Kenzo hadn't slept in three days.
The air in his apartment reeked of burnt paper and cheap cologne. Crumpled photographs lay scattered on the floor—faces scratched out, some torn clean in half. The rain outside hissed like a whisper through the cracked window. He let it stay open. The cold reminded him he was still alive.
They said grief had five stages, but Kenzo never made it past silence. Not after the fire. Not after the unanswered questions, the suspicious glances, the files stamped unsolved.
He lived like a ghost now, drifting from shift to shift at the overnight convenience store, never quite awake, never fully asleep. He kept a box in the closet, padlocked, marked only with a single name: Yumi. No one had asked about it—not even when the landlord came snooping. People didn't ask questions in this part of the city. Not when your eyes looked like his.
But tonight, someone had slipped a note under his door.
It read:
"She didn't die in the fire."