The house was quiet.
It always got that way after something scary. Like the walls were holding their breath too.
Keiko moved slowly, her bandaged arm resting on a pillow as she flipped through a magazine without reading it. Their mom was in the kitchen, pretending to cook but mostly pacing. She hadn't stopped coughing, and the stress had made it worse. Still, she smiled every time Satoru looked her way.
He didn't talk much that day.
Didn't eat much either.
---
His room felt too small. Too clean.
The notebook sat on the desk like it was waiting for him.
Satoru sat across from it, staring.
He hadn't opened it yet.
Not since the hospital.
Not since the pro hero said "That was brave, kid. Foolish, but brave."
He didn't feel brave.
He felt like a kid who couldn't stop shaking.
He turned the notebook open, flipping past blank pages until he reached the first one where he'd ever dared to write the words:
> "I want to become a hero."
He hadn't written it like a promise.
More like a secret.
But now, the words stared back at him with weight.
And the question started again.
---
Why did I move?
He'd asked himself this in the hospital.
He asked it again in the car ride home.
He asked it when he saw Keiko trying to brush her teeth one-handed, flinching at every motion, pretending it didn't hurt.
And now, with the notebook in front of him, he asked it a hundred times more.
Why didn't I freeze that time?
Every other time—at school, on the train, in the halls—he did nothing.
When he got tripped, he stayed down. When they laughed, he lowered his eyes. When people whispered, he kept walking.
He always froze.
So why not then?
---
He didn't feel strong in that moment.
There was no sudden fire in his chest. No music swelling behind him.
Just heat. Screaming. His sister—shaking.
Keiko was never scared. Not in front of him. Not ever.
But she was that day.
And that—
That did something to him.
Satoru picked up his pen.
---
> Why did I move?
Because she was scared.
And I love her.
He stared at the page for a long time.
Then added:
> I didn't think.
I didn't feel brave.
But I couldn't let her be alone in that fear.
---
A sound outside his room made him glance up.
Keiko's door creaked shut. Light footsteps down the hall.
He didn't call out.
He just watched the shadow under his door.
And for the first time in days… he didn't feel like crying.
He felt something else.
Not pride.
But certainty.
That moment—shaking, crying, standing—it wasn't a fluke.
It wasn't a miracle.
It was a choice.