The heavy wooden doors of the Mori estate closed with a soft, final thud, sealing Hiroki inside the fortress of his family's secrets. The sound echoed down the long hallway like the closing of a vault. Outside, the rain continued its cold, relentless drumming, but inside the air felt suddenly colder—thicker, heavier, vibrating with an unspoken interrogation that pressed against the skin.
Hiroki stood in the genkan for a long moment, methodically removing his shoes. His fingers moved with deliberate calm, still carrying the lingering warmth of the afternoon, the phantom heat of Nao's hands, the echo of her whispered praise. He set the shoes neatly beside the others, straightened, and stepped onto the tatami. The woven mats felt different under his socks tonight—less forgiving, as though the house itself were judging every footfall.
He had barely taken three steps when he felt it: the weight of observation.
Jessica Rabbit was the first to move. She leaned against the dark cedar pillar at the edge of the main hall, arms loosely folded, her emerald eyes narrowing to razor-thin slits. She didn't need words. She caught the scent the instant he crossed the threshold. It wasn't just the expensive, suffocating jasmine of Nao Kinomoto's perfume that clung to his collar and skin like a brand. Beneath it lay the unmistakable, heavy musk of a man who had been thoroughly, repeatedly claimed—sweat, sex, the faint metallic tang of spent passion. Jessica's nostrils flared almost imperceptibly. She knew that smell the way a predator knows blood.
Beside her, Kanoko Mori stood frozen.
The 185 cm girl looked like she had been struck. Her large green eyes widened, pupils dilating in slow horror as the realization crashed over her. She had known Hiroki and Nao since they were six years old—playdates, scraped knees, shared secrets under blankets. But looking at her half-brother now—the subtle new hardness in his jaw, the way he carried his shoulders, the faint flush that still lingered beneath his collar—it hit her like a physical blow to the chest. Her breath hitched audibly. Nao had done it. Her best friend, the girl she had trusted with every fragile piece of herself, had hunted him down and taken him. Not just his body—his innocence, his first time, everything Kanoko had always assumed would happen gently, someday, with someone worthy.
"Nao…" Kanoko whispered, the name cracking in her throat. Her hands clenched at her sides, nails biting into palms. Betrayal burned hot behind her eyes, mixing with a fierce, protective rage that made her whole frame tremble. "She… she actually did it. Today. While I was sitting here playing stupid games…"
Kaede Mori stood a few paces behind them, and for the first time in years the granite-hard matriarch wavered.
Her 187 cm frame seemed to shrink. The severe ponytail, the regal posture, the unyielding aura she had worn like armor for two decades—all of it cracked. Her hands began to shake visibly as she took one unsteady step toward her son.
"Hiroki…" The word came out barely above a whisper, trembling with a vulnerability none of them had ever heard from her before. "Tell me you didn't… Tell me you were careful. Tell me you didn't throw away your future without a single thought."
She looked like she was about to fall to her knees. Tears—actual tears—glistened at the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill. Kaede Mori, who had buried a husband, raised two children alone, carried secrets that could burn the world, was begging.
"Please," she continued, voice fracturing, "tell me you used protection. Tell me you didn't let her… God, Hiroki, you're only eighteen. You have your whole life ahead of you. Don't let one afternoon ruin everything I've fought for."
Her hands reached out, hovering inches from his shoulders, afraid to touch him, afraid he would shatter under her fingers. Memories flashed behind her eyes—Koichi's gentle smile, the night she had made the mistake that created Kanoko, the decades of lies, the fear that history would repeat itself in her son's blood. She saw Hiroki's future collapsing under the weight of an unplanned child, of Nao's ambition, of the same shadows that had haunted her own youth.
The room held its breath.
Hiroki finally lifted his gaze.
His blue eyes—usually so soft, so compliant, so quick to look away—were steady now. Clear. Almost unnervingly calm.
"Nao took pregnancy prevention tablets before we… before anything happened," he said quietly. The words didn't shake. They didn't apologize. "She had it all planned, Mother. She told me herself. She said she didn't want anything to ruin what we have."
Kaede's breath left her in a broken sob of relief, but the pain in her eyes didn't fade. She pressed a trembling hand to her mouth, shoulders shaking. The relief warred with grief—for the boy she had lost today, for the man who now stood before her carrying a secret that would change him forever.
Jessica Rabbit watched all of it from the shadows, silent, calculating.
She felt the truth in Hiroki's steady voice. The girl—Nao—was a strategist, no doubt about it. Cold, precise, ruthless in her execution. Jessica could almost admire the sheer audacity of it: an eighteen-year-old virgin orchestrating her own deflowering like a military campaign, choosing the perfect day, the perfect location, the perfect timing. She had turned Hiroki's first time into a weapon of possession. Brilliant, in its own twisted way.
But the admiration curdled quickly into irritation—sharp, hot, personal.
This little slut, Jessica thought, emerald eyes narrowing further. This calculating little whore took an innocent boy's virginity like it was a trophy to mount on her wall. He was soft. Gentle. Still carrying that quiet, protective goodness that most men lose before they're twenty. And she used him. Branded him. Left her scent on him like a dog marking territory.
He deserves better.
He deserves a woman who would worship that hidden strength in his eyes, not exploit it. A woman who would see the haunted blue and want to heal it, not chain it.
Jessica's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. The thought of Nao's triumphant smile when she left him at the gate earlier made something dark coil in her chest. She would remember this. She would watch that girl very, very closely from now on.
While the air in the main hall remained thick with the scent of broken innocence—perfume, musk, regret, and the faint salt of Kaede's unshed tears—a completely different sound echoed from the den at the far end of the house.
The frantic clicking of buttons. The distorted screams and grunts of a video game. The wet, visceral sound of digital blood and bone.
Saki Yoshida was leaning forward on the low couch, face lit by the flickering blue-white glow of the television. Her small frame was tense with concentration, fingers flying across the controller as she piloted Mileena through a brutal combo. The character's jagged teeth flashed, purple veil whipping, blood spraying in pixelated arcs.
"Take that, you show-off!" Saki laughed, bright and fierce, the sound bubbling up like sunlight breaking through storm clouds.
Across from her, Ayumu Shiina was desperately mashing buttons, a lopsided grin plastered on his face despite the losing battle. He had picked Johnny Cage purely for the joke—throwing out green energy orbs, sunglasses glinting, trying to land ridiculous shadow kicks while Mileena tore through his health bar with sadistic glee.
"Hey! Watch the face, Saki! Johnny's a star!" Ayumu protested, leaning sideways as though physical movement could help his doomed fighter. "That was my best comeback line!"
Mileena's victory screen flashed in bloody red letters: FATALITY.
Saki threw her arms up in triumph, controller still clutched in one hand, laughing so hard her shoulders shook. Ayumu flopped back dramatically, clutching his chest like he'd been mortally wounded, both of them completely oblivious to the storm raging just down the hallway.
They didn't hear Kaede's quiet, broken sob of relief.
They didn't see the predatory gleam sharpening in Jessica Rabbit's eyes.
They didn't feel the permanent fracture that had just split the Mori family in two.
In the den, the next match loaded with cheerful fanfare.
In the hallway, Hiroki Mori stood his ground—taller, somehow, than he had been that morning—while the women who loved him most stared at the stranger wearing his face.