I needed to see you."
I laughed, a short, bitter sound. "Now? After all this time?"
He flinched. "I've tried before. You changed your number. Blocked me everywhere."
"With good reason."
The silence stretched, heavy with everything unsaid. Outside, thunder rumbled distantly.
Kenji took a hesitant step forward. "I know what I did."
The words hung between us. Simple. Devastating.
I felt something inside me crack, the anger I'd nursed for years finally finding its target. "You know? That's it? You destroyed my life, Kenji. Everything I worked for. Everything I was."
His hands trembled at his sides. "I was jealous. Stupid. I thought if I could just… take you down a peg, maybe I'd finally—" He stopped, throat working. "I didn't think it would go this far. I didn't think they'd believe it so completely."
"You planted the evidence."
He didn't deny it. Couldn't. The guilt was written across his face like kanji.
"I've spent every day since regretting it," he whispered. "Watching you disappear. Knowing I caused it. I followed you sometimes, just to make sure you were… okay. I know how creepy that sounds. I know I don't deserve forgiveness."
I wanted to scream at him. Wanted to throw something. Instead I felt only a vast, exhausting emptiness.
"Why tonight?" I asked quietly.
He looked at the floor. "Because I can't live with it anymore. I had to tell you. Even if you hate me forever."
The television flickered again, the reporter's voice rising slightly—something about immediate threat levels, public spaces. Neither of us paid attention.
I turned away, gripping the counter. "Get out."
"Hiroshi—"
"Get. Out."
He didn't move. Rain hammered harder against the windows.
Then Aunt Yumi's voice called softly from the stairs. "Hiroshi? Everything all right down there?"
I opened my mouth to answer when the front door exploded inward.
Glass shattered. Wood splintered. Masked figures in black burst through, automatic weapons raised. The world slowed to a nightmare crawl.
The first burst of gunfire took the television, sparks flying. The second caught Yumi as she appeared at the foot of the stairs.
She fell without a sound.
I don't remember moving. Only the impact of bullets, the wet heat spreading across my chest, the floor rushing up to meet me. Kenji's scream cut short beside me.
My vision tunneled. The attackers' shouts were distant, muffled. Someone kicked over tables. Flames began to lick at the walls—the gas burner, perhaps.
But all I could see was Yumi's body, motionless on the floor. The woman who had believed in me when no one else did. The only family I had left.
Blood filled my mouth. Breathing became impossible.
Kenji's face appeared above me, pale and terrified, his own wounds blooming red. His lips moved—sorry, maybe, or my name—but no sound reached me.
Darkness crowded the edges of my vision.
In that final moment, with the restaurant burning around me and the two people who had defined my broken life dying beside me, a single thought burned clearer than any pain.
If there really is something after this… If there's any justice, any mercy left in the universe…
Let me be reborn. Let me have another chance to cook again—not for awards or recognition, but truly, freely. Let me have my own restaurant. Let my name be known, not for scandal, but for the food I create.
Let me live the dream I was denied.
And then, the darkness swallowed me whole.
But somewhere, impossibly, I felt a faint pull—like a thread of light tugging at my fading consciousness. A whisper, too soft to make out words, but carrying promise.
Then nothing.