THE BOX
The room was white, but not the peaceful kind. It was the sterile, institutional white of padded walls, reinforced corners, and silence so thick it felt alive.
Inside, Namin Kyotosawa sat motionless, arms curled around his knees like he was trying to fold himself smaller. His dark hair clung to his face, matted with sweat and dried blood. He hadn't moved in hours.
From outside the observation glass, three figures in suits watched.
"Four confirmed casualties. Three hospitalized," murmured one, tapping on the clipboard. "And that's just from this incident."
"Bullshit. That boy didn't kill anyone. It was the thing that follows him," said the older man, his tie crooked from hours of arguing. "We have no way of controlling that spirit. It responds only to his emotions, and he's emotionally unstable."
"Then we execute him," the woman said coldly. "Before more die."
The older man's lips twisted. "You want to kill a boy who hasn't even finished high school?"
"Better him than a hundred civilians," she replied.
Inside the room, Namin barely heard them. Not because the glass was soundproofed — though it was — but because their voices had been drowned out by a heavier sound.
Claria's voice.
It echoed through him still.
"I'll protect you forever, Namin. I promise."
---
SIX YEARS AGO
It was raining. The summer kind — hot, sticky, and sudden.
Namin and Claria Tsukihara ran down the path near the elementary gates, sharing a small blue umbrella. She held it too high, as usual, so the water hit his shoulders while she kept dry.
"You're too short," she teased, holding it higher. "Grow faster."
"You're too tall," he shot back, tugging the handle down.
She laughed, loud and free. Her voice had always been bigger than her body — she was small, dainty, but so full of life. Ribbons in her hair, a charm bracelet jingling on her wrist. That day, she gave it to him.
"To protect you," she had said.
"From what?"
"From mean things. Bad people. Curses."
He wore it on his wrist until it broke.
He still kept the broken pieces in a box under his bed.
---
They stood at the train crossing, waiting. She turned to him, serious for once. "Let's get married when we grow up, okay?"
He laughed awkwardly. "Why would you say that?"
"Because I love you," she said.
Before he could respond, the alarm bells screamed. The train roared in.
Someone pushed through the crowd too fast.
She tripped.
He reached for her hand.
Their fingers missed.
The train didn't.
---
SHE CAME BACK WRONG
The first time Claria came back, it was at the hospital.
Namin had been unconscious for three days from the shock. When he woke up, the nurses looked at him like he had horns.
"Your… cousin," one had said, voice shaking. "She visited last night."
"I don't have a cousin," Namin replied.
They didn't press.
That night, he found a flower on his pillow — her favorite, a crushed gardenia, soaked in blood.
The lights in the hallway flickered for hours.
---
Weeks later, three boys tried to mug him on his way home from school. One pulled a knife, trembling. Namin was frozen, crying.
Then the ground cracked open.
It didn't feel like a rescue. It felt like a slaughter.
Claria's curse form was a grotesque parody of what she once was — massive, shapeless, eyes bloated and weeping, with her voice echoing like a broken music box:
"No one… hurts… Namin…"
She ripped them apart. One was crushed like paper. Another was thrown into traffic. The third disappeared completely.
Namin vomited on the sidewalk.
---
THE SORCERER IN THE BLINDFOLD
He came like he wasn't part of the world. Wearing a long white coat, blindfold over his eyes, posture so casual it was disrespectful to the tragedy still lingering in the air.
Gyuto Satomu, the man who would change everything.
He crouched next to Namin, who sat with blood on his clothes and a curse hovering inches behind him like a shadow.
"You're kind of a mess," Gyuto said casually. "But the power in that thing behind you… wow. Even I felt it from five blocks away."
Namin didn't respond.
Gyuto tilted his head. "What's your name?"
Namin whispered, "Kyotosawa. Namin."
"Well, Namin… You've got two options. Option one: the government classifies you as a Class S Threat and has you quietly erased. That means either exorcism… or something more brutal."
The cursed spirit — Claria — began to stir, reacting to the threat in his tone.
Gyuto didn't flinch. He raised a single finger. A flash of cursed energy pulsed in the air, enough to make Claria retreat a few steps.
"Option two," he continued. "You come with me. To a school. A place where people like you learn how to not get everyone killed by accident."
Namin looked up, voice barely audible. "A school…?"
"Metropolitan Curse Academy. One of the few places that won't treat you like a monster."
---
THE PROMISE
Before they left, Gyuto made him sign a scroll with his blood. Terms of transfer. Responsibility clause. Government waiver. All meaningless legal barriers to hide what the world didn't want to see:
Monsters raised from grief.
As they left the scene, Namin looked back at the place where Claria had first reappeared. Her ghost floated just behind him now, more serene in form, but still not fully human.
She whispered:
> "I'll protect you, Namin. Forever. Always. Only you."
He didn't respond.
But deep inside, a piece of him screamed.
Because he remembered clearly now.
She hadn't died because she was weak.
She had died because he had let go.